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The American Council on Exercise recommends working out between 4 and 6 p.m., when your body temperature is highest, making your workouts more productive. But that’s not an ironclad rule, says fitness director Lou Schuler. “It’s much more important to exercise consistently than to focus on a particular time of day,” he says. “Some guys can’t get motivated in the morning, and others are too burned out after work. So pick a time that’s right for you and stick with it.”

What a night. The woman of your dreams appeared.

Your pulse raced. Heavy breathing ensued. You popped five long-lasting erections.

You do remember it, right?

Oh, wait, you were asleep. And that’s not all you missed. Under cover of night, sleep floods your veins with age-defying human growth hormone. Sleep raises an army of T cells and sends them into battle against colds and infection. Sleep resets the appetite controls that tell you to not hit the turn signal when you pass a McDonald’s.

And, of course, sleep helps you above the neck as well as below the belt. “It stabilizes your waking brain, makes you more alert, and allows you to process information faster,” says David Dinges, Ph. D., who studies shut-eye at the University of Pennsylvania. “It helps you remember things and consolidate those memories.” You won’t get that from a Red Bull.

So then why are we engaged in a society-wide experiment in sleep deprivation? Average nightly sleep time during the workweek in the United States is down nearly 20 minutes in the last decade, to 6 hours and 40 minutes. And men ages 30 to 44 are the worst offenders: Thirty percent of them say they log less than 6 hours of sleep at night, according to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The price you pay for this sleep deficit is more than just lost productivity—your health can suffer too. So wake up! It’s time to shed some light on this dark territory.

Do standing and seated calf raises. You’ll get better results. “Your calves are made up of two different muscles, so you have to do the straight-leg and the bent-leg versions of the exercise to hit them both,” says Tony.

Count your repetitions backward. When you near the end of the set, you’ll think about how many you have left instead of how many you’ve done.

When doing lat pulldowns, don’t wrap your thumb around the bar. Instead, place it on top, alongside your index finger. This decreases the involvement of your arm muscles, so you’ll work your back harder. Works for pullups, too.