Sleep – The most important training Variable you aren’t focusing on
As we touched on in the introductory article to recovery, sleep is up there alongside nutrition as at least as important as – if not even more important than – the actual training itself. It is without doubt the most underrated training and recovery-related variable.
“When people think about building muscle, the two things they always consider are training and nutrition. But sleep quality and quantity are equally pivotal.”
Charles Poliquin
You will notice we quote Charles quite a bit in this article. And it isn’t because he was the only source of good quotes on this issue – we could have taken the work and words of any one of hundreds of actual sleep experts to emphasise points. Rather we have quoted him because he ISNT a sleep expert – he is one of the most well-known and successful strength coaches in the world. In other words, we are highlighting just how important sleep is to your physical performance. We all know it is important for our health, but underestimate its effect on the training response. So by quoting a guy who has coached gold medalists in more than 20 different Olympic sports, hopefully it sinks in that this isn’t a bit of ‘fluff about holistic health bullshit’ but rather a key pillar in your result from training and your own physical improvement and performance.
Like with most things training and performance-related, the basic ‘non-sexy’ and common sense things will provide for the overwhelming majority of the benefit. Just as coaches at all levels talk about their teams aiming at doing the basics extremely well providing the most benefit, or ‘if you aren’t getting the basics and fundamentals right, the rest is irrelevant’, with both training and then especially recovery, the same applies. From a recovery point of view, the 2 primary pillars are nutrition and sleep. Things like ice baths, and cryotherapy and regular massage, and most overdone of all – supplements – will not have anywhere near the same level of positive benefit as these key pillars will when done well. Additionally, if eating and sleep and hydration are no good, you are wasting your time on any of the other things anyway.
Oklahoma City Thunder Applied Sports Scientist Mark Simpson said it well in High Performance Training for Sports when he said;
“We’ve found that the more complicated the strategy is, the less well performed it is. As such, we favour a program that involves few modalities and requiring limited staff input and technology: sleep, nutrition, cold water immersion and contrast therapy.”
“My experience, consistent with the overwhelming evidence, is that sleep and nutrition are the 2 most critical elements of the recovery process. Therefore, much of our energy is directed towards these 2 areas.”
So why is sleep so beneficial?
Yeh we know you ‘need a good night sleep to ensure peak brain function and concentration levels, and blah blah blah…….’ but we aren’t going to rehash this sort of information. We are only interested in covering the key benefits added to the training and physical performance equation. Of course there is a mental component to training too – we will link that in.
Why do you think professional bodybuilders sleep so much? – when they aren’t training or eating, they are sleeping.
What should sleep look like?
Firstly, we as humans evolved to survive and flourish in the natural environment over the last 2 million years (this looking at things from a historical/evolutionary perspective – or at least touching on it – will be a common theme in many of the recovery based topics – food especially.) Our genes have adapted a little I that time, however gene adaption is very slow, and are very much the same as they were 10,000 years ago.
The earliest evidence of our ancestors making fires dates to around 1.6 million years ago, and it is fair to say that our ancestors rose at sunrise, and went to sleep at sundown. But today, we are bombarded by light sources of all types as well as distractions, and at all hours. We are touching on this because we have a natural circadian rhythm in which our hormonal release and response follows the natural rise and fall of the sun – or at least it evolved too, and still should if it is functioning as it is supposed to.
The following 2 images are taken from the CHEK Institute, more specifically the work of Paul Chek in his book How to Eat Move & be Healthy, and highlight the difference between a healthy response and circadian rhythm, and a disrupted one. Stay with me here, as the relevance of this discussion will begin to become more clear now, given that the hormones that are mentioned will be familiar from earlier discussions.
