The average sleep duration of bodybuilders is h minutes. Sports and quality sleep. How many hours to sleep? How to fall asleep? What to do if you have insomnia

Progress in bodybuilding depends on three components: training, nutrition and recovery. The most important thing in the recovery process is sleep.

The athlete's nightly rest period must be at least 8 hours. During intense bodybuilding exercises, it is recommended to get 9 to 11 hours of sleep. For professional bodybuilders, the duration can reach 15 hours a day (including daytime sleep).

Consequences of an athlete's sleep disturbance

If you didn't sleep well and feel tired and exhausted in the morning, then reschedule your workout to another day when you've had a good night's sleep and feel energized. Exercising after lack of sleep will not bring you results and will negatively affect your nervous system.

The body during sleep

When we sleep, both the brain and the senses do not turn off completely, but slow down their work a little, so to speak, they go into an easier mode. On the contrary, for hormones, this is the most active period, therefore, during sleep, muscle tissue is built and protein is synthesized, cells are actively renewed and the immune system is strengthened.

Stages of sleep

The first stage is drowsiness, with the presence of distinct thoughts and images.

The second stage is shallow sleep.

The third stage is sound sleep, during which the body releases hormones into the blood and recovers.

The fourth stage is the deepest and soundest sleep; it is quite difficult to wake a person. This phase of sleep is beneficial for the nervous system and the well-coordinated functioning of the brain.

For athletes (as for all people), the third and fourth stages are important. During the daytime, it is difficult to fall into these phases of sleep due to the fact that the glands that secrete the sleep hormone, melatonin, are activated only at night.

Bodybuilders with serious sports loads are recommended to take daytime sleep, during which the nervous system partially rests, but the body rests and recovers to the maximum only during night sleep.

Causes of insomnia and their solutions

Overeating fatty foods at night

To avoid insomnia due to a large dinner, you need to make your last meal carbohydrate and finish it 2 hours before bedtime. Just before bed, you can drink a protein shake and take amino acids, which will lighten your stomach and promote nighttime anabolism.

Sleep disturbance

If you periodically go to bed at different times, you can disrupt the biorhythm of sleep and wakefulness, which will lead to insomnia. The way out of this situation is to go to bed at the same time, preferably from 22.00 to 23.00.

Physical activity before bed

Active physical activity before bed increases blood circulation and stimulates the nervous system, which leads to active wakefulness. This problem, which causes insomnia, can be solved if physical activity occurs not before bedtime, but 2.5-3 hours before it.

If the above does not help you sleep, place bets on sports online, it is unlikely to help you sleep, but you can earn money on bets. Online sports betting is a pretty good way to while away a sleepless evening.

I am sure that you really want to build muscle, so you are ready to do a lot for this. However, sometimes you need to do nothing to grow muscles. First of all, muscles should not be prevented from growing. You heard me correctly, you need to sleep more.

Now I haven't said anything new. Everyone knows that to restore muscles you need to sleep more: the more the better. If you are a slacker who does not work and does not study, then implementing this recommendation is not difficult. But what if you need to feed yourself, your children and your parents? How long is the minimum amount of sleep after which muscles begin to grow? Where is the limit of sleep, falling below which your training will only harm your growth?

But this often happens: when a person works in the gym for years and instead of filled muscles, he gets “carved bones.”

What does everyone already know about sleep?

Schwarzenegger writes in his encyclopedia that you need to sleep more and get enough sleep. The word "more" has already been said. Joe Weider writes in his textbook that each champion’s need for sleep is individual. The word “individual” is usually used when one does not know “exactly how much,” “when exactly,” and “exactly who” needs to sleep. However, Joe Weider writes clearly: 8-10 hours a day. Non-bodybuilders have said a lot about the need to sleep 8 hours a day. “Everyone knows” this and often it doesn’t work.

What determines the amount of sleep? From body weight? From muscle mass? From the amount of load during training?

In order to answer this question for myself, I conducted a study on myself and my students. Of course, I read the “British scientists” who studied mice, but I trust my eyes more. In addition, there is no way you can force a British mouse to do a bench press, and it is not kept “at work” in a nightclub until 7 in the morning. This happens to my students, and this must be taken into account.

The relationship between the amount of sleep and workload.

My research was simple. Firstly, I studied students without business trips or corporate events, whom I trusted and knew that their daily routine was measured. Passionate individuals, those who drink wine more than twice a week and those who wake up with an alarm clock were not taken into account.

