As time goes by and as progress is made, an annoying new issue has arisen. Sleep. How the hell do you do it comfortably?
I used to sleep on my side but now sleeping on my side is torture for my shoulders. I’ll wake up after an hour with my shoulder burning painfully like after a 5th set of high rep lateral raises. If i manage to prop myself up on pillows to remove some weight off the shoulders, my neck will hurt like a sunabich next day.
Sleep on my back and i’ll snore, wake myself up with sleep apne, and get punched in the nuts by missus (she powerlifts, believe me…)
Who else? And what solutions have you found?
On the topic of sleep… after a day of heavy deadlifts or squats, I notice that my sleep that night is about 10x worse. I suspect it’s due to my nervous system taking a beating. Any solutions are welcome
Frequent Barbell Presses + sleeping on my side with my head on my arm = nasty shoulder pain for me.
Solution - Dumbbell press and don’t sleep with my arm stretched overhead.
Dunno dude, sometimes you just have to try some stuff to find out what works for you…
This is an interesting discussion. I used to sleep on my side. This rounds my shoulder. I felt this caused most of my posture issues (you can only do so much when you spend 7 hours rounding your shoulder and putting weight on it).
Like you, I had trouble sleeping on my back/front and would always wake up on my side anyway.
Now, I sleep with my chest on the bed and my hips on the side. I use a flattish pillow - this kinda works okay but I wake up with a sore back now and again.
I always find I get a bad neck after using a new pillow. Three or four days and it sorts itself out.
I slept in a memory foam bed once and that seemed okay but don’t know about the long term…
True! If I sleep in a matter that restricts blood in any way to the shoulder after some heavy presses, wake up with a very nasty burning sensation.
Sleeping on one of those at the moment. unfortunately they dont seem to be that well designed for a 215+ pound powerlifting dude. You pretty much dig a larger and larger dent in the mattress over time that causes more problems than it solves.
Same! Definitely an issue worthy of attention. We spend so much time on trying to correct our postures at work, on our phones etc… Would be a shame to wreck that while asleep!
It’s anecdotal but my experience suggests you can train your body to fall asleep when you’re lying on your back just as you can train it to go into sleep ready mode with a pre-bed routine. How long it might take I don’t know, if you’ve always slept on your side it may take a little while!
Obviously, you may still roll over and onto your side in your sleep!
Personally I have found memory foam to be amazing. Also I only sleep on one relatively flat pillow to avoid any sort of neck ache.
Go to bed in cargo pants with the pockets full of jacks, it w3on’t take long.

3 Likes