It's hard to give a workout your best effort when you're already tired, and pushing through may leave you feeling more fatigued afterwards. Prioritise your rest and come back to your training when your sleep and energy have improved!
Look at it this way: If you're sleep deprived your body isn't performing as highly as it could be. Exercising when you're running on empty also increases your risk of injury. So if you're exhausted, the best thing you can do for your body is to get a good night of rest and get back in the gym the next day.
There's some debate as to whether lack of sleep biomechanically affects your fitness abilities, but researchers think that fitness performance decreases after sleep deprivation because working out just feels harder. Most people already know that from their own experience. Everything feels tough on no sleep.
If your sleep deprivation is not chronic and you feel that it hasn't sucked the life out of you yet, it should be fine to exercise for a maximum of 30 minutes. DON'T do high-intensity, long-duration, or even heavy weight-lifting exercises.
Rest One or Two Days Per Week. For the best performance and to reach your goals in the safest and most effective way possible, plan for one to two rest days per week. Olenick recommended spacing these out — take one rest day mid-week and the other on the weekend, or in between bigger workouts.
Making the Choice: Sleep or Exercise? If you're really sleep-deprived, meaning you've slept too few hours or slept poorly for consecutive nights, you should choose more sleep. Otherwise, exercise is the best choice. “Thirty minutes of exercise is more impactful health-wise than 30 minutes of extra sleep,” Kline says.
So if you got seven to eight hours of sleep the night before, get up and hit the gym! But if you've been clocking less than six hours most nights that week, you probably want to savor that extra hour of sleep. If you skip it, chances are you'll log a subpar workout, anyway.
Working out on only 2 hours of sleep is not ideal for your body and can have negative effects on your performance and overall health. Sleep is essential for muscle recovery, mental clarity, and overall physical health.
A new study builds on research suggesting that regular workouts might protect against longer-term health consequences.
Key Takeaways. Skipping a day of exercise won't cause weight gain, but frequently missing workouts may impact your weight management efforts and make it harder to stay motivated. Experts recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise and two days of resistance exercises per week.
“There's no hard and fast rule for how long a 'break' from exercise should be,” Ting says. “It may be as short as a few days, but it's important to realize as well that it can also be up to one to two weeks without any significant detriment or loss in previous fitness gains.”
Well, the long term benefits of keeping a regular exercise routine are huge. If you're fit and healthy you are laying the foundations for a long and healthy life, with good circulation, a healthy heart, greater flexibility of the muscles and joints and an improved quality of life.
It's okay to miss one or two workouts but the key is never to skip more than two days in a row. Why? If you don't want to lose your gym motivation, you need to keep up with your healthy routine and not skip your fitness class for more than two days.
If it's a one-time thing, and you feel up to it, I would say it's OK to exercise. But I would not push hard. If you are really having trouble getting enough rest on a regular basis, I would suggest that you should scale back your exercise program. It's not wise to burn the candle at both ends, as they say.
When you've slept enough, your gym time will pack more of a punch and you'll recover better, which will result in a fitter you. More sleep equals more muscle and less fat. Less sleep equals less muscle and more fat.
Speed, power, strength, and endurance are negatively affected. Chronic sleep issues can lead to muscle loss [3]. However, a single night of bad sleep is not a cause for concern. Most of the consequences are limited to the perception of fatigue and training desire.
Listen to your body
While the neck check might suggest it's OK to get your blood pumping, you shouldn't feel obligated to power through a workout if you're not feeling well. “The general rule of thumb is to listen to your body,” Dr. Patel says. “Taking a few days off won't impact your fitness level.”
"Maybe you're getting a little bit less sleep than would be optimal, but you're getting those benefits from the early morning workout," he says. Plus, lots of people experience a high after working out in the morning that can provide energy all day long and cancel out the mild morning grogginess.
As you rest, fibroblasts repair the microscopic tears resulting in stronger muscles and increased muscle mass. Without the right training intensity, the muscles won't be challenged adequately to see results, and without rest, the muscle repair needed to see results is inhibited.
Will all your hard work go to waste? No, the idea that missing one training day will result in losing progress, muscle, and strength is incorrect. Just like one good day of eating or working out won't lead to results, missing one day won't take them away either.
One of the 2 recovery days can be devoted to active recovery by moving with gentle activities. Try to plan one recovery day for every 2 to 3 days of training. Except after a competition or a very intense effort, it is ideal to avoid choosing 2 consecutive rest days.
In general, it is fine to work out at any time of day. That said, some researchers suggest that you should stop exercising at least 90 minutes before sleep. This time allows heart rate to slow down and body temperature to return to normal.