If you were bitten by the weight training bug, sleep might be the last thing on your mind. You’ve probably devoured all reading materials that instruct you how you can effectively tear down muscle tissues. In actuality, you search for new procedures for this kind of constructive self-torture, do not you?

Good to know

In actuality, after a workout, maybe you mentally chastise yourself thinking up ways you missed better damaging the muscle fibers. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? On the topic of supplementation you may also be one of those savants who can walk into any health food store and argue with the resident bodybuilder employee about whether arginine or leucine is best for protein synthesis.

But do you invest in the 1 recovery aid that doesn’t cost you a dime? Supplementing your weight training with more sleep could be one of the most underrated of strategies you can use to assist you recover from those Central Nervous System (CNS) thrashing workouts that you insist on constantly doing. If you could invent a supplement in pill form that could improve exercise performance, fix and dissipate the effects of stress and fatigue, and enhance the immune system you’d make a million bucks overnight.

Take note

How about getting a few more winks of sleep? As we get older, we tend to sleep less possibly because the pineal gland in our brain produces less melatonin. The lack of sleep among seniors is seen among the contributing factors to muscle wasting (sarcopenia). Additionally it is a fact that the adrenal gland produces less growth hormone as we age. Growth hormone is produced greatly if we sleep. Is that a chick or egg thing? Is it inevitable that we must accept hormonal declines as we go along or maybe we simply have to make ourselves get loads of sleep? If you are twenty-something, the fact is you might have more in common with an octogenarian than you think if you’re missing plenty of sleep.

You’ll lose your competitive advantage and might even drop muscle mass. A financial creditor really isn’t the only one you can be in debt to; you may also be in debt to your body by owing it lots of sleep. This is called”sleep debt” and it isn’t only a matter of catching up with a couple more hours on weekends. Sleep debt does not go away. It accumulates over time and must be made up for. And just because it takes time to collect, in addition, it takes some time to pay it off.

Take into account

Getting an extra hour or two a night will slowly help this. Everyone sleeps in 90 minute cycles.

• Simply speaking, you have 65 minutes of regular sleep. This is also called deep sleep, non-REM (no rapid eye movement) or slow-wave sleep (SWS). There’s a really heavy parasympathetic nervous system (recovery ) element to this point of sleep. There’s typically no dreaming during this phase.
• In the next stage you’ve got 20 minutes of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is when you dream. Also, the muscles appear to be paralyzed in REM sleep.
• In the previous stage or third phase, there’s again 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. It’s been studied that growth hormone is secreted during the initial (heavy parasympathetic) phase during deep sleep. There’s reciprocal connection here; not only does more profound sleep create higher levels of growth hormone but more growth hormone tends to cause deeper and longer phases of deep sleep.

Let’s understand it

There’s something called a”multiple sleep latency test” (MSLT). This basically indicates that the sleepier you are (that is, the more you want sleep), the quicker you will fall asleep. Subjects that are deprived of sleep over a time period reveal growing signs of fatigue daily. The more nights they proceed with no quality sleep, the more exhausted they get. They get stressed and less attentive. This illness can be gradually improved by placing someone under a regimen of 8 or more hours of sleep per night.

The more fatigue that you have, the longer it will take to recover from a workout. In recovery there’s something known as dual factor theory. This says that there are two elements present after a challenging workout. Ones fitness level is raised as well as one’s fatigue level. The fatigue element may also be affected by psychological stresses and too little sleep. Too little sleep may cause a state of fatigue that may significantly slow down your progress.

Overdosing on glutamine?

Many bodybuilders ingest substantial quantities of glutamine so as to enhance recovery. While there’s some evidence to indicate that massive quantities increase the immune system following bodily injury like surgery or for burn patients, there’s little evidence to demonstrate that the regular weight trainer receives any higher benefit. Wounds heal faster with greater sleep. Tests performed with rats show that sleep deprivation decreases the white blood cell count. Longer sleep times result in higher white blood cell counts and consequently a greater immune function. You may not need to throw the glutamine right off but try sleeping longer.

Remember

The impacts of plenty of deep healthier sleep together with adequate hydration and food could be sufficient for recovery.

• It’s best not to exercise less than 3 hours prior to bedtime. If you do, your heart rate during the first few hours of sleep will be greater than if you did not. Also, the harder you exercise the more non-REM or heavy sleep you will need.
• Drink a glass of warm milk or tea before bedtime.
• Make the room as dark as possible or else wear one of these sleep masks which covers your eyes.
• Don’t eat just before bedtime. DO NOT take sleeping pills.
• If counting sheep does not work, you might choose to use a transistor radio. Set it in low volume and attach to your ears with earbuds. This “white noise” will drone on and on so that you will drift off to sleep.
• For those who get a busy schedule the following day, write down a to-do list before going to bed. This may provide you some psychological reassurance rather than lying in bed worrying and planning. There aren’t really that many studies about the relationship between normal sleepers and workout. Perhaps this is because research requires money and is an activity not usually engaged in unless there’s some eventual consequence of financial increase; there is very little profit is merely telling somebody to get more sleep.

Final note

Researchers are far more concerned about the consequences of sleep disorders like sleep apnea on exercise but everybody agrees that a complete night’s sleep is great stuff. If you have persistent sleep difficulties, don’t hesitate to seek advice from a knowledgeable healthcare professional.