Secondly, I used my proven method: to consider people’s behavior over a period of not just one day, but at least one week. collected training diaries and received data from their fitness bracelets on the amount of sleep per week. Having collected a sufficient number of reports for six months, I saw a simple pattern.

One hour of training requires two hours of additional sleep.

An inquisitive reader will ask: two hours of extra sleep for what? But here we need to remember the founder of bodybuilding, Joe Weider, and his phrase that each person’s need for sleep is individual. One hour of training requires an additional two hours of sleep to the individual requirement. All that remains is to find out your individual need, add two hours to it, train for one hour and wait for muscle growth.

Basic sleep.

As medical observations have shown, the individual need for sleep depends on age. Newborns sleep 16 hours a day. Starting at age 17, the average person sleeps 8-9 hours a day. It is at this age that people stop growing. At least he stopped growing in length at 17 years old.

However, the greatest muscle growth was achieved in the period from 13 to 16 years. Schwarzenegger writes about the same thing - he gained most of his muscle mass between the ages of 13 and 16.

Scientific fact: People aged 14 years need 10 hours of sleep per day.

Have you noticed that when the number of hours of sleep drops from ten to eight hours a day, then statistically average people stop growing in length. With muscles about that. I noticed that when the number of hours of sleep reported by my students falls below 9 hours a day, the results in training stop growing - the muscles do not have time to recover.

Many experienced athletes will object and say that they achieved muscle growth when they slept 4 hours a day. I myself had days when I slept 4 hours, but in a week I still ended up with more than 60 hours. Once, after a hard work-training period, I slept for 28 hours, getting out of bed only to go to the toilet.

Reports from my students have shown that beginners can progress from 49 hours of sleep per week. Reducing the amount of sleep below this limit stops the growth of indicators in training diaries.

What am I calling for? I’m not calling you to sleep more, I’m calling you to watch more. Until your individual data on the amount of weekly sleep, the amount of weekly training and the amount of weekly food are combined in your head, you will not understand why muscles grow.

The attentive reader has already realized that muscle growth is influenced not only by sleep, but also by food, which means food affects sleep - everything is connected.

How does food affect sleep?

Reducing caloric intake reduces hours of sleep. People with experience losing weight and following different diets know that lack of food interferes with sleep. It's all about negative balance. And a negative balance is what...

You can eat until you're full or until you're full. You can also leave the table hungry. Leaving the table hungry means having a negative balance. Have you realized that feeling hungry is a sign of a negative balance?

However, hunger can be absolute or relative. Absolute hunger is when you don't have enough of everything. Relative hunger is a lack of one thing, such as carbohydrates. People who go on a low-carbohydrate diet feel hungry, although they can easily overfeed their body with excess protein.

The body is a complex thing. In our little bodybuilder brain - I know from myself - there is a desire to build muscle. These are the muscles we think about. But! The body will have more worries than can fit in our brain. After the day, there is only night to restore not only the protein structures of the muscles, but also the reserves of carbohydrates, fats, and vitamins.

The lack of something causes the body to feel dissatisfied and anxious, which means it interferes with sleep.

Be careful!

Often young people, in pursuit of bigger muscles, begin to “stupidly eat more.” With low activity and sufficient sleep, this leads to weight gain. However, the body grows not only due to muscles, but also due to fat. Often such “athletes” add 1.5 cm to their waist per 1 cm of biceps - this is very bad!

It would seem that you need to eat proteins for muscle growth and “stupidly avoid eating sweets and fatty foods” so as not to gain fat. Such a simple solution inevitably leads to a simple answer: from a lack of fat and carbohydrates, the body cannot sleep, which means it cannot restore, let alone build, muscles. This is why bodybuilders first gain 20 kg of fat and then lose 18 kg of fat and muscle before the competition.

Even professionals can't build clean muscle and burn clean fat. But you will succeed if you can find a balance between proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, training and... sleep.

Sleep, coffee and muscle growth.

Since I am writing not only for those who are “stupidly gaining weight,” but also for educated people, and therefore very busy, I am forced to remind you about coffee and other invigorating drugs. Business people simply need to resort to stimulation of the central nervous system (CNS) to maintain brain function while earning a living. Such stimulation inevitably leads to sleep disturbances, which means it reduces the likelihood of muscle growth to zero.

He conducted his research and persuaded his students to write down all the coffee they drank during the week. The students naturally divided into two groups: those who began to exercise more from coffee, and those who directed the effect of coffee to activities that were not productive for the muscles: “stupidly sitting at the computer.” How did you understand this? To do this, it was enough to combine three reports: on training, on sleep and on coffee.