So as mentioned, during the 24 hour cycle, there are a number of natural hormonal changes that will occur within the body – irrespective of other factors (training, eating, etc.) In the diagram above, the black line that you see traveling across is cortisol levels, and the white line that you see are growth hormone levels. At sunrise, light receptors on our skin are stimulated, our eyes are stimulated, and in turn the central nervous system is stimulated to wake up or rise. Combined with this, the release of cortisol (which remember is a stress hormone) is also stimulated, in order to make us more alert. As you can see in the diagram above, cortisol levels rise dramatically throughout the morning, peaking at around 8.30, before dropping quite dramatically again by midday, and then tapering off throughout the afternoon. And as you can see, by sundown, cortisol levels will have plummeted to their lowest levels.
Now referring to the white line, which represents the secretion of various growth hormones. The body begins to release melatonin (which is inhibited by light by the way), a growth hormone which also signals the release of other growth hormones including testosterone and human growth hormone. As you may remember from a previous discussion, growth hormones are essential for muscle repair and optimal function (but the muscular-skeletal system is only one area – these growth hormones are needed for repair of cells in all systems.)
As you can also se, growth hormone levels peak between 10pm and 2am – which is when the physical repair of the body is taking place. Mental repair or psychological repair is taking place after – between 2am and 6am. Of course, this is all provided that things are functioning as they should, and we are sleeping well, and getting to bed at these hours (if you are up at 1am watching television, there is certainly no physical repair going on – and if that is a regular occurrence – that is A LOT of growth hormone you are missing out on.) So lets take a look at what this disrupted 24 hour cycle looks like.
You wake up and cortisol levels rise as normal. But due to the many stressors of modern day life (caffeine, sugar/poor diet, traffic, financial stress, work politics, study, other peoples bullshit, etc) these cortisol levels stay elevated a lot longer. It needs to be stated here that several of these things are largely unavoidable – study/work/financial stress are hardly things you can just ‘turn off’ or ‘make better’ with the click of your fingers or a change in routine. They will always be there to varying extents. But what this highlights is how important the other areas that you can exhibit control over are – which during the day is largely dietary related. However, later in the day into the evening, your habits and how you approach the evening and sleep can have a big impact on your sleep quality, and having a positive result, despite the modern daytime stressors.
For many people – as indicated by the black line in the diagram above, the cortisol levels remain elevated well into the evening. This is due to things like the use of artificial light well into the evening, watching television until late – further stimulating the nervous system, being late to bed, as well as drinking caffeine too late in the day – all combining to mean that their physical repair time and psychological repair times in the evening are chewed into. So from a training point of view, that is A LOT of growth hormone you are missing out on – especially if this is what most nights look like. If we don’t get enough physical repair time overnight, over time our bodies will start to break down. This can take the form of;
- Lethargy
- Increased body fat
- Loss of muscle mass
- Overtraining (even light exercise becomes ‘overtraining’ if you aren’t rested and recovered properly)
- Decrease in performance
- Slower recovery from training
- Greater chance of illness and infection
And that list doesn’t even include all the ‘non-training’ issues such as gut problems, anxiety, cognitive issues, poor concentration, loss of sexual performance, etc.
“Poor sleep is linked to increased inflammation in the body – which will make it harder to recover from your gym sessions – and an increase in the levels of insulin and cortisol, both of which lead to increased fat storage and insulin resistance.”
Charles Poliquin
What is key to understand here is that not only do you need to get enough sleep – but you need to get sleep at the right times – similar to the sunrise/sunset layout in the first image. Of course, this is work-permitting: If you work night shifts, there isn’t really much that can be done in terms of adjusting habits. If you get up for work at 5am, this still isn’t all that far off sunrise, and likely means you get to bed earlier like 9pm anyway. But if your days are standard sort of workdays, and you are going to bed at midnight or 1, you are doing your body, your recovery, and your overall training and performance a disservice. Just like training hard and then eating crap food seems like a crazy equation, don’t underestimate how crazy the same one is with poor sleep practices.
“Sleep disruption will make you produce less testosterone and less growth hormone, and both are necessary to maintain a good lean mass to fat mass ratio as well as regenerating from a hard fat loss workout.”
Charles Poliquin
Additionally, not only are you eating into your physical and psychological repair time, but you are also setting yourself up for even more stress the following day, and it continues to compound. What happens the day after a poor nights sleep? You crave more caffeine and stimulants, crave sugary foods or carbohydrate-heavy foods more. And then when you succumb to this what will the result be? Prolonging the cortisol release that day too, further impacting sleep the following evening.
