> Professional athletes sleep A LOT, way more than a normal person.
To elaborate on this...
Lebron James and Roger Federer have both said they sleep 12 hours a day.
Usain Bolt, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Steve Nash sleep up to 10 hours per day.
Most NBA players take naps every game day, sometimes for as long as 3 hours.
That said, not all pro athletes sleep a ton. Tiger Woods said he only sleeps 5 hours a night, for instance. But it seems pretty clear that most of them are sleeping way more than the average office drone.
I can believe that. Not to belittle Tiger Woods or anything, but golf is not a sport in the same way that basketball or triathlon is a sport.
EDIT: This was poorly worded. Golf is a sport, but I don't know that a professional golfer is an athlete any more than a professional carpenter is an athlete. A professional basketball player is an athlete however.
I've heard it said golf is probably on the high end of athletism of what might be termed skill sports like darts, billards, bowling. Lots of eye hand coordination required, some specific strength/power requirements, no aerobic fitness/reaction time requirement.
Another difference between professional athletes and normal people is the likelihood of being on drugs that improve performance.
You can do push ups every day, but it's useless.