Can Sleep Deprivation be Trained?
The glorification of riding in a sleep deprived state and seeing this as a prerequisite to achieve results in ultra-distance cycling events is a damaging and dangerous notion. I am however thankful to note that we appear to be waking up to this.
In 2025, recent performances by leading athletes such as Victor Bosoni at The Transcontinental Race and Robin Gemperle at Tour Divide & Silk Road Mountain Race have shown us that establishing adequate and sustainable sleep patterns can more than pay off through the ability to ride strongly and efficiently during waking hours.
Still, in some quarters the poisonous ‘sleeping is cheating’ myth pursues and shows the sport in a negative light, especially to onlookers. These stories rarely, if ever, come from those who successfully attain their personal goals, as was highlighted in a recent article published in French newspaper L’Equipe titled :
« Je roulais en zombie. Je ne savais même pas que j'avais franchi la ligne d'arrivée » : la lutte infernale des cyclistes ultra distance contre le sommeil. (‘I was riding in zombie mode. I didn’t even know that I had crossed the finish line’: the hellish battle of ultra-distance cyclists against sleep).
If you are completing your event in ‘zombie mode’, something has gone wrong along the way. This is not normal, and shouldn’t be viewed as such.
The Consequences of Sleep Deprivation
To start with, let us address the consequences of sleep deprivation. In any person, poor quantity and quality of sleep will lead to numerous negative effects. In the short term these include:
Inhibited physical ability
Decreased accuracy
Quicker exhaustion
Decreased reaction time and ability to think clearly
Likelihood to make poor decisions and take risks through the impact on executive functions
Risk of injury
Risk for illness or immunosuppression
Increased irritability and risk for anxiety & depression.
Equally concerning are the potential longer term consequences if sleep deprivation is habitual: obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
In the context of an ultra-distance cycling event, these effects are only going to slow a person down - be that due to impaired physical performance and/or poor decisions and actions which will lead to being less efficient through increased idle time. Saugy et al. (2013) propose that this reduced athletic performance through increased sleepiness levels is explained by the body exhibiting a ‘protective’ effect on athlete’s pacing through reducing cardiac and neuromuscular functions. Simply put, when sleep deprived we will move slower.
Sleep Deprivation Training?
So how do we go about dealing with the risks of sleep deprivation during ultra-distance cycling events and can we train our ability to perform in a sleep deprived state?
To succinctly answer the second part of this question - no, there is no evidence that we can adjust to performing better on less sleep through training or habituation. Sleep deprivation cannot be trained like you train a muscle to be stronger by lifting heavier weights.
The sole study that I could identify which even came close to proposing sleep deprivation training is one by Gattonie et al. in 2022 where the authors put a single subject through a 6 week ‘sleep deprivation training’ protocol including one night of sleep deprivation each week in addition to regular physical training before taking part in a 6 day ultra-endurance running race. Their results were far from conclusive, being based on subjective assessments and the purported benefits being undiscernible from the benefits of the physical training. Not to mention the caveats associated with this being a single case study and far from the scientific rigours of a randomised control trial. The study was also strongly rebutted by a group of researchers who have extensive experience in this field, including Grégoire Millet. Their conclusion is decisive:
‘...because it is ineffective and dangerous, we strongly discourage athletes from practicing SD (sleep deprivation) training. Instead we recommend decreasing sleep propensity and sustaining stability of waking neurobehavioral functions prior to a multiday running race involving sleep loss’.
The ‘Sleepless Elite’
Hold on, I hear you say, what about Maggie Thatcher, Salvador Dali and the like who claimed to get by on very few hours of sleep per night? Well, maybe they were over-exaggerating and many of these stories are myths. If they are indeed getting less than the recommended 7-9 hours per night, they are likely sleep deprived and exposing themselves to the aforementioned risks. Again, a manifestation of this unhealthy glorification of sleeping less.
There is however some limited evidence that a ‘sleepless elite’ exists who routinely get less than 6 hours of sleep each night and still function well. A gene mutation (hDEC2-P385R) was found to be associated with a human short sleep phenotype by He et al (2009) and replicated on mice, which the authors said ‘provides an opportunity to probe the effect of sleep on human physical and mental health’. Still, if on reading this you think that you must have this gene mutation, the vast likelihood is that this is not the case as it has only been identified in 1% to 3% of the population. So if you are getting less than 6 hours of sleep each night habitually, you are more likely to be sleep deprived than thriving.
Putting aside Maggie Thatcher et al., let’s return to the context of ultra-distance cycling as I don’t recall her demonstrating much prowess in this field.
There can be no beating about the bush - when aiming for performance in an ultra-distance event, shooting for the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night isn’t likely to be the optimal strategy. Those extra hours of shut eye just cannot be compensated for through moving faster when on the bike. This applies across all durations and distances, albeit with different strategical implications according to the context. We can therefore expect most athletes to be dealing with an element of short-term sleep deprivation during events, which implies risk.