So what are simple things I can do?
It is always best to focus predominantly on simplicity or simple practices – because whether it is training related, or diet related, or any other thing in life really, the majority of a positive result will be attained simple by doing basic and simple things really well, consistently. And there is no point getting fancy with different methods or items or pills or practices, without first getting the basics right. And sleep is no different. The only problem with this approach is that it usually looks simple and boring on paper – and so people don’t bother. But if you get a few basic and simple things right, over time, the reward is large. So here are some basic take home points to implement – there may be a few here, but if you implement them 1 at a time – say a new one each week, the effect will compound quickly. Hopefully most of them just seem like common sense.
Avoid screens at least an hour before bed – and preferably 2 hours. I know that the chances of many readers of this blog listening to this point are virtually non-existent given there are many readers in their teens and early 20’s, but I listed it first as it is the simplest thing you can do and probably the second most effective point. Or in other words, this is the point that will have the biggest effect on your sleep quality, relative to the actual effort you need to put into it. The flickering blue lights of a TV or laptop, phone or mobile device stimulate your sympathetic nervous system, and have a profound effect on the way your system interprets what time of the day it actually is. Remember your body is stimulated to release cortisol (a stress hormone) in response to light. And remember, this is the last thing you want in the evening, as it will impact and interfere with not only effective sleep, but also growth hormone secretion.
“Eating grains and refined sugars before you go to bed will raise your blood sugar levels and create a reactive hypoglycemic effect that will wake you up and make it difficult to fall asleep again.”
Charles Poliquin
Closely related to this point is to get into the habit of spending the last couple hours prior to bed winding down – physically, but especially mentally. Switching off from the days activities (as well as of course technology). This may take on the form of a light evening walk, meditation of some sort if you are that way inclined, or 2 very effective forms of ‘active meditation’ – stretching and foam rolling (and immersing and absorbing yourself in them fully.) Making these the last 2 things you do for the last 20-30 minutes (and no phone while you do it) prior to bed is extremely relaxing, and takes away from the ‘boredom’ many people feel simply trying to meditate and breathe. Static stretching itself also has a calming effect on an excited or stimulated nervous system.
Pitch black or as dark as possible. Make your room a cave. Sleep in a pitch-black room. You may think your room is dark, but unless you have taken specific measure to make it dark, it isn’t. If you wake up during the middle of the night and can see where you are going, it’s not dark. This means removing any form of potential light or noise from the room – all electrical devices, especially phones. Additionally, block the light coming through the windows as much as possible, filling in little gaps any way you can. As stated, the closest to absolute darkness, the better. Any source of light – even little dots of it, will be felt, and have an impact.
Remove all electrical devices. This is similar and related to the previous point. Unplug all electrical stuff, and leave phone in another room. The reality is, we are all exposed to low frequency electromagnetic energies while we sleep – such as power lines, electrical circuits in your walls and ceilings, and of course TV’s if you have them in your room. This electromagnetic pollution disrupts natural sleep/wake cycles. Now ideally you would be sleeping in a cave hundreds of kilometers away from civilization to get the best sleep. But this is unrealistic. Removing all electricity from your walls and ceilings, along with street lights is also a bit of a long shot. As a result, the best you can do is minimise the exposure as much as possible by removing the electrical devices you have in your room – TV, bedside light (use a candle), phone, etc.
“Even the tiniest bit of light in the room can mess up your daily biological processes and affect your body’s production of melatonin and serotonin, which will have an adverse affect on your sleep. It really doesn’t take much light – even something as dim as the standby light on your television can make a difference.”
Charles Poliquin
Make your room a sleep sanctuary. No TV, no work and laptop, etc. Have a mentality that you develop where the only things that occur in the room are sleep and sex. Over time your body will associate the relaxation of this reality with the room.
