Sleep and recovery

[Alexander Dargatz]

still trying to make some magic happen here!

Jordan, you are.

without puttig you on a pedestool

[tnumrych]

Or your define productive as maintaining strength within 5-10% of all time bests.

Or if maintaining strength within 5-10% of all time bests is still better than 99% of the population.

[Brodie Butland]

Is there a method to quantify the effect of sleep on recovery?

For example, imagine an advanced novice who grinds out his squat sets, achieving linear progress with the mandated 2 day gap and 14 hours of sleep (7 hours a day). Can he also achieve the same with a weekly progression with (theoretically) 3 hours of sleep a day spread over the 5 days?

I've gone on stretches of 3 hours of sleep a day. It always fucked up my training, even if I was only lifting one day a week. It was also harder to concentrate, and I could be a real sunofubitch without a steady stream of coffee and meat.

I think your problem is that you're only looking at training as the demand stimulus for sleep, whereas there are a whole host of other far more important things that also need to be recovered each day.

Here's an overly simplistic analogy, which Jordan may say is completely wrong and I'm an idiot for even thinking of it. Think of your sleep (or eating, even) like putting money in a bank account each day. Also each day, various parts of your body send you bills--your brain, your endocrinological glands, your muscles, your liver, your heart, etc. In fact, many parts of your body send you multiple bills for various functions they do (your brain is sort of like the student loans, the house payment, and the taxes...it's a really demanding creditor).

If you consistently sleep 8 hours a day, all of your bills get paid on time. But if you don't put enough money into your sleep account (say you sleep 4 hours), then you can't pay all your bills...so your body pays bills in order of importance. So things like the bill for your brain to work properly get paid first. Things like your endocrine system may be partially paid. As a practical matter, bills associated with recovering from heavy weight training tend to get paid last, because when it comes to keeping an organism alive, adaptation to lifting heavy shit is pretty low on the list of importance.

Now, what happens if you deposit only half of your money into your sleep account for four days in a row? Very little of your training bill is going to be paid, because a lot of more important shit needs to be paid first...and even a lot of the important shit is only getting partially paid. Whereas if you put close to a full deposit in your sleep account for those four days, your training bill is going to be largely paid off because there's enough money to do so.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I've gone on stretches of 3 hours of sleep a day. It always fucked up my training, even if I was only lifting one day a week. It was also harder to concentrate, and I could be a real sunofubitch without a steady stream of coffee and meat.

I think your problem is that you're only looking at training as the demand stimulus for sleep, whereas there are a whole host of other far more important things that also need to be recovered each day.

Here's an overly simplistic analogy, which Jordan may say is completely wrong and I'm an idiot for even thinking of it. Think of your sleep (or eating, even) like putting money in a bank account each day. Also each day, various parts of your body send you bills--your brain, your endocrinological glands, your muscles, your liver, your heart, etc. In fact, many parts of your body send you multiple bills for various functions they do (your brain is sort of like the student loans, the house payment, and the taxes...it's a really demanding creditor).

If you consistently sleep 8 hours a day, all of your bills get paid on time. But if you don't put enough money into your sleep account (say you sleep 4 hours), then you can't pay all your bills...so your body pays bills in order of importance. So things like the bill for your brain to work properly get paid first. Things like your endocrine system may be partially paid. As a practical matter, bills associated with recovering from heavy weight training tend to get paid last, because when it comes to keeping an organism alive, adaptation to lifting heavy shit is pretty low on the list of importance.

Now, what happens if you deposit only half of your money into your sleep account for four days in a row? Very little of your training bill is going to be paid, because a lot of more important shit needs to be paid first...and even a lot of the important shit is only getting partially paid. Whereas if you put close to a full deposit in your sleep account for those four days, your training bill is going to be largely paid off because there's enough money to do so.

