Early Morning Sports Practices Are Stealing Sleep From College Athletes, New Research Shows

A new long-term study from Ohio State University is offering some of the clearest evidence yet that early morning team practices significantly reduce both the amount and quality of sleep among college athletes. Using more than 27,000 sleep records collected over five years, researchers tracked how practice start times influenced sleep behavior in real-world conditions — and the results point to a consistent pattern: when practices start early, athletes sleep less, fall asleep slower, and wake up more during the night.

The study followed 359 varsity athletes from 15 different sports teams, including football, men’s and women’s basketball, ice hockey, swimming, and several others. Every athlete was equipped with an Oura Ring, a wearable sleep tracker that objectively measures nighttime sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and cardiovascular physiology. This gives the study a major advantage over earlier research, which often relied on self-reported sleep estimates and much smaller sample sizes.

To understand how practice timing affected sleep, researchers compared athlete sleep patterns on nights before practices in three time blocks: early morning (at or before 8 a.m.), morning (8 a.m. to noon), and afternoon (noon to 4 p.m.). The full dataset included 27,576 individual sleep records gathered between 2019 and 2024.

Across the board, the findings were clear. On nights before early morning practices, athletes slept less. Male athletes averaged about 6 hours and 20 minutes of sleep before early sessions versus 6 hours and 50 minutes before later morning practices — a reduction of roughly 30 minutes. Female athletes averaged around 7 hours of sleep before early practices compared to about 7 hours and 17 minutes before later ones — about 20 minutes less.

But the drop in sleep time wasn’t the only issue. Sleep was also less efficient, meaning athletes experienced more fragmented sleep with brief awakenings throughout the night. They also took longer to fall asleep when they knew they had an early wake-up the next day. This makes intuitive sense: anticipating a very early alarm can make the mind restless and reduce the ability to settle into sleep.

Another interesting detail from the data: athletes tended to stay up more than an hour later on nights before afternoon practices, highlighting how flexible schedules shape sleep behavior. With no need to wake up early the next morning, athletes naturally allowed their sleep patterns to drift later.

The researchers emphasize that these findings don’t rely on athlete memory or estimates — they’re based on objective data, which makes the conclusions especially strong. The consistency of the sleep reductions also highlights that this isn’t a minor fluctuation; it’s a meaningful pattern tied directly to practice timing.

Coaches, the study notes, often already suspect that early practices might negatively affect sleep. But until now, the evidence has been scattered or limited. With this research, the trade-offs become measurable: scheduling practices before 8 a.m. commonly leads to shorter and poorer-quality sleep, even among highly conditioned collegiate athletes.

The authors point out that while early practices may sometimes be necessary, it’s important for coaches to recognize the cost. Sleep is one of the most powerful, free, and reliable performance-enhancing tools available to athletes. Less sleep can affect recovery, reduce reaction time, worsen decision-making, and even increase injury risk over time. If a team is going through a demanding training phase, prioritizing extra sleep might offer greater benefits than squeezing in early sessions.

This research also aligns with broader evidence from sports science. Many studies — across professional, collegiate, and youth sports — show that even small reductions in nightly sleep can decrease physical performance, limit muscle recovery, and impair cognitive focus. Physiologically, sleep plays a key role in hormone regulation, tissue repair, and immune function. Psychologically, it influences motivation, mood, and the ability to learn and retain new skills. For athletes balancing academics, games, travel, and social demands, chronic sleep loss can add up quickly.

Wearable technology is also becoming a more important tool in understanding athlete health. Devices like the Oura Ring allow researchers to collect thousands of data points with minimal interference in daily life, making long-term studies both more feasible and more accurate. This study’s dataset — spanning half a decade — is unusually large for sleep research in athletics, giving its conclusions extra weight.

Why Sleep Matters So Much for Athletes

Sleep affects nearly every system relevant to performance:

Muscle recovery: Growth hormone release peaks during deep sleep. Less sleep means slower repair.
Reaction time: Even mild sleep restriction can slow reaction speed as much as alcohol impairment.
Injury risk: Studies show athletes who sleep less than 8 hours per night have significantly higher injury rates.
Cardiovascular function: Resting heart rate and heart-rate variability — both tracked by wearables — are directly influenced by sleep quality.
Cognitive performance: Strategy-based sports, like basketball and hockey, rely heavily on mental sharpness.

When athletes lose just 20–30 minutes of sleep — repeatedly — the effects compound over weeks or months. The OSU study helps quantify how often this occurs under typical team scheduling.

A Look at Sleep Timing and Athlete Lifestyle

College athletes live in a tightly structured environment. Their days often include:

Class schedules
Practice and conditioning sessions
Team meetings
Study halls
Travel for games
Social and personal commitments

Early practices can force athletes to wake up as early as 5–6 a.m., depending on facility location, breakfast routines, or team requirements. When sleep is cut short, they can’t always compensate by going to bed earlier — especially if academic demands run late into the evening.

By contrast, afternoon practices give athletes more flexibility. They can maintain natural sleep rhythms, avoid sleep anxiety tied to early alarms, and recover more fully before the next day’s training load.

The OSU study doesn’t suggest eliminating early practices entirely — that may be unrealistic. Instead, it highlights the importance of balancing them with recovery needs. Teams might reduce the number of early sessions per week, plan lighter workouts after very early days, or educate athletes on sleep hygiene strategies.

Beyond athletics, the findings mirror similar patterns seen in workplaces, schools, and military training environments: earlier start times consistently reduce sleep in almost all populations. Human sleep biology naturally pushes bedtime later during adolescence and young adulthood, making early starts especially disruptive for college-aged individuals.

The Bottom Line

The evidence from this large, objective, multi-year study sends a clear message: early morning practices measurably reduce both sleep duration and sleep quality for collegiate athletes. The reduction isn’t massive on a single day, but across a season or a year, it becomes a meaningful deficit. Coaches, training staff, and athletes themselves can use this information to plan smarter schedules that support performance, health, and long-term well-being.

The study also highlights a broader truth: sleep is one of the most underrated tools in sports performance, and even small improvements can make a measurable difference. Whether a team is aiming for competitive advantage or simply long-term health, prioritizing sleep is one of the simplest and most effective strategies available.

Research Paper:
The Impact of Team Practice Block Start Times on Sleep Characteristics in Collegiate Athletes
https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000005206