Aim for 8 hours quality sleep. There is always debate about how much is enough – same say as little as 6, some say we need as much as 10, but 8 ours tends to be the median sort of number that is agreed upon (and importantly realistic for most people – who the hell has time to sleep for 10 hours every night?!!) In combination with this, aim to develop a fairly consistent rise/bedtime cycle from day to day, where you are in bed by 10/10.30 at the latest, and rising sometime between 6 and 7. Of course on certain days you will want to stay in bed longer, but make sure it isn’t anymore than say an hour later that normal, or the cycle is impacted.
Evening nutrition plays a big role. In fact nutrition all day long will impact on your sleep cycles, but the last few hours prior to bed is certainly where the biggest impact will be made. In a very quick nutshell, avoid sugar/sweet foods within the last few hours prior to bed. One teaspoon of sugar has been shown to suppress your immune system for up to 4 hours – and it is during sleep that your immune system is supposed to really be going to work. (And that was only 1 teaspoon!) Additionally with this, the final meal for the day should be a healthy dose of fat and protein, and certainly not a high-carbohydrate (especially if refined carbohydrate) hit like pasta, stir-fry or rice.
Proteins, fats and cholesterol are important building blocks for not only muscular repair, but also for hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. Saturated fat and protein also aid in sleep quality.
Whilst we don’t want this to turn into an article on nutrition – as the topic always gets everyone ready to have a debate – it is important to link in the effect it has on sleep cycles. The body is a system of systems, and improving sleep quality will also be attained by targeting other key areas – nutrition being the main one.
Don’t go crazy with caffeine. The most popular form of caffeine is obviously coffee, although there is also caffeine in things like soft drink (although if you are still loading up on things like soft drink, the caffeine in it is the least of your worries.) Caffeine has a half life of 6 hours – meaning that if you have a standard coffee (normally around 300mg of caffeine), there will still be 150mg of caffeine in your blood stream 6 hours later. Or in clearer terms in a sleep sense, lets say you have a coffee at midday, there will still be 150mg of caffeine in your blood stream at 6pm, and still 75mg at midnight! Imagine what that is doing to your hormonal cycle (cortisol etc) in the evening when your system should be winding down. The moral of this point is that if you are a coffee drinker (and most of us love it) be sure that it is only ever drunk comfortably before midday – the earlier you stop the better – as it does linger in the system (even if you feel like you have ‘crashed.’) Additionally, don’t overdo it with having coffee after coffee throughout the morning thinking you can cram it all in early, because the basic maths says that there is still plenty in your blood stream later as a result of having more.
Any extra things? Supplements? Apps?
There are many ‘sleep supplements’ out there – with of course 99% being total garbage – but in truth it is hard to truly judge the effectiveness of many of them, as people expect to keep doing all the other negative things they are doing (too much caffeine, late night television, poor eating, late night sugar, poor hormonal cycle as a result) and simply take a supplement and have sleep improve. It obviously won’t work – regardless of how much you want it to or how much you pay for something.
People have experienced positive improvement with natural supplements like poppy seed extract and magnesium (the man himself Charles poliquin is a big advocate of magnesium supplementation for sleep – provided it is the right form of magnesium.) However the key things to tick off before even considering any supplementation are the basics listed above – and done consistently for a period of time. If done, the benefit will come.
If you are still having issues sleeping or feeling recovered and you are doing everything right – or the majority of things right, this issue is still quite broad. Because is it getting to sleep that is the problem? Or staying asleep? Or simply you are sleeping a full uninterrupted 7-8 hours and still feeling flat? The causes can be quite different, and ways to approach different. And obviously specific direction on these various ways is beyond the scope of this article. But the truth is, if you genuinly the basics right, and doing so consistently and maintain it for a period of time (2-3 months +) the chances of difficulty in this regard are greatly diminished.
So take this on board, get the basics around sleep right, and benefit your training and improvement by doing probably the 2nd or 3rd most enjoyable thing in the world (after sex and eating.) It is no less important than the actual training itself, and what you eat. Speaking of which, next up we will ‘open Pandora’s Box’ and discuss food.
Strength Coach
