Sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass and/or if you want to be ready for your personal training session the next day. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release.
Is 6 hours of sleep enough to build muscle? No way. You should try to get between 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night in order to maximize muscle growth and support your health.
What researchers discovered was that the individuals who slept only 5.5 hours had 60% less muscle mass at the end of the study, while those who slept 8.5 hours had 40% more muscle mass. Obviously, we can see the powerful effect that sleep has on muscle recovery and growth.
Your body will produce less protein than it otherwise would. That's why you need to sleep for at least 7 hours a night if you want your muscles to grow properly and quickly.
I slept under six hours (but still feel okay)?
If your sleep deprivation is not chronic and you feel that it hasn't sucked the life out of you yet, it should be fine to exercise for a maximum of 30 minutes. DON'T do high-intensity, long-duration, or even heavy weight-lifting exercises.
If you nap in the morning, the sleep consists primarily of light NREM (and possibly REM) sleep. In contrast, napping later in the evening, as your sleep drive increases, will comprise more deep sleep. This, in turn, may disrupt your ability to fall asleep at night. Therefore, napping late in the day is discouraged.
Exercising also improves sleep for many people. Specifically, moderate-to-vigorous exercise can increase sleep quality for adults by reducing sleep onset – or the time it takes to fall asleep – and decrease the amount of time they lie awake in bed during the night.
Sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass and/or if you want to be ready for your personal training session the next day. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release.
Sleeping for 8-10 hours per night is similar to fasting and this is catabolic to muscle growth. However, eating just prior to sleeping, can help to reverse this process and increase protein synthesis.
Acute sleep deprivation decreases muscle protein synthesis. One night of sleep deprivation significantly reduced postprandial skeletal muscle protein synthesis in a population of healthy young adults.
Downtime between workouts (whether you're lifting, doing cardio or training for a sport) is when our bodies have a chance to actually build muscle. Strenuous workouts cause muscle breakdown, while rest allows our bodies to build it back up.
Take a Nap
"Napping reduces the stress hormone cortisol and promotes muscle-building growth hormone," says W. Christopher Winter, M.D., the Men's Health sleep medicine advisor.
Muscle growth is higher in the daytime, which is regulated by the biological clock - new study.
Due to the importance of sleep for muscle recovery, athletes need even more rest with 9-10 hours of sleep required to aid muscular recovery from the extra load.
To get optimal gains in maximum strength, the body needs a complete recovery, so 48 to 72 hours. In concrete terms, if you perform a chest session, you will need to wait between 2 to 3 days before working the same muscle group again.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's “sleep faster” strategy
The former Mr Olympia sleeps just six hours a night so that he has at least 18 hours of productive time during the day. The seven-time bodybuilding champion reportedly spent as much time in the gym as he did in bed during his early career.
Spending your whole day in the gym isn't necessary to build muscle. Weight training for 20 to 30 minutes, 2 to 3 times a week is enough to see results. You should try to target all your major muscle groups at least twice throughout your weekly workouts.
A sleeper car is a master of understatement in the automotive world. It's a car that offers considerable performance yet is bereft of indecent bodywork, garish paint, oversized aerodynamic elements, or anything else that might invite unwanted attention. To call a car a sleeper is to pay it a big compliment.
The more physical activity you do, the more the muscles and nervous system will break down in the natural course of experiencing stress on the body. That rebuilding is done during sleep for most part. So naturally, the more you do, the more time it's going to take to rebuild those systems, and the more sleep you need.
Bottom line: Interrupted nights don't give your body the restorative sleep it needs—and even brief wakenings will still disrupt natural sleep rhythm, says Sadeh. “Our study is the first to demonstrate seriously deleterious cognitive and emotional effects.”
The strategic use of naps (pre and post-training or competition) can naturally boost anabolic hormones to improve recovery.
Cortisol levels drop which allows for the release of the sleep hormone melatonin as well as increased levels of growth and repair hormones. Much of this repair and growth is in muscle. During REM sleep, the body shifts its resources to the task of repairing tissues and cells.
Interestingly, there is a clear difference between team and individual sports when it comes to how much sleep professional athletes require. Research shows that individual sport athletes sleep on average 6.5 hours a night while team sports come in at 7 hours.
You're sleep deprived
Exercising when you're running on empty also increases your risk of injury. So if you're exhausted, the best thing you can do for your body is to get a good night of rest and get back in the gym the next day.
This is because our brain is constantly forming new connections while we are awake. The longer we are awake, the more active our minds become. Scientists believe that this is partly why sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression. However, there are negative outcomes of this, too.