Sleep is something that most of us enjoy doing. It is something that we need for our bodies to function properly. Sometimes with a busy work or school schedule, we may not get as much sleep because of the many tasks that these things add to our day.
If one wanted to get a good workout in along with their busy schedule the first thought might be to cut your sleep schedule. Will this lack of sleep affect our muscle growth? Is not getting enough sleep killing your gains? In this article, I will be answering these questions.
How Muscles Grow
When working out you contract your muscles which creates microtears in your muscle fibers. These fibers are called actin and myosin. “Muscle growth (or “skeletal muscle hypertrophy,” as it’s called at science parties) is the result of a complex process that adds more myosin “filaments” to each muscle fiber. This makes the “engine” of the cell bigger and stronger over time.” read more here.
Muscles will tear and become sore after lifting weights. After that when you rest the muscles will heal and become bigger over time, and they will become stronger very quickly. Rest is very important for the muscles to heal and grow properly.
The average time someone should rest a muscle group after working it out is around 24-48 hours read more here. During rest, you should not work out those muscles to avoid injury. Then when that 24-48 hour rest period is over, work them out again
Do You Need Sleep To Help Your Muscles Grow?
Now we have established that in order for muscles to grow you need to rest those muscle groups. Does this rest include sleep? Or does sleep help with that healing? Research shows that sleep helps In athletic performance in the muscles.
Some researchers took a group of basketball players and for 2-4 week period and recorded a sprint time and shooting accuracy. After that, they took the same group and extended their sleep from their normal schedules to ten hours a night.
By the end of the experiment, the group of athletes had increased their sprint time and also their shooting accuracy during the sleep extension period read more here. This study showed an increase in muscle growth with the athletes running faster sprint times when getting more sleep.
But muscles are not the only thing that your sleep can affect. Not getting enough sleep can result in other things such as. fatigue, hormonal issues, and immune problems. these are all reasons that we should be sleeping more.
Conclusion
Sleep is something that everyone does and needs. But is cutting out a few hours of sleep bad when lifting weights? Cutting out sleep is definitely a bad idea. Sleep helps the muscles rest properly and also helps other parts of our bodies function properly
Sleep is very important in helping our hormones be utilized properly and also can help our immune systems function properly. But It will definitely help your muscle growth tremendously and you will be stronger and have more energy to workout again when you do get more sleep.
