Working Out When Tired

Hey everyone! I'm a college student and with finals underway right now I am hardly getting any sleep! Last night I didn't even get one hour, but I did get in an hour nap. Anyways I have always found working out to wake me up. So I dragged myself to the gym, and yes it did kind of wake me up, but part of me feels like I shouldn't be worrying about getting to the gym right now. What do you guys think? Should I continue to get to the gym in order to keep myself going or should I just give it a rest for now. Is there any harm done working out when tired? I know everyone says to give your body time to rest, but I always took this theory as meaning your muscles need to time to recover. I'm also eating a lot more now, healthy stuff, like last night i ate a bunch of chicken breats and egg whites throughout the night, so i am making up for the extra time I'm awake....but any thoughts?

I think it all comes down to what works for you. I am also a student and I find I HAVE to workout around exam time to keep myself sane and give myself a bit of a break. But maybe you aren't like me... :) To answer your question, there is no harm to taking a week or two off to concentrate on your exams.

When we sleep our body releases the largest amount of growth hormone for the day to repair our muscles, so lack of sleep will affect your recovery, so what you are doing in the gym may produce limited results. Dont be afraid to take a week off or so, it wont hinder your progress and if anything will benefit you because you are not placing your body under undue-stress. Recent research has also shown that lack of sleep results in higher levels of cortisol secretion, which results in the breakdown of muscle.

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I love to work out and I will choose working out over some sort of "restful" activity any day of the week...but even I need to take an extra day off every once in awhile.

This morning, for example. I wasn't feeling well during my workout, so rather than push myself through a very uncomfortable workout and risk injuring myself because I was so tired I was having trouble with my usual weights and my coordination was off, I chose to stop halfway through and go home.

I think if you're so tired its affecting your ability to function, you shouldn't work out. If you're just a little tired and you'd rather work out than take a power nap, that's fine...just make sure you're giving yourself enough recovery time.

You don't want to be so tired for your exams that you blow them...some things ARE more important than going to the gym. :)

Sunny

Its not a good idea to push yourself to do something when your body is not very well prepared. If you end up injuring yourself because you're over-tired, you won't be able to workout for a long time, so ts far more economic to give yourself a break from the gym if you're very busy. A couple of weeks won't harm the progress you've made already (I was surprised that I hadn't lost any strength after a workout lapse of about 6 weeks the other day!), whereas getting injured will.

If I were you mate, I'd lay off the gym whilst you're not getting any sleep. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Yeah, you'll still get a bit of a buzz from working out, but you don't want to risk hurting yourself. Take a week or two off. If you really want to do something, go for a run to keep your body used to exercise.

I say go with your gut feeling. The day that I finished my exams I was super pumped and I went to the gym after. But the following day, I sept in and I was still dragging my feet the whole day.

Someone rep abbs for me. Please :)

[QUOTE=UmmYourFace]Hey everyone! I'm a college student and with finals underway right now I am hardly getting any sleep! Last night I didn't even get one hour, but I did get in an hour nap. Anyways I have always found working out to wake me up. So I dragged myself to the gym, and yes it did kind of wake me up, but part of me feels like I shouldn't be worrying about getting to the gym right now. What do you guys think? Should I continue to get to the gym in order to keep myself going or should I just give it a rest for now. Is there any harm done working out when tired? I know everyone says to give your body time to rest, but I always took this theory as meaning your muscles need to time to recover. I'm also eating a lot more now, healthy stuff, like last night i ate a bunch of chicken breats and egg whites throughout the night, so i am making up for the extra time I'm awake....but any thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Ah, yes, the college finals are upon us! I have my first exam in about 5 hours and as you can see, I am procrastionating by answering to this post! lol, shame. Anyway- I find that working out on the day of the exam helps me to release stress of the actual exam and stimulates my brain in remembering everything I studied. But you are more than welcome to take time off the days preceeding the exam or just take the week off if you feel it is too much. I find the w/o helps me, but everyone respons differently to stress. Sleep is always good as well- but if you are like me- you are WAY TOO WIRED ON THE CAFFIENE TO EVEN THINK ABOUT SLEEPPPPP! (Yea, that was my morning cup of energy talking in caps :))

-Good Luck!!

ya i went to the gym and did 25 minutes of really easy cardio then I was like my body doesn't want me here. Last night was my only carefree night and I came to my room and fell asleep at nine! I must have really needed that lonnngg sleep.

[QUOTE=terracotta]Someone rep abbs for me. Please :)[/QUOTE]

Gotcha covered!

I remember those days. Do you really think you are going to be any good when taking your finals if you aren't sleeping now? It gets to a point that your brain doesn't retain any of the info anyway, so why not get some good sleep? Then you can fit in a quick workout in your breaks just to destress and clear your head. Your body is eventually going to crash. And workouts are better than NO Doz which was common in my day.

totally...I HATE NOT SLEEPING. but geeze I think breaking from the gym this week kinda gave me a better idea too that maybe i was working out too much before. I feel so much better. I also think eating throughout the night has made me lose body fat! WEIRD