What's most interesting regarding sleep is that when we're sleep deprived- even with say, 6 hours of sleep a night, we might not actually feel bad but everything works worse, Our cognition speed suffers, reaction time, endocrine system, recovery, etc. all suffers even from acute sleep restriction that most people wouldn't even say is "bad".

[Bolson32]

What's most interesting regarding sleep is that when we're sleep deprived- even with say, 6 hours of sleep a night, we might not actually feel bad but everything works worse, Our cognition speed suffers, reaction time, endocrine system, recovery, etc. all suffers even from acute sleep restriction that most people wouldn't even say is "bad".

So, when I get too much sleep I also seem to be groggy at times. Is this more about not hitting your REM cycles on point than too much sleep? Or I believe you've stated that Humans are just groggy sometimes, That could also be the case. But I think you're right, 7 hours appears to be the sweet spot, perhaps I need to stop shooting for like 8.5 hours.

[Giri Kotte]

I've gone on stretches of 3 hours of sleep a day. It always fucked up my training, even if I was only lifting one day a week. It was also harder to concentrate, and I could be a real sunofubitch without a steady stream of coffee and meat.

I think your problem is that you're only looking at training as the demand stimulus for sleep, whereas there are a whole host of other far more important things that also need to be recovered each day.

Here's an overly simplistic analogy, which Jordan may say is completely wrong and I'm an idiot for even thinking of it. Think of your sleep (or eating, even) like putting money in a bank account each day. Also each day, various parts of your body send you bills--your brain, your endocrinological glands, your muscles, your liver, your heart, etc. In fact, many parts of your body send you multiple bills for various functions they do (your brain is sort of like the student loans, the house payment, and the taxes...it's a really demanding creditor).

If you consistently sleep 8 hours a day, all of your bills get paid on time. But if you don't put enough money into your sleep account (say you sleep 4 hours), then you can't pay all your bills...so your body pays bills in order of importance. So things like the bill for your brain to work properly get paid first. Things like your endocrine system may be partially paid. As a practical matter, bills associated with recovering from heavy weight training tend to get paid last, because when it comes to keeping an organism alive, adaptation to lifting heavy shit is pretty low on the list of importance.

Now, what happens if you deposit only half of your money into your sleep account for four days in a row? Very little of your training bill is going to be paid, because a lot of more important shit needs to be paid first...and even a lot of the important shit is only getting partially paid. Whereas if you put close to a full deposit in your sleep account for those four days, your training bill is going to be largely paid off because there's enough money to do so.

What's most interesting regarding sleep is that when we're sleep deprived- even with say, 6 hours of sleep a night, we might not actually feel bad but everything works worse, Our cognition speed suffers, reaction time, endocrine system, recovery, etc. all suffers even from acute sleep restriction that most people wouldn't even say is "bad".

That really helps me visualize the process. My interest in sleep is for the same reason too. It seems to affect me the most. I could go through my workouts even if I was suffering from fever, cold or even diarrhea.But sleep absolutely guts me. Coffee seems to help but only to a point.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

So, when I get too much sleep I also seem to be groggy at times. Is this more about not hitting your REM cycles on point than too much sleep? Or I believe you've stated that Humans are just groggy sometimes, That could also be the case. But I think you're right, 7 hours appears to be the sweet spot, perhaps I need to stop shooting for like 8.5 hours.

It's multifactorial, of course, but your circadian rhythm is then compromised with a ton of sleep and your arousal for the day is also off because you spent too much time in bed.

[Giri Kotte]

It's multifactorial, of course, but your circadian rhythm is then compromised with a ton of sleep and your arousal for the day is also off because you spent too much time in bed.

Would coffee, tea or ammonia help in such cases, from a scientific viewpoint?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Would coffee, tea or ammonia help in such cases, from a scientific viewpoint?

It would not correct the underlying problem, no.

[Giri Kotte]

Further question on recovery and stress. If I were to quantifiably measure stress and recovery and express them in terms of numbers, what would those parameters be?