Anyone know?: Since sleep is anabolic for the first couple hours and massively catabolic afterward, would consuming a protein shake before bed and then after four hours of sleep make it almost totally anabolic, assuming your body naturally wakes up for a few minutes each night (for a bathroom visit or whatever)? Brian
I don’t know if this will help, but try to make sleep shorter. Sleep twice a day for 4 hours at a time, or once for 4 hours total. This may cut down catabolic time. I’ve heard that complete physiological recovery from sleep takes only 2 to 3 hours. I can’t verify this, but am seriously looking into it. If it is true, why do we need to sleep more? Personally I think that the brain may need more time to relax then does the body. Find a way to make the brain reach a state of rest quicker, and therefore, (Theoretically) sleep will become shorter. Personally I think there may be some credit to the meditation practices that are employed in martial arts and other such disciplines. This may not be practical for the average athlete, but maybe for those that are really willing to take that step.
I’ve been setting my alarm for 4am every morning and slugging back a pre- mix protein shake for about 2 years now. I rate it, especially for building mass, though it does interrupt my sleep patterns a bit. I was quite surprised that it never went on as fat,which was my original fear of eating during the night. For the most part I just had 30- 40 grams of whey protein with a gram of vitamin C (latter may influence T production, and lower cortisol levels), but that was before I found out that whey may be too quickly digested. So I’m changing the recipe to 35g skim milk powder, 20g whey protein, 7g bran/ fibre (to lower GI of the milk) and 1g Vitamin C. Its too early to tell how this new recipe works, I’ll ideally wait a couple of months before I post up the results - if anyone cares - as I’ve been mostly dieting the last couple of months.
I have to agree with Eric - sleep seems to be more for the mind than the body. I remember reading about some sleep-deprivation studies the Soviets did back during the Cold War, and they found that waking rest (lying quietly, reading, etc.) was almost as effective for physical recovery as actual sleep. I just went six days in a row under 5 hours sleep each night because of my job: my body was pretty much fine (except for my eyes drying out a lot), and the only problem I had with workout energy probably would haven’t have happened if I hadn’t been below maintenance calories. But by the end of each day after day 2 my brain was toast. I don’t know how you could make sleep more efficient - have never looked into meditation - but shortening the night’s sleep and adding a short nap at midday might be an alternative. I’m going to try experimenting with a half-hour nap at midday (thank God I have a private office) and see what that does, because between training, commuting, and my job I can’t seem to get over 5.5 or 6 hours of sleep consistently.
Why is everybody chugging down whey shake before sleep instead heaps of casein? For the past four months I have been dieting with great results and eating a pound of cottage cheese immediately before sleep (1/4 of my daily calories).
WTF? Are you guys crazy? Have a steak or some casien before bed and get LOTS of rest! When do you think a lot of your bodybuilding recovery goes on?! (Remember muscle recovers during REST!)
Pro’s train, eat, then go back to bed. Waking eating and napping as much as they can. It is optimal for growth!
I PROMISE you, if you wanted to get big and 1 guy slept only “4 hours” a day and the other slept 12 he would be MUCH bigger. (assuming they both took pre-sleep protein and had the same genetics of-course.)
Now if you do wake up yes-slam a shake but NEVER interupt sleep with an alarm clock just to drink protein! SLEEP IS VERY, VERY, IMPORTANT FOR BODYBUILDERS!
Don’t take my word for it though ask Bill, Brock, Cy, Chris, and the other T-Staffers!
4 hours-I can’t beleive you even said that!-gee maybe we shoulkd just forget about sleeep altogether- I can’t believe some of the stuff I read on here!