Why Sleep Might Be the Strongest Thing You’re Not Training

Sleep has been referred to by some as the ultimate performance enhancing “drug”.

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It’s free. We do it every single day in some capacity. The level of quality and quantity we get is vital to maximizing so many of life’s functions. If more people thought of their lives as if they were a professional athlete who’s daily demands required sufficient sleep to function at their highest levels, I think they would begin to do the things needed to attain said level of sleep.

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I know what you’re thinking. “Yeah yeah, but I am not a professional athlete.” You’re right, and in fact one study on Olympic athletes found that 20% of them get insufficient sleep. Less than the general population (32%) when compared but still, the point remains.

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I don’t want you to think of your life as that of a professional athlete. I want you to think of how to optimize your physical and mental functions through the power of quality sleep.

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Sleep & Fitness

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Here’s what we know about poor sleep's effects on the body and how it relates to just fitness:

• Sleep deprivation can hinder muscle growth by inhibiting the anabolic process and simultaneously create a catabolic state. [1]
• Inadequate sleep can hinder strength outputs in resistance training. This also can directly affect muscle growth. [2]
• Sleep deprivation can impair endurance exercise lasting greater than 30 mins in untrained to trained individuals. [3]

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It should be noted that most studies examining sleep and exercise performance simply examine the effects of one single night of poor sleep. Chronically poor sleepers are probably going to experience these performance drops at an even more significant rate. The other thing to think about is that some people don’t even think or know they are sleeping poorly. They just assume the 5–6.5 hours is enough to “operate well” on not as much sleep as everyone else. Imagine if you had someone like this and were able to get them to a solid 7–8 hours consistently. What would their performance in the gym look like compared to when they were sleeping poorly? What would their quality of life be?

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Remember that sleep doesn’t just make us feel sluggish and tired. It can have an effect on our digestion, mood, libido, memory, reaction time, and much more.

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This email was simply to make you the reader aware of the negative effects of poor sleep on gym or workout performance. Everyone should strive to sleep well for a multitude of reasons but finding one that incentivizes you to sleep better is good enough for this coach!

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Citations:

1. Lamon S, Morabito A, Arentson-Lantz E, Knowles O, Vincent GE, Condo D, Alexander SE, Garnham A, Paddon-Jones D, Aisbett B. The effect of acute sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the hormonal environment. Physiol Rep. 2021 Jan;9(1):e14660. doi: 10.14814/phy2.14660. PMID: 33400856; PMCID: PMC7785053.
2. Knowles OE, Drinkwater EJ, Urwin CS, Lamon S, Aisbett B. Inadequate sleep and muscle strength: Implications for resistance training. J Sci Med Sport. 2018 Sep;21(9):959–968. doi: 10.1016/j.jsams.2018.01.012. Epub 2018 Feb 2. PMID: 29422383.
3. Lopes TR, Pereira HM, Bittencourt LRA, Silva BM. How much does sleep deprivation impair endurance performance? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Sport Sci. 2023 Jul;23(7):1279–1292. doi: 10.1080/17461391.2022.2155583. Epub 2022 Dec 15. PMID: 36472094.

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