How Much Does Sleep Deprivation Impair Endurance Performance? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

HIGHLIGHTS
Sleep deprivation causes a moderate deleterious effect on endurance performance.Sleep deprivation similarly impairs endurance performance in untrained, recreationally-trained, and trained people, but its effect on well-trained and professional endurance athletes is unknown.One or more nights of partial sleep deprivation or one night of total sleep deprivation similarly compromise endurance performance. Uncertainties about the effect of more than one night of total sleep deprivation warrant more studies.Sleep deprivation impairs walking, running, and cycling endurance performance regardless of the exercise endpoint being unknown (i.e., incremental or constant load tests) or known (i.e., time trial tests) and assessment time. However, sleep deprivation causes a more deleterious effect on endurance performance in exercises lasting more than 30 min.