What is the biggest obstacle keeping me from my goals?
When I am focused, as I am now, most things fall right into place. The alarm goes off at 4 AM and I go down to my basement and work out. I make up a menu once a week and follow it to a T for 7 days—no cheating. I prepare all the food I’ll need all week then pack up my cooler each night so it’s ready to go. I drink enough water to drown a horse. I take a few minutes every day to re-read my goals and re-write my affirmations to keep my head right.
The ONE thing that I cannot seem to do is get enough rest. How is it possible to get up at 4AM, work 8-5, M-F, get home after 6PM, have any kind of life, and still get enough sleep? I don’t get to bed til 10 or 10:30 every night. I drink about 6 cups of coffee and 2-3 cups of green tea every day, sometimes just to stay awake.
Is it possible to get where I want to go on less than 6 hours of sleep at night?
[quote]melvis66 wrote:
What is the biggest obstacle keeping me from my goals?
When I am focused, as I am now, most things fall right into place. The alarm goes off at 4 AM and I go down to my basement and work out. I make up a menu once a week and follow it to a T for 7 days—no cheating. I prepare all the food I’ll need all week then pack up my cooler each night so it’s ready to go. I drink enough water to drown a horse. I take a few minutes every day to re-read my goals and re-write my affirmations to keep my head right.
The ONE thing that I cannot seem to do is get enough rest. How is it possible to get up at 4AM, work 8-5, M-F, get home after 6PM, have any kind of life, and still get enough sleep? I don’t get to bed til 10 or 10:30 every night. I drink about 6 cups of coffee and 2-3 cups of green tea every day, sometimes just to stay awake.
Is it possible to get where I want to go on less than 6 hours of sleep at night?
Help…any suggestions are welcomed… [/quote]
What progress have you made on this schedule? What is your lifting program/plan like? Consider significantly cutting back on the caffeine, and lifting on the weekends. People differ in how much sleep they need, but its likely you need more.
Sleep is extremely important in recovering from your training. You aren’t growing while training. You grow while sleeping. I’ve trained in similar situations to you (6 or less hours of sleep) and I’ve concluded that while training with not much sleep the night before can work once in a while, doing it all the time will not get you as far as you want, plus you feel like shit.
My advice is to get to bed earlier (lame, I know, but I think getting 8 hours of sleep a night when you are training consistently is crucial for sustained progress). Personally, I wouldn’t be able to produce an intense enough workout at 4 am to be worth a damn, even with 8 hrs of sleep. Plus, after you train, you have to work all day.
If you started training after work, you could eat and then sleep for a long time, which would help you recover more (in my opinion). I know it sucks coming home from work and then having to go the gym, but I’ve found if I get in the gym right after I get home, I have plenty of energy. However, if I sit down after work, it’s all over…
[quote]melvis66 wrote:
What is the biggest obstacle keeping me from my goals?
When I am focused, as I am now, most things fall right into place. The alarm goes off at 4 AM and I go down to my basement and work out. I make up a menu once a week and follow it to a T for 7 days—no cheating. I prepare all the food I’ll need all week then pack up my cooler each night so it’s ready to go. I drink enough water to drown a horse. I take a few minutes every day to re-read my goals and re-write my affirmations to keep my head right.
The ONE thing that I cannot seem to do is get enough rest. How is it possible to get up at 4AM, work 8-5, M-F, get home after 6PM, have any kind of life, and still get enough sleep? I don’t get to bed til 10 or 10:30 every night. I drink about 6 cups of coffee and 2-3 cups of green tea every day, sometimes just to stay awake.
Is it possible to get where I want to go on less than 6 hours of sleep at night?
Help…any suggestions are welcomed… [/quote]
Do you really need to get up at 4 even though you dont start work til 8??
[quote]elliotnewman1 wrote:
melvis66 wrote:
What is the biggest obstacle keeping me from my goals?
When I am focused, as I am now, most things fall right into place. The alarm goes off at 4 AM and I go down to my basement and work out. I make up a menu once a week and follow it to a T for 7 days—no cheating. I prepare all the food I’ll need all week then pack up my cooler each night so it’s ready to go. I drink enough water to drown a horse. I take a few minutes every day to re-read my goals and re-write my affirmations to keep my head right.
The ONE thing that I cannot seem to do is get enough rest. How is it possible to get up at 4AM, work 8-5, M-F, get home after 6PM, have any kind of life, and still get enough sleep? I don’t get to bed til 10 or 10:30 every night. I drink about 6 cups of coffee and 2-3 cups of green tea every day, sometimes just to stay awake.
Is it possible to get where I want to go on less than 6 hours of sleep at night?
Help…any suggestions are welcomed…
Do you really need to get up at 4 even though you dont start work til 8??
[/quote]
Yeah really. I start work at 830 and get up at 630 to pack my lunch and eat breakfast and shower. Why not work out when you get home? I usually have my final meal at work about 2 hours before I get home, then as soon as I get home, i change and workout. Why cant you workout after work? I then get done about 7, eat dinner at 8, in bed by 10 or 1030. I have no life on weeknights though!
Do you really need to get up at 4 even though you dont start work til 8??