An amazing fact: those who channeled the excess effects of coffee into training slept as much as needed for muscle growth. On the contrary, those who increased their coffee intake did not increase their training hours, slept less and did not see an increase in results in their training diaries.

A cup of coffee gives you energy for 4 hours of office work or 1 hour of workout.

After drinking too much coffee, you can sit in the evening for 4 hours.

The popular saying that "sleep is for weaklings" continually undermines the importance of this basic human necessity, and specifically inhibits development in bodybuilding and other sports. Let's look at the reasons for fatigue during exercise and find out why you want to sleep after training?

How much sleep does an athlete need?

High-level athletes must always be motivated to achieve their sporting goals. To do this, you can sleep after training during the day, then your mood will be improved and you will not feel the terrible irritability that occurs due to lack of sleep. Therefore, if you are tired, if possible, try to fall asleep and regain your strength.

The Importance of Sleep in Bodybuilding

The quality of your sleep is just as important, if not more so, than the length of your sleep. There are several stages of sleep.

Stage 1 highlights the beginning of the sleep cycle, when the person is still aware of any changes in the environment.
The start of the actual sleep cycle occurs in stage 2, which lasts between 10 and 20 minutes.
The deepest stages of sleep occur around 30–40 minutes into stages 3 and 4, followed by a period of active sleep.

Stages 3 and 4 are integral to an athlete's development as they release growth hormone and regulate cortisol. This is why sleep is so important for a bodybuilder. Growth hormone is an important part of the body's endocrine system. It is necessary for muscle building, bone growth and stimulating fat oxidation. This is important to maintain a certain level of performance throughout your athletic career.

Why do you want to sleep after playing sports?

During and after physical activity, the hormone cortisol increases, which not only causes loss of strength, but also a loss of strength. Therefore, after high-intensity exercise you want to sleep. Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, is regulated in deep sleep. Cortisol levels directly affect the body's ability to metabolize glucose. Despite all the observed benefits of a full night of sleep, many athletes struggle to maintain that uninterrupted 7-9 hours due to strict scheduling of their daily routine, sleep, and training.

When you exercise, you burn calories and expend energy. Depending on the duration and intensity of your workout, you load the body, which requires recovery and rest.

What to do if there is no time to sleep after training during the day?

and after training, this will allow you to maintain energy and not get too tired after exercise, reducing cortisol levels. Be sure to eat nutritious foods both before and after your workout to fuel your body and replace lost calories, and minerals. If you plan to exercise for less than an hour, eat carbohydrates that will provide a quick burst of energy and a spike in glucose, such as a bagel or toast. If you exercise for more than an hour, choose a carbohydrate source that takes longer to digest - cereals, grains, fruits.
When you exercise, you sweat. Sweat is mostly water, and you need to replenish that water after your workout. If you don't, you risk dehydration, which can make you feel tired, drowsy, and even dizzy. Three hours before your workout, start drinking water. During these three hours, drink approximately 3 glasses of water. Drink plenty during and after exercise.
Get more sleep at night. If you don't get enough sleep, you're overtaxing your body, which can make you feel even more tired after your workout. On average, 8 hours of sleep is enough for your muscles to rest and recover.

Conclusion

If you're working out to increase muscle mass or improve muscle tone, sleeping after your workout is a great idea for your goals. Your body repairs itself and your muscles grow while you sleep. Try to fall asleep in the afternoon after training for 40-60 minutes, even 30 minutes will be enough for the muscles to relax and the body to recover.

About the importance of sleep in bodybuilding in video format

Sleep and bodybuilding concepts are inseparable. In fact, sleep is one of the key factors in bodybuilding. Over 90% of growth hormone is released at night. The 24-48 hour period (including sleep) after a hard workout is very important. It is now that repair and construction of new muscle fibers occurs.

Sleep in bodybuilding, as in all life, is the main time for amino acid metabolism, protein synthesis and hormone release. It is very important to understand the phenomenon of sleep - how hormones behave and how exercise affects them. But it's even more important to figure out what you can do to improve your sleep and speed up your recovery process. You know that weight training builds lean muscle mass, increases strength, and helps you lose excess fat. In a normal person, muscle growth occurs only when protein synthesis exceeds proteolysis, that is, its breakdown. Muscle cells must have a positive nitrogen balance in order for them to be in an anabolic state.

