Muscle growth during sleep? Unfortunately it is not as easy like that. Still, when it comes to muscle growth the nocturnal recreation plays an essential role besides training and nutrition. During deep sleep the body is healing the tiny injuries in the muscular tissue that arise during training. At the same time, growth hormones and testosterone get released so that the muscle gets bigger and is more powerful in the next training. Learn below from Dr. med. h.c. Guenther W. Amann-Jennson how your sleep and your muscle growth can be connected.
How important is your sleep for your muscles?
If you intend to build up your musculature in your body, the crucial key factors will be the training schedule, correct nutrition, enough of regeneration and especially a sufficient amount of recreative sleep. Since your body is releasing certain hormones only during sleep – especially the growth hormone – no targeted muscle development is possible without a determined consideration of a recreative sleep!
Restful sleep is the basic for muscle development
During sleep, there are two cycles that alternate roughly every 90 minutes: the deep sleep and the REM-sleep (“Rapid-Eye-Movement”). During the REM-sleep the mental-psychic recreation is in the foreground. Especially the deep sleep is important for muscular development. Here the regeneration of the body takes place – and a lot of hormones that are responsible for cellular regeneration and growth get released.
Muscle development by “replay-theory”
Sleep scientists have made an important discovery: during studies it turned out that for your muscle development it is also important that the experiences of the day get reprocessed during sleep. This approach is pursued by the so-called “replay-theory”: Your brain is recapitulating psychomotor processes during sleep – comparable to mental training. That means that learning contents are better reminded after sleep and that learned movement patterns get memorized better. These happens especially during deep sleep and primarily in the first third of the night. Furthermore, your immune system regenerates and gets stronger during deep sleep. Out of this reason, the risk of getting an infection gets strongly diminished.
How much sleep do you need for muscle development?
The recreation of body, mind and soul is as well depending on the quality as on the duration of the sleep. Although this might be very individually, about 90 % of all grown-ups need seven to eight hours of undisturbed, recreative sleep.
In case of getting less hours of sleep one night it will definitely make sense to catch up on the missing hours by taking a nap, during the following night or on the weekend. But, a decisive factor concerning the duration of sleep is the sleep efficiency. This factor indicates how much of the time you are spending in bed you are actually sleeping. Sleep disturbances or fitful sleep are interfering with muscle development. Additional trainings or more rations of muscle-building substances will then have little to no effect.
This will make your sleep healthy and restful
When it comes to body-recreation the quality of sleep is playing an important role apart from the length of your sleep. You will find numerous ways, strategies and methods on how to fall asleep easier and sleep through the night more restful on the online-magazine “Einfach-Gesund-Schlafen”.
Here it is important to be aware that: 1st your bedroom is the most important room in your house or apartment. 2nd the most important place in your bedroom is your bed. And 3rd the most important furniture is your bed and with it your sleeping underlay. To be able to produce a really recreative sleep these fundamental pre-conditions have to be existent. Important are darkness, peace and no electromagnetic pollution on your sleeping berth. Thereto, you need a perfect orthopaedics, a well-balanced bedding climate and – as far as possible – a large-scale body grounding during sleep. Exactly then enough of the sleeping hormone melatonin will be produced and enough growth hormones and testosterone for muscle development will be released.
Muscle development needs correct nutrition
To let muscles grow, in addition to regular weight training and sufficient recreation your body especially needs the correct nutrients. Among other things, this includes fish, meat, fruits and vegetables, milk- and soy-products. Essential is the right amount of protein that is serving as building material for new (muscular-) tissue. Out of this reason for muscle development you should supply your body a sufficient amount of proteins. No muscle development will be possible if the essential supply of protein is missing – in spite of training, sufficient recreation and healthy sleep.
Insider tip: healthy sleep and casein
Apart from whey-protein, with 80 % casein is the chief ingredient of the protein of cow milk. Hence, it is also part of all kinds of milk products we eat every day – especially the “harder” (clotted) products like curd cheese and cheese itself contain a lot of casein. In a scientific study, the participants completed a weight training at 8.00 p.m. and drank a shake of 60 grams of carbohydrates and 20 grams of proteins. Right before going to bed, half of the participants got 40 grams casein. The other half got a placebo. The results have been published in the scientific publication “Medicine & Science In Sports & Exercise”. Accordingly, the casein supply led to a “faster increase of the concentration of amino acid in the blood that maintained during sleep as well.” According to the study, a “stimulation of the muscular-protein-synthesis” is happening during the nighttime regeneration. At the same time, the protein-balance of the whole body got improved. When having problems with muscle development, a late-night casein-boost before the important healthy sleep might be the right recipe.
Image Source: ©istock
This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in:
German
Leave a Reply