Productivity + sleep

So how do you get some productive work done while sleep deprived?

 

Some things I can just soldier on with, but anything lower back related I literally just cannot do when I'm tired.  For example today I couldn't finish one set of SL/PE1 and I'm working on less than 5 hours sleep.  Admittedly, I'm finding sPL/PE2 to be stressful on my lower back, and I did those yesterday, but c'mon.

 

The only way I've ever been able to get a good workout in when I'm tired is by drinking excessive amounts of coffee, but I'm trying to cut down on caffeine because I was waking up feeling like roadkill everyday...

 

Anyone got any tips for me?  (Apart from get more sleep)

The real answer is you don't. If you're not getting enough sleep to support workout then you need to focus on sleep first. Think about what that's doing to your recovery ability. Overtraining is just around the corner if you continue to push it. Occasionally when I really need to work a skill I'll use caffeine to get the workout in. I don't do much strength stuff in this state though.

Daniel Burnham said:

The real answer is you don't. If you're not getting enough sleep to support workout then you need to focus on sleep first. Think about what that's doing to your recovery ability. Overtraining is just around the corner if you continue to push it.

Oh I didn't mean to imply I make a regular habit of it.  I generally get 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night.  This was just a once off and I didn't want to miss a day on my Foundation workout.

Bipocni said:

Oh I didn't mean to imply I make a regular habit of it. I generally get 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night. This was just a once off and I didn't want to miss a day on my Foundation workout.

Those are the days I have an extra coffee and get it done. It is not always fun on these days, but i feel much better for trying than not.

Oddly enough I find that I often hit personal bests on these days-- maybe my expectations are lower and just doing as much as i can turns out to be more than i expect.

Caffeine is a stimulant. You're tired and can't do a workout because your mind is tired. So you drink coffee to stimulate your mind to actually "burst energy" but after the effect of the caffeine pass, you feel the consequences. We recommend to not push past our limits during workouts but if u drink coffeine to actually workout, u are pushing past our limits.

 

In my opinion, the best thing you can do is to do little exercise and rest, the fitness magazines try to say that we need to workout 1 hour per day focusing muscles and do alot of cardio etc. But this is not true, we don't need lots and lots of  exercise, the objective of exercise is to cure our system, heal the CNS and strenghten our bodies , the main word here is Cure, it's not normal to always be tired, tired of workout and so, exercise is not to be a burden but a good thing. If u feel that u can't do a "good workout" because you are tired, do a workout that will be good for your body because it will let it heal. If you're feeling tired it's because u system isn't getting enough to even maintain itself in a normal state, the last thing that it need is a forced workout pushed trough coffee.

Jon Douglas said:

Those are the days I have an extra coffee and get it done. It is not always fun on these days, but i feel much better for trying than not.

Oddly enough I find that I often hit personal bests on these days-- maybe my expectations are lower and just doing as much as i can turns out to be more than i expect.

You probably do better because of the caffeine. It is a pretty good performance enhancer.

If I remember correctly, there were studies done that showed that maximal strength isn't affect too much when sleep deprived.

Daniel is still right though because recovery takes a massive plummet and what's the point of all this training if you will not recover and make gains from it? If you can, try to nap after the session to repay some of that sleep debt. I actually sandwich all of my training sessions between sleeping and naps.

that's my weekends primarily consist of  

 

if I'm not running errands that need to be done early, I'm sleeping iiiiiiiiiiin. such a great reward after a hectic week + working out. 

Daniel Burnham said:

You probably do better because of the caffeine. It is a pretty good performance enhancer.

Likely it makes up the difference, yes. From in here it feels more like just getting me started, psychologically I have slightly.more inertia when sleep suffers and to get moving, not to continue, is a touch harder.

Its rare i don't feel like training though. Even if I have to drop a set or two I always feel better for moving.

Yesterday was party for the new semesters in our university and i just got 3 hours of sleep, because i had to go to university at 8 in the morning, i wanted to train, but my brain was very tired, so i decided to leave out my first work out since f1. but i'm long enough in sports to know, that theres nothing wrong about that. one session will not make any difference at all. but in this case, i can do it tomorrow, because i still got 2 days to monday that way
your body knows best(or arsene wenger )

Alex Chubb said:

If I remember correctly, there were studies done that showed that maximal strength isn't affect too much when sleep deprived.

Maybe not maximal strength, but maximal willpower to stick out a tough set of arch holds?.......

you can cover quite a bit of uncharted territory by telling yourself to endure or move forward.

kind of like one of those anime moments

"move. move. MOVE!"

Bipocni said:

Maybe not maximal strength, but maximal willpower to stick out a tough set of arch holds?.......

I don't think it makes a difference with regards to that particular hold .

 

I find that if I didn't get a good nice sleep working out will leave with more energy after the workout than before the workout.