Weight training accelerates muscle production, but without proper nutrition and the necessary supplements, which is sports nutrition, it can push your body into a catabolic state. The presence of amino acids is a very important factor for protein synthesis. With the maximum amount of amino acids, protein synthesis is maximum. Since amino acids are used to repair and rebuild muscle fibers, during sleep it makes sense to give your body all the key amino acids just before bed to prevent muscle breakdown and spur muscle synthesis.

Therefore, slow-digesting proteins, such as milk protein isolate or casein, are very useful to take before bed. They provide a constant flow of amino acids while you sleep, which is very important for recovery processes.

The circadian rhythm also determines the intensity of hormone release in the body. As a bodybuilder, you are interested in maximizing the release of growth hormone, testosterone and IGF-1 during sleep. Resistance training has a powerful effect on when and how these hormones are released.

The first thing you should do is ensure that you get 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Why? Even the slightest lack sleep and bodybuilding can affect your body's hormonal response to exercise and increase the breakdown of muscle fibers, inhibiting their synthesis. So what makes us sleep more at night than during the day? The pineal gland in the brain releases melatonin, which then turns into the hormone serotonin, which makes us fall asleep. During daylight hours, less melatonin is released than at night.

There are four main stages of sleep, as well as a fifth, called REM sleep. The most important stages for a bodybuilder are stages three and four, called slow-wave sleep. People less in these stages usually wake up with more muscle soreness. That's why napping during the day doesn't reduce it. During the day it is difficult to enter the third and fourth stages of sleep. The hormonal response during sleep in people who exercise is different from those who lead a sedentary lifestyle.

For example, studies have shown that in exercising people, the release of growth hormone is lower in the first half of sleep and higher in the second, in contrast to inactive people, for whom the opposite is true. Typically testosterone levels are low at the beginning of sleep, even when taking sleeping pills, and increase in the morning. The same thing happens with cortisol. Again, training, sleep and bodybuilding can change this situation by keeping cortisol levels high in the first half of the night and lowering them in the second half. Therefore, it is very important to immediately suppress the secretion of cortisol by taking special nutritional supplements, such as phosphatidylserine, before bed. During the night, testosterone levels rise in exercising individuals.

Growth hormone comes into play during stages three and four of sleep, and cortisol levels rise during REM sleep. This is not very good from a muscle building point of view. Cell division (mitosis) in all fibers, including muscle fibers, increases in the morning, often coinciding with stages 3 and 4 of sleep. Growth hormone also plays a role here. As you can guess, the lack of sleep and relaxation that valerian can give has a negative impact on the functioning of the immune system. Its weakening begins to appear after just a few days of partial sleep deprivation and much sooner after a complete lack of sleep.

Natural sleeping pills

If you are experiencing sleep disturbances or want to improve your sleep quality, use the following medications.

Melatonin

It is a natural hormone of the pineal gland. Some studies show that he follows the example of others natural sleeping pills can improve REM sleep and stimulate the production of growth hormone (which is interesting for bodybuilders). Melatonin may improve sleep quality, but it causes intense dreams in some people. So be careful, a dose of 2-5 mg at bedtime is sufficient for most people.

Kava-kava

This herb, which is similar in effect to valerian, is used as a sedative and relaxant and to treat anxiety. Its active ingredients, called kavalactones, act as mild depressants on the central nervous system. Taking 100 mg of active kavalactones before bed can improve sleep quality.

Valerian

This plant, Valerian, has also been used as a relaxant and sedative for many years. Scientists believe natural sleeping pills and in particular, it is a weak tranquilizer that can speed up sleep. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner you will reach phases 3 and 4. A dose of 200-500 mg of the standardized extract (5 to 1 for valeric acid) before bed is sufficient.

L-theanine

This amino acid extract from green tea, like sleeping pills, has a powerful relaxing effect. It has been observed to stimulate alpha waves in the brain, which induce relaxation and blunt the stress response. Some studies suggest a beneficial effect of L-theanine on brain function. Dose – 250 mg at bedtime.

5-hydroxytryptophan

This tryptophan derivative can act as an antidepressant and sleep aid. Tryptophan is converted into 5-HTP in the body, which can then be converted into serotonin, a powerful brain neurotransmitter known as a relaxing hormone. 5-HTP has been used successfully by many bodybuilders to improve sleep quality. 5-HTP used in dietary supplements is obtained from the African herb Griffonia simplicifolia. Take 300 mg before bed.

Note: It is very important to consult with your doctor before you start taking sleeping pills or any of these medications, especially if you have any medical conditions. Sleep can speed up or slow down your progress in the gym. It should be enough. And don't forget about protein and phosphatidylserine capsules before bed.

