Sleep is a superpower.

The negative effects of consistently under-sleeping are dramatic.

But what if we usually sleep well? And get a bad night every so often.

Do we skip training the next day? Or push through?

A recently published systematic and meta-analytical review looked at just that:

The effects of acute sleep loss (less than 6 hours in one night) on speed, strength, power endurance, etc.

They found:

• 📉 Acute sleep loss impacted physical performance by -7.5%‍
• 🌙 Performance got worse later in the day
  

So, what to do if you get a bad night’s sleep:

• ⏰ Train in the morning rather than the evening
• 😴 If you’re training in the arvo/evening, try get a 30 min nap in before
• 🚶 Decrease the intensity (how hard you work, weight, speed, etc) – you’ll still get recovery and neural benefits
  

Otherwise, you could feed the fatigue and risk injury.