Gym sessions without results

Do you care about being healthy? Do you recognize the scenario of spending hours in the gym without any results?

It's like you don't lose weight even though you adhere to your diet and mostly eat healthy food. You may even follow a regimen and spend hours in the fitness center. You do not save yourself and do the exercises properly, dutifully and correctly.

Still, it's as if none of your efforts are successful. As if everyone else in the gym gets much more effect from doing the same exercises as you.

It simply feels like your body hasn't noticed the effort you're making. The extra kilos on the stomach, hips and sides are stubbornly stuck. Your muscles grow infinitely slow, and those love handles just won't disappear.

You think the solution is to train even more, and to make time for it, you cut down on your sleep. After several months of hard training and deprivation, you take stock. The result is disheartening and very little motivating.

There is a scientific explanation to the lack of results of your efforts. The solution to the problem is so simple that you can literally do it in your sleep. This is definitely a case of work smarter, not harder.

Science say: sleep it away!

When you exercise in the gym - or anywhere else - you actually break down your muscles. It is only when they are rebuilt, they become bigger and stronger. This rebuilding happens during your sleep.

When you sleep, the body produces the hormone testosterone. Testosterone in this form is naturally occurring in the body. It plays an important and crucial role in rebuilding your muscles.

Anabolic steroids are actually a synthetic imitation of testosterone. This is not an invitation to use either artificial testosterone or steroids. Never take hormones without consulting a doctor. After all, the reason you exercise in the first place, is to be healthy. Steroids are everything but healthy!

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The effect of the testosterone you get during your sleep should not be overlooked. Did you know e.g. that if you sleep too little, 80% of a possible weight loss come from lost muscle mass? A larger muscle mass burns more fat - even when you are at rest. A reduction in muscle mass is the last thing you want if you want a healthy weight loss.

If, on the other hand, you have slept enough, 85% of a weight loss will be due to less fat. In the end, it's probably this kind of weight loss that most people want. The reason why this is the case is found many years back in time.

The role of evolution

In the world of today you're exposed to all sorts of more or less healthy foods, on every street corner. However, this has only been the case for the last 30-40 years of human history. The rest of humanity's development has been marked by periods of famine.

The mechanisms that require sleep to develop muscle and burn fat have kept us alive for millions of years. For all that time, our survival depended on the body being good at adapting to the changing conditions.

In times of crisis, when food is a scarce resource, it is beneficial for your survival that the body retains fat. It takes a lot of food to maintain a large muscle mass. Fat, on the other hand, helps keep your body warm, and more energy is stored in fat than in muscle. In other words, you can survive longer on fat, during periods when there is a shortage of food.

If you sleep too little, the body perceives it as a sign of being in crisis. The body will primarily get rid of muscle mass when you do not get enough sleep.

When there is food shortage, the benefit of having strong muscles is outweighed by the energy they consume.

If, on the other hand, you do get enough sleep, then during the night, your body releases a free, healthy and natural round of doping. It happens especially in the form of testosterone, but there are other hormones in play as well.

During periods of plenty of food, it is evolutionary beneficial for your body to have strong muscles and bones. You are better equipped to cope with the challenges of the day if you are lean, fast and have sturdy bones. You do not have to spend nearly as much time hunting, and therefore, have more time to rest.

Mind over matter

Sleep is roughly arranged so that the first 5 - 6 hours are spent ensuring that the brain is in top shape for the next day. Click here to read more about this. Only when the brain is sorted, focus changes to the rest of the body. That's why you need to sleep at least seven hours and preferably more, to get the full benefit of your exercises.

The longer you sleep, the more testosterone is released, and the bigger your muscles become (roughly speaking). We can measure that your body's testosterone level peaks just before you wake up.

Athletes already knows this secret

Imagine you let two people do the same aerobic exercises. One was only allowed to sleep six hours per night. The other slept 8-9 hours or more. The latter would develop markedly larger and more toned muscles.

He/She would also have a much easier task getting rid of unwanted fat on i.a. abdomen and hips. That's the fat, we often refer to as love handles.

This has been proven in several scientific experiments, in many different sports. All the experiments reach more or less the same results. The athletes in the studies achieve significant improvements in a very short time. Improvements that would otherwise only be possible through the use of illegal doping.

An example from the USA. Here, scientists tested the effect of sleep on a group of basketball players. They were already at university team level - and therefore, really good, and in excellent shape.

They should then try to sleep 10 hours a day over a 5-7-week period.

On average they improved by:

1 second faster on a 100 meter sprint
9% greater accuracy in their shots.

Roughly speaking, they improved their performance by about 10% (in just 1-2 months). The amount of training etc. was the same before and during the experiment. The only thing that changed was how many hours per day they slept.

It is the rule rather than the exception that the participants in such sleep studies all experience a big aha moment. They all begin to prioritize sleep much higher.

Finally, a quick mention, that elite athletes such as Roger Federer, Usain Bolt and LeBron James and others, prioritize sleep as a significant part of their training. They believe that sleep plays a crucial role in their success. Federer sleeps e.g. 12 hours a day.

May the sleep be with you.

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