The 8 Best Mattresses to Help Athletes Recover Faster After Workouts

2. Aurora Mattress by Brooklyn Bedding

Another hybrid mattress you can get delivered to your door, the Aurora is great for people who get hot when they sleep. The Aurora’s top is covered with an Energex and TitanCool covering designed to draw heat away from your body. I never felt hot sleeping on this mattress, and the top constantly feels cool to the touch when feeling it sans sheet. The Aurora gives you a plush sinking-in experience, although the springs offer a nice amount of pushback so you don’t feel like you’re wallowing around in foam. It features five layers of comfort, including a layer of hyper-elastic foam and memory-foam—plus 1,283 8-inch pocketed coils and a high-density bottom for a stable base.

Get It: Pick up the Aurora Mattress ($1,274 with coupon code ANNIVERSARY25; was $1,699) at Brooklyn Bedding

3. Luxury 11.5” Mattress by Saatva

Offering the most traditional mattress experience at a competitive price, this mattress comes delivered (for free) as a full mattress, sparing you a sometimes-explosive vacuum-packed opening experience. It’s also a hybrid of sorts. It uses “coil-on-coil” construction, which means there’s a layer of regular steel springs on the bottom with another layer of smaller, pocketed coils on top to offer motion damping with decent bounce. The top is a typical pillow top, but it’s filled with foam and sleeps cool, thanks to the multiple layers of coils. I would rate it medium-firm to firm. 

Get It: Pick up a Luxury 11.5″ Mattress ($1,299) at Saatva Mattress

4. Wave Mattress by Casper

The vanguard of the mattress revolution, Casper is the most recognizable of the bed-in-a-box companies. The Wave is the company’s newest marvel and comes with a lot of research and development packed into the slim unit. Only 11.5 inches thick, it looks great on a platform bed with no box spring. It’s made with slices and voids in the foam at 36 precise locations to better relieve pressure at certain spots on your body. It also boasts “polymer reinforcing” to better support your hips and back. I enjoyed the feel of the Wave. It was a little too firm for my liking, but it’s a good choice for people who want a great foam mattress without the too-plush, smushy feel.

Get It: Pick up the Wave Mattress ($2,336; was $2,595) at Casper

5. Hunter Mattress by Sleepenvie

This bed-in-a-box mattress has two great advantages: It comes at a bargain price, and it’s specially designed for athletes. While the Hunter is similar to conventional foam mattresses, it comes with 7.5-inch pocketed coils for more bounce and 2 inches of cooling gel memory foam on top. More rigid foam encasements around the edges make sure you don’t sink and slide when moving near the side. Its total 14-inch height makes it feel substantial. This is on the softer side and gives you a more “foam-y” feel. Its low price—roughly half of what you’d pay for even middle-range models—is ideal for people who want to try out a next-generation mattress without committing too many dollars.

Get It: Pick up the Hunter Mattress ($460) at Sleepenvie

6. Purple Hybrid Premier by Purple

I absolutely loved the original Purple mattress that came out last year. Its unique hyper-elastic grid top gave me just the right amount of cooling, plush “sinking-in” feeling, and firmness. That single mattress now comes in three versions—all upgrades in construction, with a thicker top grid the higher you go up the feature list. I tested the most luxurious, top-of-the-line model that features a 4-inch grid (compared to 2 inches for the base model). It’s my favorite of the bunch, hitting the sweet spot for firmness and plushness. 

One caveat: Because the king-size Purple Hybrid Premier can’t be vacuum-packed, it has to be delivered as-is. That means the delivery team will have to haul the wiggly monstrosity into your house and help you set it up. Once you get it in your room, though, it’ll be worth it.

Get It: Pick up the Purple Hybrid Premier ($2,049; was $2,199) at Purple

7. Yogabed Mattress by Yogasleep

If you’re looking to get a mattress that will help you sleep, you can’t go wrong with this mattress from Yogasleep. This helps the body by distributing weight evenly, which will reduce the pressure put on pressure points. No more tossing and turning, no more waking up your partner in the middle of the night. This mattress is a nice, soft mattress that will keep you relaxed throughout the night. If you like to sleep on your stomach or your side, this is the mattress for you. 

Get It: Pick up the Yogabed Mattress ($999) at Yogasleep

8. Ashley Furniture Memory Foam Mattress at Amazon

If you’re looking for a new mattress at an affordable price that will arrive in no time at all with very little issues getting it into the house, this mattress is the one for you. At this price alone you can’t afford to pass it up. But then you take a gander at the features of this mattress, and any physical active fellas out there are gonna be interested in picking this one up. It will mold to your body without being too loose while you sleep. It’s a firm, steady mattress that will help deliver one of the most relaxing nights of sleep so you can recover from a rigorous workout. And it comes in a box, so getting it into the home is no problem at all. Just open it up and watch it expand to see a new favorite mattress unfurl itself right in front of your eyes.

Get It: Pick up the Ashley Furniture Memory Foam Mattress ($251; was $295) at Amazon

Check out the great products and gear we recommend to Men’s Journal readers