Potential Strategies
Whilst we have established that we can't train ourselves to need less sleep, there are some strategies to minimise the risks associated with short-term sleep deprivation. It has been proposed that we can familiarise ourselves with our mental and emotional responses to being tired. This would entail practicing overnight riding to become familiar with the physical and mental sensations of sleep deprivation. This experience can help to manage expectations and potentially make better decisions during an event. I would however caveat that true evidence supporting these techniques, which are essentially psychological coping mechanisms rather than true physiological adaptations, is lacking. They should therefore be employed cautiously, in a safe and controlled environment.
A strategy for counteracting some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation for which there is substantial evidence is ‘sleep banking’ in the week or two before an ultra-distance event.
In a 2018 article, Martin et al. examined the sleep habits and strategies of runners competing in the UTMB. They found sleep extension in the days and nights prior to the event to be the most common strategy that runners used to prepare for the sleep deprivation they would encounter. Notably, those runners who engaged in pre-race sleep extension finished the race faster than those who did not. Martin et al. speculate that ‘the longer the exercise, the greater the benefits that can be derived from sleep banking.’ So those who compete in events that span multiple nights stand to gain the most from pre-race sleep extension strategies.
Another study by Rupp et al. (2009) on banking sleep randomly assigned participants to an extended (10 hours per night) or habitual (~7 hours) sleep group for one week, followed by 7 days of sleep restriction (3 hours) and then a 5 day recovery phase of habitual sleep for all. Performance and alertness tests were then administered for each phase of the study. They found that psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) lapses were more frequent in the habitual group and modified maintenance of wakefulness (MWT - a measure of the ability to stay awake under nonstimulating conditions) was shorter in the habitual group than in the extended group across the sleep restriction phase. Additionally, during the recovery phase, PVT speed rebounded faster in the extended group, suggesting that recovery is also quicker for those who had extended their sleep prior to the restriction phase.
From a practical standpoint, the present findings suggest that the banking of sleep prior to short-term sleep deprivation may help sustain performance and alertness in an ultra-distance event. It is still important to remember that performance will be compromised when in a sleep deprived state, however much sleep you have ‘banked’ in advance. These strategies are rather about managing the risks and attenuating the performance drop-offs.
Conclusion
In conclusion, sleep deprivation is not something to be glorified. Its effects can be significant and dangerous both in the short-term or through chronic exposure. A distinction must be made between one's ability to train their body to function optimally on less sleep, for which there is no evidence, and the employment of strategies to cope with its negative effects and mitigate the impact. A narrative review of sleep deprivation in ultra-endurance cycling by Smith et al (2023) sums up the stakes nicely:
‘Whilst general scientific research has substantiated the psychiatric consequences and cognitive effects, there is limited recognition about how sleep deprivation and intermittent or acutely short periods of sleep could affect an ultra-endurance rider’s mental health…
...As event popularity grows, we believe it is essential that ultra-endurance riders prioritise their mental health over their finishing time and engage in open discussions about healthy sleeping habits in-competition.’
References
He et al (2009): Ying He et al., The Transcriptional Repressor DEC2 Regulates Sleep Length in Mammals.Science 325,866-870(2009).DOI:10.1126/science.1174443
Gattonie et al. (2022): Gattoni C, Girardi M, O'Neill BV, Maria Marcora S. Sleep Deprivation Training to Reduce the Negative Effects of Sleep Loss on Endurance Performance: A Single Case Study. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2022 Mar 1;17(3):499-503. doi: 10.1123/ijspp.2021-0230. Epub 2021 Dec 15. PMID: 34911035.
Martin et al.(2018): Sleep habits and strategies of ultramarathon runners. Tristan Martin, Pierrick J. Arnal, Martin D. Hoffman, Guillaume Y. Millet. Published: May 9, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194705
Rupp et al. (2009): Rupp TL, Wesensten NJ, Bliese PD, Balkin TJ. Banking sleep: realization of benefits during subsequent sleep restriction and recovery. Sleep. 2009 Mar;32(3):311-21. doi: 10.1093/sleep/32.3.311. PMID: 19294951; PMCID: PMC2647785.
Saugy et al. (2013): Saugy J, Place N, Millet GY, Degache F, Schena F, et al. (2013) Alterations of Neuromuscular Function after the World's Most Challenging Mountain Ultra-Marathon. PLOS ONE 8(6): e65596. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065596
Smith et al (2023): Smith, A., Buadze, A., Colangelo, J., & Liebrenz, M. (2023). A narrative review of sleep deprivation in ultra-endurance cycling: Improving mental health awareness and regulatory emphasis.Sports Psychiatry: Journal of Sports and Exercise Psychiatry, 2(1), 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1024/2674-0052/a000032