The importance of proper sleep for maintaining fitness cannot be overstated

Sleep is extremely important for maintaining fitness and most of the top athletes say that it is an essential part of their training routine as it is necessary for peak performance.

When we think of fitness and the most elite athletes in the world, we tend to imagine them spending hours and hours shedding their blood, sweat, and tears in the gym or working on their specific skills on the field, court or track. However, an often underlooked aspect of any strong fitness regime or even a top athlete’s program is sleep.

Sleep is an essential part of every top athlete’s training program and proper sleep on a regular basis not only helps them recover faster and feel more energetic but is also necessary for peak performance.

Tennis legend Serena Williams, for example, tries to sleep eight hours of good sleep every single night while basketball superstar Lebron James aims for eight to 10 hours of sleep every single night. This is also true for various other athletes like Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton, among others.

It doesn’t come as a surprise because sleep is very important in maintaining the metabolism of the body along with the growth and repair of tissues and important muscles. Proper sleep routine also ensures that memory, reaction time, decision making abilities are all working optimally and all of those factors seep into sporting performance.

However, not only athletes, but even amateur gym-goers or people who work extremely hard in their day jobs should prioritise their sleep as it has plenty of benefits. Some of them are:

Aerobic fitness

Aerobic fitness can be improved by doing regular cardio-based exercises like running, cycling, swimming, jogging, walking, etc. An important contributor in aerobic fitness is the function of the body’s mitochondria which is the energy storage centre of a human cell.

Research has shown that poor sleep can reduce the function of mitochondria in healthy participants. If improving aerobic or cardiovascular fitness remains a goal, then one cannot miss out on a good night’s sleep.

Growth and synthesis of muscles

Not only is sleep necessary for those looking to improve their cardiovascular functions, but it is also key to those who want to add more muscle or grow their strength. Muscle growth is usually takes place by a process called ‘muscle protein synthesis’.

Lifting weights and exercising puts muscle fibres under a lot of tension and also introduces microtears in them. As a result, new proteins continue to be added to the muscular fibres, thus helping the muscles to grow. This is done by exercise and food (especially high in protein) intake and can even continue for 24 hours after a workout.

The muscle protein synthesis takes place primarily during sleep which suggests that poor sleep may make it harder for the body to build muscle.

Recovery after exercise

The body uses glucose (sugar) as a fuel for exercise. This glucose is stored as glycogen in muscles in order to meet the demands of exercise. Once this glycogen is depleted, replacing it is essential as it is a key part of the recovery process.

It can take up to 24 hours to fully replenish stores, with the correct nutrient intake. The hormone insulin can be needed for muscles to absorb glucose in order to make glycogen.

Studies have shown that insufficient sleep reduces the efficacy of insulin and impacts the body’s ability to recover glycogen stores.

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