“If you wake up at 4am to do cardio after only 5 hours of sleep, you’re stepping over $100 bills to pick up nickels.”–Stan Efferding
Sleep is essential to recovery. If your body (not the “lazy” side of your brain) is telling you to sleep, sleep! Better to get eight hours of quality sleep and recovery than to push the body toward overtraining.
Now, if you are getting eight hours of sleep and your body is not recovered, look at your nutrition, stress, and other health patterns. It may also be time for a deload (a period of reduced exercise—not a time to skip you regular exercise pattern).
As we age, unless one is training specifically for endurance competition, cardio is going to begin to fall lower on the priority list. (Note: it is not off of the priority list.) Strength training and high-intensity resistance training (e.g., HIIRT) will be of greatest importance. Get your sleep and rearrange your day or week to fit these in (trimming the less necessary work, if time is a factor).
Fasted cardio, first thing in the morning, may have added benefit for burning fat, but it should not be done at the expense of muscle mass. You are, indeed, “stepping over $100 bills to pick up nickels” if you are sacrificing recovery to do cardio. It is not always a matter of training harder. Remember, physical gains are not made in the gym. Gains are made in recovery from an effective workout.
Be your best today; be better (and well-rested) tomorrow.
Carpe momento!