Littlehales specialises in helping athletes make sleep a bigger part of their training and recovery, and his work includes advising on sleeping routines, naps, bedroom environments, mattresses, lighting and managing rest around demanding schedules.
Working with several top clubs including Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Chelsea and the England national side, Littlehales is the man to go to for sleep expertise.
Ronaldo cannot be compared to any other athlete
Having helped the likes of David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Sergio Aguero, Paul Scholes and so many more huge names, Littlehales spoke exclusively to Tribal Football via Ozoon about Ronaldo, who is a cut above the rest.
Tribal: Was Ronaldo already meticulous about his sleep before you worked with him or were there things you encouraged him to change?
Littlehales: "Ronaldo was an athlete beyond compare. He consistently invested time and money into recovery methods that other players ignored. As social media grew, he started speaking openly about his sleep habits, sleeping in 90-minute cycles, taking five cycles a day, and posting about it online.
"Naturally, people assumed he got that from me, and you'd wake up to articles dubbing me Cristiano Ronaldo's sleep coach. He’s never disputed it or had his lawyers call to stop the association. I imagine if we met today, he’d acknowledge that he took those early lessons, applied them, and used them to fuel a remarkably positive career."
Is there anything about Ronaldo’s sleep or recovery routine that surprised you?
"While I assume Ronaldo has taken full advantage of certain interventions, he is also smart enough to weigh their true impact. He might look at a new tracker or trend and ask, 'Is this going to create another problem or anxiety for me? I'd rather sort it out another way.' He has the intelligence to look at an intervention and say, 'I don't care what the trend says; if I don't trust it, I'm not using it'."
Modern players cannot hide from criticism
From physical speed and stamina to decision-making, recovery and injury risk, poor sleep can seriously damage an athlete's performance levels. Littlehales reveals how every detail counts in the modern game as Ronaldo continues to break records at 41 years old.
How can poor sleep affect a top player like Ronaldo? Could it really drag his performances down?
"Just like Cristiano Ronaldo wouldn't eat heavy foods before a match because he wants to control every little factor going into his body, sleep optimisation is all about controlling variables too for better performance. It helps with anger management, decision-making, alertness, awareness, and how you physically feel on the pitch, especially now that every player has a camera pointed at them at all times.
"Things have shifted quite a lot in football because there is so much more tracking and data collected now. We've got that little thing called VAR, everyone has cameras, and there is an unbelievable amount of intrusion around players, staff, and managers.
"There is nowhere to hide; there is nowhere to go, and you can't control it. You just have to accept it and realise that, most of the time, people don't want to pat you on the back, they want to criticise and analyse everything you do from one game to the next."
Was there anything that separated Ronaldo from other elite footballers you have worked with in terms of his attitude towards sleep and his attitude towards his health?
"When Cristiano Ronaldo joined Manchester United, he saw how Ryan Giggs applied himself. Ronaldo quickly adopted a mindset of absorbing everything the coaches and experts suggested, and he actively sought out new ways to improve.
"By the time I went to Real Madrid in 2013, Ronaldo was already there. My path to Madrid started at Chelsea, working with Carlo Ancelotti, Paul Clement, head of performance Jack Naylor, and my great friend, the late nutritionist Nick Broad.
"When Ancelotti moved to PSG and eventually Real Madrid, he took Naylor with him. I was invited out to Madrid's training facilities at Valdebebas. Back then, they were ahead of the curve, featuring 80 fingerprint-only access to personal bedrooms for the players. We audited all their rooms, processes, and routines. I primarily worked with the staff, who would translate and pass the information on to the superstar players.
"During those sessions, Ronaldo would deliberately train just a couple of meters away, always present and listening because he recognised me from his Manchester United days.
"Interestingly, a few days into my visit, Gareth Bale joined Real Madrid for £80M. The moment he walked through the door, he requested to spend time with me, and we sat down with the team doctor to go over it all. New club, new country, new culture and a sleep recovery strategy."
Sleeping tablets have become a problem
Sleeping tablets can help someone fall asleep, but for athletes, the problem is that being unconscious for several hours isn't necessarily the same as getting good-quality, restorative sleep.
Littlehales spoke openly about how young players are hurting their recovery with sleeping tablets, a habit which may destroy their career.
Of all the footballers you have worked with, what have been the worst habits players consistently have in common?
"You'd think the new generation of players coming through, who have the potential to play into their late thirties or forties, would follow healthier habits. But they live in a very different world compared to Ryan Giggs in the 90s or Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the 2010s.
"While coaches and managers can collect more data than ever before, they actually have far less control over the players. Up until around 2012 to 2016, there was no unregulated access to sleeping tablets. You just couldn't get hold of them easily. Now, because of online access, the door is wide open, and it's incredibly difficult to stop.
"Whenever athletes or organisations contacted me, it was always to improve performance, health, wellbeing, and alertness. What eventually shifted was that clubs started asking me to come in simply to stop players from doing these counterproductive things. I try to make them understand that while a pill might make them feel good in the moment, they won't make it past 25 playing at the top level. When a player says, 'It doesn't seem to harm me, it's just a sleeping tablet,' I tell them to carry on, but I'll see them playing in League Two in twelve months' time."