Hi, I'm Sean, and I'm an insomniac.

And boy does it suck. But I've learned to live

with it. I can deal with the sudden bursts of

adrenaline at 4am that wake me up, and going

through the whole day groggy, but what I'm really

worried about is the effect it could have on my

training.

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CAN YOU STILL BUILD MUSCLE AND LOSE

FAT ON NO SLEEP?

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Thankfully, science is pointing to YES. And I've come to

realize this for myself at the same time.

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If you're interested, look up this study:

PMID 38197028

It's from 2023, and it found that 24 hours of

sleep deprivation didn't impact muscle

activation or power (the subjects were doing

calf raises, not full-body workouts, but it's

something).

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Here's another one from 2020. PMID 31469710.

Some particularly cruel researchers induced a

lot of muscle damage (read: severe soreness) in

subjects by having them do eccentric reps (lowering

the weight slowly) and then deprived them of sleep

for 2 days. They then got 12 hours of sleep before

they were examined. In another condition,

the people got the same workout followed by 3 nights

of normal sleep.

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The result: muscle recovery was the SAME, whether they

slept or not.

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I think this tells us that 1) TIME is the biggest factor in

recovering from your workouts. Make sure your training

for the same muscles is spread out by a few days and

you'll be fine.

2) Sleep ain't that big a deal.

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Of course, I'm not telling you that you can rock and roll

all night and party every day and expect to see great results.

Get 7 hours sleep whenever possible. It's still a factor in

recovery and preserving normal hormone levels (particularly

for fat loss).

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But I think if you're a busy professional, a parent of young

children, or a high-strung insomniac like me, it's OK to breathe

a SIGH OF RELIEF.

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Occasional sleep loss isn't going to cost you anything other

than your patience.

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If you saw my IG/Facebook story the other day, I talked about

how I woke up at 3:30 and decided to just get going. I went to

the gym immediately and had a great session. I hip thrusted over

600 pounds for a big PR, and then PR'd on glute-ham raises right

after.

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The sun was just coming up as I left the gym.

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Instead of lying in bed wide awake in a dark bedroom

and cursing the universe, I focused on the ADVANTAGE

and OPPORTUNITY of being able to start the day early,

get my workout over with, beat the traffic there

and back, and get ahead on everything else I had planned to do.

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It's all about PERSPECTIVE, my friend.

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On that note, here's a video you may not have seen yet.

​3 Ways To Psych Yourself UP, Not OUT​

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I posted it a week ago and it's about ways to talk yourself

into training on days when you want to do anything else but.

Take a look and let me know if it helps you.

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– Sean

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