Sleep deprivation's effects on recovery

[Martin Hodges]

Periodically with my job I have to work long hours and sometimes I'll go a week or so with less than optimal sleep (4-5 hours of sleep a night). Is there a point when it's worth not doing a workout since sleep deprivation will limit my body's ability to recover? In other words, if I workout when I'm sleep deprived, am I doing more harm than good? 

 

Would this vary depending on the type of workout (maximal strength vs hypertrophy vs endurance?). 

 

Am I better off not working out at all? Should I just reduce the intensity of the workout (roughly 50% volume for maintenance)?

 

Where's Joshua Naterman and his encyclopedia brain? This seems like a question for him.

[Blairbob]

Definitely something to be said about catching up on your sleep deficit instead of training.

That being said, training still boosts a lot of your hormone levels besides keeping you sane.|

Get some movement in and try to catch up on your sleep.

Knocking down intensity and volume are not a bad idea. Typically your body will inhibit your productivity while sleep deprived anyways. You can obviously powernap and toss back some caffeine to work around this in the short term but yes, it will probably bite you in the ass in the long term. More than likely, you'll just a crappy workout in.

Quite often on the first day of sleep deprivation, I can still train pretty well and hard but it kind of goes downhill faster after the 2nd and definitely 3rd night.

It's not uncommon in scenarios of sleep deprivation to mull through the warmup and end up calling it right as you start doing some actual work. That's a bit of a compromise in itself. Get some movement in and go slink into the bed to catch up on your sleep.

[Stephen Majerle]

When my son was born last fall I had a lot of sleep deprivation due to caring for a newborn that didn't sleep well at night. I learned I could workout just fine on four hours of sleep, but less than that it was harder. If your putting multiple nights in a row with little sleep, I would suggest having a rest day in between workout days. And nap when you can (I slept in my car over my lunch hour on some days). But long term look for a solution that doesn't involve regular sleep deprivation.

[Jesse Frigo]

Blairbob said something about hormonal benefits to working out, but I'd argue that sleep is more important.  Sleep is so important you will go crazy and die without it.  And we don't even know why we need to sleep or all the things that it does, other than help keep us from going crazy and dying. 

 

It also impairs your judgement, and the most obvious situation is when deciding how much you need to sleep.  Really.  Not sleeping makes you make bad decisions about sleeping.

 

Don't do it.  Lack of sleep causes too many problems for you to add further stress on your body while presumably cutting your sleep time for workout time.

[Jon Douglas]

Movement, like BlairBob said. Move some, stretch some, weighted mobility is ideal, keep it short and sharp, then sleep. Personally I like low rep strength when I'm tired-- I find I can usually find a few more kg's or a harder progression in me when I have already half written off a session in my head, but my endurance suffers-- going heavier gives me a buzz and I find it easier to sleep.

Naturally it's not ideal, but you aren't doing more harm than good as long as you are keeping volume appropriate. For me this situation would rule out more than 4 days/week training, but that's not necessarily the case for everyone. If I was pressed I would go further and say I'd hit it harder on 2-3 days a week, maybe multiple sessions per day in an ideal case, because I find that full days off are much more restorative than light daily workouts.

[Connor Davies]

Where's Joshua Naterman and his encyclopedia brain?

Reddit.

Personally I've had to train plenty of times where I've only had a few hours sleep. It's not ideal but it's generally better than doing nothing. I've done two workouts in a 30 hour day before going to sleep.... You just gotta make do. Eat right and sleep as much as you can when you can and you'll still make awesome progress.

Edit: I had a really bad habit of skipping sleep if I was going to get less than five hours. I drank a lot of coffee and slept for days when I could get away with it.

[Martin Hodges]

Thanks to all for your replies. I will do as I always have...workout when i feel the energy and reduce intensity when i get really sleep deprived. As I've gotten closer to 30, I've found it easier to listen to my body when it's telling me to take it easy (versus when i was 25 and I would workout come hell or high water).

 

I just wanted some reassurance that I wasn't being counterproductive by working out while sleep deprived. When I get sleep deprived.