Training & Nutrition - Any benefit to staying awake when sleepy after exercise?

I understand that napping after a work-out speeds recovery, but I can't always afford the time.

Is there any benefit to be gained in terms of muscular endurance (or other dimensions of fitness) by staying awake through the period of sleepiness that follows a strenuous work-out?

No big deal if you can't nap, but if you have the time and it's a lazy Sat afternoon, embrace the nap! You just need 15 min or so for some beneficial effects.

One of the benefits of retirement. I nap after almost every ride. Not sure about training benefits, but it sure feels good. Note: I cover my legs with a blanket - seems to make a difference.

Seeing as I work out in the morning, for me the biggest benefit of skipping a nap is not getting fired. :D

More and more, if I nap during the day, especially late afternoon or early evening, I will have difficulty sleeping at night.

Drink a tall glass of water after your workout and see if you feel less sleepy. You may be feeling sleepy because you're dehydrated.

No big deal if you can't nap, but if you have the time and it's a lazy Sat afternoon, embrace the nap! You just need 15 min or so for some beneficial effects.

Yes, in fact, you should limit the nap to 15 minutes.

If your body tells you that you're sleepy, why not just sleep? This includes the part of your body that's muscles. Is this just another way of talking about sleep deprivation?

I've been napping every time I can after a strenuous workout, but sometimes I get back and I have some pending committment to attend to. So I end up dragging my sleepy butt to it, but I was kind of hoping there was some fitness pay-off for forcing myself to work through the pain (not really pain, just dragassedness).

Napping after a workout's not necessarily bad, but what causes a lot of people to be excessively tired after a strenous workout is the fact that they don't eat properly. I always have a recovery shake after a strenuous workout that consists of coconut milk, whey powder and a small amount of almond butter. When I do that, I don't have that crash. Your metabolism is still in overdrive after a strenous workout, so if you don't eat properly, your body will shut itself down to recover. But it is perfectly capable of recovering without you sleeping if you are eating properly. The trick is to stick to a set eating regimen and not to binge after a workout; hence, why I do a recovery shake. That has all I need.

Agree with the above poster completely. Napping after a workout means something is wrong - you either have low blood sugar and/ or dehydration. Fix both, and don't take a nap until the food has digested so you don't get heartburn. Proper nutrition after exercise is key to quick recovery, and I made material gains both in fitness and weight loss doing this.

Most pros take a nap BEFORE exercise - almost all NHL teams have an afternoon nap before an evening game. Well, those that are playing during the current p***ing match with the owners and union.... :-)

And most pros take a nap after exercise. You can eat perfectly, but if you ride hard there's no way you can keep up with the calories burned. You'll always be deficient. I drink a recovery drink as soon as I come in, then take a nap if I can while my blood sugar comes back up. Then I'll eat more after the nap because the demand for glycogen will have scoured out the carbs from the recovery drink. I can manage without the nap, just keep snacking every 15 minutes, but it's not as pleasant.

And most pros take a nap after exercise. You can eat perfectly, but if you ride hard there's no way you can keep up with the calories burned. You'll always be deficient. I drink a recovery drink as soon as I come in, then take a nap if I can while my blood sugar comes back up. Then I'll eat more after the nap because the demand for glycogen will have scoured out the carbs from the recovery drink. I can manage without the nap, just keep snacking every 15 minutes, but it's not as pleasant.

Honestly, most people don't burn anywhere near the calories in a given workout that they think they do. This is complicated by the fact that so many devices and Web sites, such as Garmin Connect, Strava, etc. overestimate your calorie burn when you upload your data since actual calorie burn varies from one person to another.

What you need depends on what you're doing. If it's truly a hard workout, then sure, napping plus eating will help. But if you're exercising and eating right, exercise should give you energy, not cause you to crash. In addition to riding regularly, I do strength training that consists of free weights and various other things customized for me. Even after doing that for an hour, when I eat properly, I'm not crashing afterward and honestly that's a much tougher workout than I ever get through cycling because it focuses on so many more areas of the body.

So while it's true that you need to eat to recover, in reality a lot of people eat more than they need to following a ride because they didn't eat and drink properly during the ride. Thus, they got in a deficit and when you do that, you binge.

To answer the OP's question: no there's no benefit to not napping. One might argue that it makes one tougher, but really it just makes one more irritable.