Important: if you are looking for a quality drug for insomnia, you can study the delta sleep peptide DSIP, which is available for order on our website. Reviews about it from customers are extremely good.

From: Athleticpharma.com

Rehan Jalali

Sleep is one of the key factors in bodybuilding. Over 90% of growth hormone is released at night. The 24-48 hour period (including sleep) after a hard workout is very important. It is now that repair and construction of new muscle fibers occurs (1). Sleep is the main time for amino acid metabolism, protein synthesis and hormone release.

It is very important to understand the phenomenon of sleep - how hormones behave and how exercise affects them. But it's even more important to figure out what you can do to improve your sleep and speed up your recovery process.

You know that resistance training builds lean muscle mass, increases strength, and helps you lose excess fat (2). In a normal person, muscle growth occurs only when protein synthesis exceeds proteolysis, that is, its breakdown. Muscle cells must have a positive nitrogen balance in order for them to be in an anabolic state. Weight training increases protein production, but without proper nutrition and supplementation, it can push your body into a catabolic state (1).

The presence of amino acids is a very important factor for protein synthesis. With the maximum amount of amino acids, protein synthesis is maximum (3). Since amino acids are used to repair and rebuild muscle fibers, during sleep it makes sense to give your body all the key amino acids just before bed to prevent muscle breakdown and spur muscle synthesis. Therefore, slow-digesting proteins, such as milk protein isolate or casein, are very useful to take before bed. They provide a constant flow of amino acids while you sleep, which is very important for recovery processes.

The circadian rhythm also determines the rate at which hormones are released in the body (4). As a bodybuilder, you are interested in maximizing the release of growth hormone, testosterone and IGF-1 during sleep. Resistance training has a powerful effect on when and how these hormones are released.

The first thing you should do is ensure that you get 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Why? Even the slightest deficiency can affect your body's hormonal response to exercise and increase the breakdown of muscle fibers, inhibiting their synthesis (5).

So what makes us sleep more at night than during the day? The pineal gland in the brain releases melatonin, which then turns into the hormone serotonin, which makes us fall asleep. During daylight hours, less melatonin is released than at night.

The hormonal response during sleep in people who exercise is different from those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. For example, studies have shown that in exercising people, the release of growth hormone is lower in the first half of sleep and higher in the second, in contrast to inactive people, in whom the opposite is true (7). Typically, testosterone levels are low at the beginning of sleep and rise in the morning. The same thing happens with cortisol. Again, training can change this by keeping cortisol levels high during the first half of the night and lowering them during the second half. Therefore, it is very important to immediately suppress the secretion of cortisol by taking special nutritional supplements, such as phosphatidylserine, before bed.

During the night, testosterone levels rise in exercising individuals (8). Growth hormone comes into play during stages 3 and 4 sleep, and cortisol levels increase during REM sleep (9). This is not very good from a muscle building point of view. Cell division (mitosis) in all fibers, including muscle fibers, increases in the morning, often coinciding with stages 3 and 4 of sleep. Growth hormone also plays a role here.

As you can guess, lack of sleep also negatively affects the functioning of the immune system. Its weakening begins to appear after just a few days of partial sleep deprivation and much sooner after a complete lack of sleep (10).

Natural sleeping pills

If you are experiencing sleep disturbances or want to improve your sleep quality, use the following medications.

Melatonin

It is a natural hormone of the pineal gland. Some studies show that it can improve REM sleep and boost growth hormone production (which is of interest to bodybuilders) (11). Melatonin may improve sleep quality, but it causes intense dreams in some people. So be careful, a dose of 2-5 mg at bedtime is sufficient for most people.

Kava-kava

This herb is used as a sedative and relaxant and to treat anxiety. Its active ingredients, called kavalactones, act as mild depressants on the central nervous system. Taking 100 mg of active kavalactones before bed can improve sleep quality.

Valerian

This plant has also been used as a relaxant and sedative for many years. Scientists consider it a weak tranquilizer that can speed up sleep. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner you will reach phases 3 and 4. A dose of 200-500 mg of the standardized extract (5 to 1 for valeric acid) before bed is sufficient.

L-theanine

This amino acid extract from green tea has a powerful relaxing effect. It has been observed to stimulate alpha waves in the brain, which induce relaxation and blunt the stress response. Some studies suggest a beneficial effect of L-theanine on brain function. Dose: 250 mg at bedtime.