If I don’t work out first thing in the morning, it will not happen. I try to have a life. Working out from 6-7 PM would mean that my working out is interfering with the time set aside for “life”…
I get up at 4ish – have coffee – go through my morning routine (put the contacts in, change clothes, read goal/affirmations) – start my w/o around 4:45 --lasts til about 6:00…then a quick protein shake --shower and primp for work – eat breakfast – then a 30+ minute commute. I’m actually LATE for work just about every day.
You need as much sleep/rest as YOU need. If you’re tired all the time you probably need more. Sleep is a requirement to functioning as a human being, but how much is something I’m tired of hearing about.
I know for a fact there are guys even on this site who barely sleep and are huge without yawning their way through the day.
I average 4-6 hours a night, usually closer to 4 and have for a couple decades with no ill consequences. Not because that’s all I can get, but because that’s just all the sleeping I do.
Doctor’s recommendations mean less to me all the time, no offense to the guy who brought that up. “Studies have shown… blah, blah, blah”.
I think you could do a few things to get more sleep. Make your meals on sunday for the week. At least pack your lunch at night the day before.
If you can’t possibly get more sleep, I would try 1) decreasing exercise volume 2)increasing food intake.
Just monitor the fat gain. I find that most take a long time getting to their goals because they persist in doing schwarzenneger-esque 25 set + workouts. Reduce the volume, increase the intensity and you’ll give your body a much better chance to recover.
In an ideal world, you’d be able to do the above 2 AND get more sleep but if you just can’t do it then you can’t do it.
There are so many trainees like you–very dedicated and focused but not making the progress they want because of lack of sleep. If I were you I’d make it my top priority for a while. Get to sleep by 10 and sleep until six.
Try doing three workouts a week–Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for example. Make the weekday ones short and focused–warmup, two money exercises, cooldown, and out. Maybe dips and deadlifts, chins and squats, etc. On Sat. do a good full-body workout including extras like abs and curls.
If you can’t do the workout before work do it after.
Another suggestion: a lot of people can’t fall asleep early during the week because they stay up late and sleep late on the weekend. If this is you try doing your partying during the afternoon–beer tastes just as good at two p.m. as at 2 a.m. This might seem weird for a while but often works great. If you get up at 6 a.m on Sundays you can do all your cooking for the week and do your shopping and still have the day free.
I agree with the three day program. Also switch to a program with shorter rest between sets. 4 sets of three compound lifts and 3 sets of two or three different non-compound lifts. i.e curls whatever. 30 min workout with more time to be spent in bed. Worth a shot.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
You need as much sleep/rest as YOU need. If you’re tired all the time you probably need more. Sleep is a requirement to functioning as a human being, but how much is something I’m tired of hearing about.
I know for a fact there are guys even on this site who barely sleep and are huge without yawning their way through the day.
I average 4-6 hours a night, usually closer to 4 and have for a couple decades with no ill consequences. Not because that’s all I can get, but because that’s just all the sleeping I do.
Doctor’s recommendations mean less to me all the time, no offense to the guy who brought that up. “Studies have shown… blah, blah, blah”.
Whatever… I know what I see.[/quote]
As always, the voice of reason has beaten me to the punch.
I posted something along these lines a few months ago because I was only getting 6-7 hours of sleep, and the universal response was:
“Why do you think you need 8 hours of sleep?”
Well, I thought I needed 8 hours because that’s what everyone said. Then I was asked:
“Are you tired all day? Do you have a tough time waking up? Are you yawning all morning?”
Tiribulus said it all, but if you still think you need more:
Do you get an hour lunch for work? If so, you can maybe eat at your desk or wherever you work, and sleep for 45min. in your vehicle.
I used to do that when I had a desk job. I was fortunate that my boss didn’t mind if I ate at my desk. I would just set my watch alarm and it would wake me up every time.
Some people including our new friend here may actually need 8 hours of sleep or maybe even more. It’s these syllogistic generalizations that drive me crazy.
Major premise: All humans need 8 hours of sleep
Minor premise: melvis66 is a human
Conclusion: melvis66 needs 8 hours of sleep.
It just ain’t that frickin simple. Here’s an astonishing cutting edge fact. People are different. You would think the scientific saviors of mankind would know better by now. What if she only gets 7 hours and 59 minutes?
Doctors can fix you when you’re broke and thank God for em, but I’m wondering if they have any idea what the hell to recommend or what causes damn near anything anymore.
Also, sleep might not be the problem. Your overall workout volume, added to your everyday stresses could be causing it.
Do you alternate between high and low volume cycles with your training?
Maybe cut down the volume for 1 week ever 5 weeks or so, or 2 weeks every 4 weeks, or whatever works for you. Just don’t use it as an excuse to under-train, and still hit the weights hard during your low volume workouts.
[quote]n3wb wrote:
Oh my bad I didnt know you were a girl…
[/quote]
Yeah huh? See what happens ;-] I’m ribbin ya. Nobody is saying that sleep isn’t important. I, for one, said it is a requirement for functioning as a human being. Everybody must sleep. How much sleep anybody needs is an individual thing imho as well as others.
– go through my morning routine (put the contacts in, change clothes, read goal/affirmations) – start my w/o around 4:45 --lasts til about 6:00…then a quick protein shake --shower and primp for work – eat breakfast – then a 30+ minute commute. I’m actually LATE for work just about every day.