College athletes who face early morning practices are paying a price in lost sleep, according to new research from The Ohio State University.
The study examined sleep patterns across more than 27,500 nights involving 359 varsity athletes over a five-year span, providing one of the most comprehensive looks yet at how training schedules impact rest and recovery in collegiate sports.
Tracking Sleep With Wearable Technology
Researchers used Oura Rings—wearable devices that monitor sleep metrics—to observe how different practice times influenced both the quantity and quality of athletes’ sleep.
The findings painted a clear picture: when practices began at or before 8 a.m., athletes experienced both shorter and lower-quality sleep.
Male athletes lost approximately 30 minutes of sleep the night before an early session, while female athletes slept about 20 minutes less. Beyond simply getting less total rest, these athletes also struggled to fall asleep initially and experienced more disrupted, fragmented sleep throughout the night.
Lead author Emaly Vatne, a PhD student in kinesiology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, highlighted the study’s significance in a news release: “The strength of our study is that we have objective data on a large sample of athletes showing the impact of early practices on sleep.”
Published in the November issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, these results offer concrete evidence that could help coaching staff make more informed decisions about training schedules and athlete recovery.
Putting Numbers to Intuition
Joshua Hagen, faculty director of the Human Performance Collaborative at The Ohio State University, noted that while many coaches may sense that early practices aren’t ideal for sleep, this study provides hard data. He explained in a news release: “Coaches and others may have this intuition that early practices are not optimal for sleep, but now we have the data to quantify that.”
Hagen added: “There may be times when it is necessary to schedule early practices, but coaches should understand the trade-offs.”
How the Study Worked
The research included athletes from 15 different varsity programs, spanning sports like football, basketball, ice hockey, and swimming. Researchers categorized practices into three timing windows: early morning (before 8 a.m.), mid-morning, and afternoon sessions, then compared sleep data from the nights preceding each type of practice.
The numbers revealed significant differences. Female athletes averaged seven hours of sleep before early practices, but managed seven hours and 17 minutes when practices started later in the morning. Male athletes fared worse overall, sleeping just six hours and 20 minutes before early sessions compared to six hours and 50 minutes before later ones.
Quality Matters, Not Just Quantity
The impact of early practices extended beyond simply reducing total sleep time. These sessions also diminished sleep quality itself.
Athletes experienced more frequent brief awakenings during the night and spent longer periods trying to fall asleep initially when they knew an early alarm was coming.
Vatne explained this phenomenon: “If you have an early morning wake-up coming, it’s a bit harder to fall asleep thinking about having to get up early, and you may not sleep as well expecting that alarm.”
Interestingly, the study also found that athletes went to bed more than an hour later when practices were scheduled for the afternoon—revealing another scheduling consideration for coaches balancing training time with recovery needs.
The Recovery Equation
Hagen emphasized that these findings underscore important recovery tradeoffs that athletic programs must consider.
He stated: “We have so much evidence of the importance of sleep, not just for athletes but everyone. For athletes, sleep is really one of the best performance-enhancing activities you can do. If you want to get every advantage you can, one of the things you can do is go to bed early.”
A Former Athlete’s Perspective
Vatne, who played soccer for Ohio State during her undergraduate years, brings personal experience to her research. While she recognizes that scheduling constraints sometimes make early practices unavoidable, she offered this perspective: “But sometimes the extra sleep and focus on recovery may be what your athletes need most.”
The study suggests that athletic departments may want to weigh the benefits of early training slots against the measurable costs to sleep and recovery—factors that ultimately influence performance, health, and injury risk among student athletes.