Bodybuilders have now started endorsing and recommending the quality sleep for at least 8 hours and deemed it as one of the major factors in the effective muscle growth. The reason behind this sudden interest in sleep for bodybuilding is because of the fact that most people don’t realize that sleep and healthy bodybuilding go hand and hand. This is because when someone thinks about growing muscles; the first thing to come to mind is the amount of time being spent working out in the gym. Next, the food and nutrition matters are considered as they’re necessary for the build muscle. Most of the time, people do not even give one thought to taking sleep as an affecting factor in muscle building.
Bodybuilders now are highlighting the positive effects of sleeping and considering it one of the most important ingredients in the organic muscle building. Here is the mention of the connections that proper sleeping has with the bodybuilding aspects to ensure the importance of clean sleep.
Sleep & Muscle Repair:
When you’re working out, the muscles of your body build up the microscopic tears in the process, which are needed to be repaired so that your muscular tissues can grow and be strong. After the training, sleep and nutrition are the main factors, responsible for the repairing of your muscles. When you’re sleeping comfortably, your body turns on its anabolic mode and begins rejuvenating all the tissues, most importantly, the muscular ones. As a bodybuilder, you need to ensure that you sleep enough to replace the energy and rebuild the muscle.
Sleep & Brain Recharge:
Adenosine is an energy storage molecule that signals the brain that the body needs rest. This is why when the person sleeps; the levels of adenosine also decline. Preventing this molecule from working actually increases the alertness and concentration. It further shows that the brain rests when the person is sleeping, which is important for the desired activeness and alertness. Far as bodybuilding is concerned, the mental alertness is the prime factor during the workouts and training as the motivation levels have to be the highest. This is very important for the proper functioning of the brain as sleeping keeps the brain from getting unnecessarily tired and drained.
Sleep & Muscle Growth:
In your sleep, the human growth hormones, testosterone and melatonin are produced in large amounts. They play a pivot role in the regeneration and also the reproduction of the muscle cells and tissues within the body. Also, the synthesis of proteins occurs when you’re sleeping and as a result, the muscle tissues are repaired and built. Your protein metabolism starts working at the faster rate along with the protein synthesis. This way when you get up, the body has correctly absorbed and utilized the nutrients. Your sleeping time is actually a period that enables your muscles to rest, recover and continue building the newer and stronger muscle tissues, uninterrupted.
Sleep & Cortisol Production:
A hormone, Cortisol, has the main function of counteracting the testosterone that is responsible for breaking down the muscle tissues while inhibiting the muscle growth. The increase in the concentration of Cortisol levels is not good for your health, especially when you are building a muscle. When you don’t get enough sleep, the stress is caused, eventually increasing the Cortisol levels. So in order to control their concentration, you have to get enough peaceful sleep as to lower down the stress levels.
The Importance of Comfortable Mattress:
In order to get the clean sleep, you need to have a mattress that makes you as comfortable as you want to be. What happens is that you pass through various stages when you’re sleeping and one of the most important of those stages is the REM or “rapid eye movement”. When your mattress is not easy, you may not get into your REM sleep as it doesn’t let your body be completely in the deep state, instead functions you to be consciously awake. Guillermo Escalante, a well-known fitness director states that “the lack of deep sleep can then result in these other hormonal issues. It could and likely does adversely affect both your testosterone and growth hormone levels.” The key is to prevent the body from acting out the dreams that take place during REM sleep; therefore, in order to do so, some of the skeletal muscle tone is lost. These muscles then do not perform their responsibility to provide the spinal support as they get relaxed. When a mattress is supportive when you are awake with the active muscles, it’s surely going to perform well when you are in your REM sleep.
We’d recommend the mattress for the sofa by amerisleep.com that you can purchase to support your body while sleeping after a tiresome day and tough training. This mattress can actually help you get relaxed and rise actively on the next day to push harder.
Conclusion:
As a verdict, we would just say that sleep is particularly important for the bodybuilders as you need to prepare well for the intense training sessions. You need to get enough sleep, probably from 8 to 10 hours which should of excellent quality in order to promote your wellbeing and recovery. Just be known that if you want to grow, better get to sleep well.