Productive Workouts on No Sleep?

Obviously every one knows the importance of sleep, that is right up there with the importance of progressive resistance and protein consumption. Now that that is out of the way, for reasons I won’t get into I have totaled about 5- 6 hours sleep the last 2 nights. I feel pretty crappy, although am able to function at work okay. I am an unabashed user of pre-workout drinks, so I always have those even when I am feeling normal. Problem is, my big workout is tonight, chest and back and am not able to do any rescheduling this week.

So anyone ever have great workouts on little to no sleep? Or you think I am better off going home and getting a good night’s rest? It is one thing to be a little tired, but I am at the stage now where I am not exhausted, but more than a little on the tired side.

Thousands of bootcamp trainees and special forces operatives manage to pull this off through out the world.

The real variable is going to be mental. If you think this will negatively impact your performance, it will. If you think it’ll be fine, it will.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Thousands of bootcamp trainees and special forces operatives manage to pull this off through out the world.

The real variable is going to be mental. If you think this will negatively impact your performance, it will. If you think it’ll be fine, it will.[/quote]

good stuff

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Thousands of bootcamp trainees and special forces operatives manage to pull this off through out the world.

The real variable is going to be mental. If you think this will negatively impact your performance, it will. If you think it’ll be fine, it will.[/quote]

They only caveat I’d add to this is that folks in boot camp aren’t trying to gain muscle. Often muscle is lost during boot camp along with fat of course. Sleep is only a part of the equation though.

I agree, however, with only 2 nights of poor/little sleep it is mostly mental.

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
They only caveat I’d add to this is that folks in boot camp aren’t trying to gain muscle. Often muscle is lost during boot camp along with fat of course. Sleep is only a part of the equation though.

I agree, however, with only 2 nights of poor/little sleep it is mostly mental.
[/quote]

Yeah, I was speaking more to the ability to effectively complete the workout rather than advocating bootcamp itself as a muscle building activity.

If you want a more relevant example, Matt Kroczaleski apparently only gets 4 hours of sleep a night.

I think sleep is valuable, but if food is being taken care of, one can still see some great gains.

Get some sleep.

I don’t think you have any high value targets you were needing to take out within a specific time window.

Acute fatigue vs chronic fatigue.

Go two weeks with 5 hours of sleep and tell us all how your training goes : )

Yep!

That is the story of my life. I get between 3-5 hours of broken up sleep in any 24 hour period (this is Monday-Thursday)

It sucks but you get used to it. Workouts can be done, just go in there and get it done. So many people make excuses but the human body is I credibly resilient and can handle way more than you think.

[quote]Myosin wrote:
Get some sleep.

I don’t think you have any high value targets you were needing to take out within a specific time window.

[/quote]

You never know…those “high value targets” could be the cause of his bad sleep. In that case I say there is definitely a specific time window!