Research
Mixed
Sleep deprivation impairs endurance performance (time to exhaustion, distance covered) and accuracy/reaction time, but its effect on anaerobic power (peak/mean power) is inconsistent and less clear.
Be aware that sleep deprivation consistently hurts your endurance and accuracy. While its effect on pure strength or sprint power might be less consistent, you cannot rely on sleep loss to 'boost' performance. Ensure you get adequate sleep to maintain your accuracy and endurance levels.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
With respect to endurance performance, most previous research has demonstrated that sleep deprivation inhibits performance... One night of sleep loss also has shown to decrease time to exhaustion... The effect of sleep deprivation on anaerobic power is less clear, however. Mean and peak power outputs during a Wingate Test have been found to decrease significantly after 36 h of sleep deprivation... On the other hand, no differences in mean or peak power were identified with Wingate testing after complete sleep deprivation in student athletes
Why this rating
Based on multiple studies showing mixed results for anaerobic power but consistent results for endurance/accuracy.
Source
Sleep and Athletic Performance
Andrew Watson · Current Sports Medicine Reports · 2017
DOI 10.1249/jsr.0000000000000418
narrative_reviewCited 276×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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