Research summary · Training and performance
Sleep timing was associated with the evening advantage in a cycling test
Twenty-four healthy young adults, equally split between women and men, completed morning and evening ten-minute cycling time trials. Sleep, diet and activity were standardized; questionnaires and seven-day actigraphy characterized chronotype and habitual sleep timing.
- Publication year
- 2026
- First published online
- Publication type
- Randomized crossover study with correlational analyses
- Journal
- European Journal of Applied Physiology
- Population / context
- Cycling exercise testing · Circadian timing
What the publication reports
Power and distance were higher in the evening. Later sleep midpoint and a more evening-oriented chronotype were associated with larger morning-to-evening performance differences. These associations suggest that average time-of-day effects can conceal meaningful individual variation.
Limits and interpretation
The small sample was not established as an elite athletic cohort. Chronotype associations do not prove that changing sleep timing improves performance. A September 2026 publisher correction repaired misplaced figure legends; the corrected article and notice should be read together.
Read the source
Consult the original record for the full author list, methods, references, funding and competing-interest disclosures.
Circadian phenotype is associated with diurnal variation in human exercise performance
Original publication / indexed recordPMID: 42455307DOI: 10.1007/s00421-026-06352-0Full text at the sourcePublisher correction — read with the original paperReader discussion
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