Working Out Sleep Deprived | Should You Do It?

Описание: My wife just had a baby 2 weeks ago. We're absolutely THRILLED to have a new member join the family. She's truly a little bundle of joy. But the biggest challenge of having a new born? I'm completely sleep deprived and it's KILLING my workouts!

We all know that sleep is important for our health, but did you know it relates directly to your recovery from your workouts? There's a stage in the sleep cycle (stage N3 of non-REM) where our body increases the blood flow to our muscles and signals for increased production of HGH and other anabolic hormones. It's during this phase of sleep that a lot of growth and repair of muscle tissue occurs. If you're sleep deprived and you're not spending enough time in this sleep cycle, it will undoubtedly impact your recovery.

Further, you have the fact that lack of sleep leads to increased levels of cortisol (a stress hormone). The sleep deprivation effects on stress levels are actually quite significant. Cortisol is what keeps us awake during the day, so when your body is flooded with cortisol from too much stress and lack of sleep, you can actually end up feeling like you can't sleep at night even though you're incredibly tired. It's stress overload!

And on top of it, elevated cortisol levels will increase your body fat and leave you feeling weak and physically drained. So the increased cortisol are making you tired, fatter and too stressed to sleep (even though you're exhausted).

If you've wondered how much sleep is needed for muscle growth, or how much sleep is needed for weight loss, you should have a pretty good idea after watching this video. (Spoiler: I recommend 6-8 hours per night consistently!)

All in all, sleep deprivation and intense workouts just don't mix. Low intensity workouts like going for a walk and doing basic mobility exercises should be fine, but you shouldn't do anything near or at your max. You can force yourself to work out hard even when you're exhausted, but no matter how hard you push yourself and make yourself suffer, you'll only lose in the end. You'll wind up more stressed, more tired and you will NOT make gains without adequate rest.

So, I decided to make this video to share my experience with sleep deprivation the last couple weeks, explain how it's affected my fitness, and share a few tips on how you can overcome this challenge next time you face it in your life, because we ALL face lack of sleep at some point or another.

I hope this helps you on your journey. And thanks for watching!

-Ryan