Training During Ramadan: How to Maintain Strength, Muscle and Performance While Fasting
For seven years I worked in the Middle East — primarily in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — coaching elite athletes, senior military personnel, members of the Bahraini royal family, and private clients including individuals from the Al Rajhi family through multiple Ramadan cycles.
That experience matters.
Ramadan training theory is easy to write about. Delivering performance outcomes in environments where expectations are high, schedules are demanding, and religious observance is non-negotiable is different. In those contexts, you do not have the luxury of “taking the month off.” You periodise intelligently, or you fail.
Here is the professional framework I used — and continue to use.
Training During Ramadan: A Performance Framework
Ramadan alters three key performance variables: hydration, glycogen availability and sleep architecture. It does not eliminate strength. It does not automatically cause muscle loss. What it does is compress recovery bandwidth.
When bandwidth narrows, precision becomes essential.
The Objective: Maintain Structural Capacity
Ramadan is not typically a hypertrophy phase. Nor is it a peaking block. It is a structured maintenance mesocycle within an annual plan.
The goal is to:
Maintain neuromuscular output
Preserve lean tissue
Protect connective tissue integrity
Exit the month ready to progress
Chasing personal bests in a dehydrated state is ego-driven. Maintaining force production with reduced fatigue cost is professional.
Timing: The Most Important Decision
Across Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the most successful model for high performers was simple:
Train either immediately before Iftar or 60–120 minutes after.
Late afternoon sessions (45–60 minutes before sunset) work well for controlled strength sessions. The athlete finishes, rehydrates, and replenishes immediately. Volume must be conservative.
Post-Iftar sessions allow heavier loading and better output because hydration and blood glucose are restored. These sessions require discipline around meal structure and sleep hygiene, but they preserve performance more effectively.
Early morning pre-Suhoor sessions are viable but rarely optimal for general population clients due to sleep compromise.
The principle is straightforward:
If hydration is compromised, reduce metabolic demand.
If hydration is restored, performance tolerance improves.
Programming Adjustments: Reduce Fatigue, Not Stimulus
The most common error I observed was maintaining normal training volume. That is unsustainable.
During Ramadan, I reduce overall volume by approximately 20–40% while keeping intensity moderately high. Mechanical tension remains. Junk fatigue disappears.
Compound patterns dominate:
Squat variations
Hinges
Pressing patterns
Pulling strength
Accessory work becomes selective and purposeful. Metabolic circuits are removed unless required for sport specificity and placed post-Iftar.
The intent is neural preservation, not exhaustion.
Hydration: The True Limiting Variable
Performance degradation during Ramadan is driven more by dehydration than caloric restriction.
Between sunset and dawn, structured hydration is essential. Fluid intake must be intentional, not reactive. Sodium and electrolytes matter. Urine colour is a practical monitoring tool.
If hydration strategy is poor, no programming model will compensate.
Nutrition Strategy: Protect Lean Tissue
Protein intake remains non-negotiable. Across elite and private clients, I maintained protein between 1.6–2.2g/kg bodyweight daily.
Suhoor prioritises slower-digesting carbohydrates, protein and adequate fluids.
Iftar begins gently — hydration first — before progressing to larger meals.
When protein and tension are maintained, muscle mass is preserved.
Ramadan does not override physiology. It simply narrows the margin for error.
Sleep: The Silent Risk Factor
Ramadan shifts circadian rhythm. Late meals, social gatherings and early rising fragment sleep.
In high-performing environments — particularly within the Bahraini Royal Family and Saudi private family structures — the biggest performance drops occurred when sleep became chaotic.
Structured sleep blocks, reduced evening screen exposure and intelligent caffeine management were more impactful than minor programming tweaks.
Who Must Be Conservative?
Older adults
Athletes in active injury rehabilitation
Individuals already in caloric deficit
Highly stressed professionals
For these populations, Ramadan becomes a deload-focused maintenance phase. Connective tissue recovery and nervous system preservation take priority over output.
The Professional Reality
Across the Middle East, I saw two responses to Ramadan:
One group reduced training, blamed fasting and regressed.
The other adjusted intelligently and maintained their standard.
The difference was not discipline in faith. It was discipline in structure.
Ramadan rewards those who understand load management, hydration physiology and fatigue control. It punishes those who chase intensity without context.
Final Position
Ramadan is not a setback. It is a defined environmental constraint within the annual training cycle.
If volume is reduced, intensity preserved, hydration structured and sleep protected, strength remains. Muscle remains. Performance capacity remains.
The question is not whether you can train during Ramadan.
The question is whether you will approach it casually — or professionally.
