Sleep and Recovery

[yellowmamba]

Hello, Mr Rippetoe.

Before I start I would like to say that I have gone through past threads and searched up everything relevant using the SEARCH function, but still have not got a satisfactory answer to what I want to ask.

Quick background:
Asian male, 175cm, 75kg, trained for one year so far (on and off, as I spend a large portion of my year living throughout China, ), 142.5kg HBBS ATG squat 3x5 (the gyms I do go to in China are predominantly filled with Olympic weightlifters, so it's better to do a variant where they have expertise in and can give advice), 177.5kg deadlift 1x5, 100kg squat clean, 60kg press 3x5, 80kg close-grip bench and 3x20 BW dips. My routine is the advanced novice SS template, with HBBS squats replacing LBBS, the squat clean replacing the power clean, the close-grip bench and BW dips together replacing the bench and a front squat day for the middle of the week.

Question:
Sometimes my training will be compromised by overnight travel or other business, and so I will only sleep 3-5 hours that night. The consensus in the threads is that after a bad night, just go to the gym anyway and train, and anecdotally some people will have an awesome workout despite feeling like shit. But given that I'm likely nearing the end of my novice progression, I'm not particularly inclined to workout on a day when the preceding recovery has suboptimal, even if I can eke the lifts out. In that case, is it wiser to rest another day and take the extra night of sleep and recovery? Which brings me to a question which I have not found the answer to:

"Ideally you'd like to sleep at least 8 hours the night after a workout and the night after that. But if you only managed, say, 3 hours the night after a workout, 5 hours the next night and 6 hours the next night, would the level of adaptation and recovery after an SS workout be roughly similar? If not, why would that be?"

Thank you very much, Mr Rippetoe.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Depends on the individual. Some need more sleep than others, and you may be able to adapt to less sleep. Have you? Adapted to less sleep?

[yellowmamba]

Depends on the individual. Some need more sleep than others, and you may be able to adapt to less sleep. Have you? Adapted to less sleep?

Sort of, I think. If I push through with one day's rest, I'll normally get all the reps (with a couple of grind it out reps), but 4-5 workouts down the track, I'll inevitably get stuck before needing to repeat a weight. If my bad night of sleep happens to be during the two day rest period, it's pretty much progress as per usual.

In this case, what do you recommend? Grind out the workout, take the extra day of rest or do some assistance on the scheduled workout?

[Mark Rippetoe]

If you don't force the adaptation, it cannot occur. In this case, the adaptation involves adaptation to training under a sleep deficit, which many men have successfully done. While you're at it, eat more. Food in these cases is often a substitute for sleep.

[TomF]

Melatonin is your friend, if you actually have the time to sleep but simply can't because you're in an airplane seat etc. It's considerably friendlier if you add a shot or two of whisky.

[chaloney]

It's considerably friendlier if you add a shot or two of whisky.

I can't think of anything that isn't...

[yellowmamba]

Yeh, I'm probably gonna try and adapt to my body adapting to the SS workouts on less sleep.

Would creatine be of any benefit in this situation?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Depends on the rest of your diet. Is it deficient in creatine? Do you eat red meat every day?

[rtamesis]

Starbucks is your friend if you feel sleep deprived, especially a venti of their dark roast coffee right before starting your workout.

[JM3]

I routinely lift hungover on 3-4 hours of sleep and Im old. I take get over it pills. Does wonders.