• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

How much sleep?

Riddles

New member
So I'm still a newbie after only training for a few month. The issue I'm getting at the moment is that I'm finding I get very tired and sleepy (fatigued) during everyday life and I think it's at least partly because of the lifting. I've been doing sports for several years (and still doing outside lifting) so I'm not coming right off the couch.

I've always needed about 8 hours of sleep per night to feel good. Even now I'm getting this but still feeling tired. I normally perk up a bit when I walk in the gym but it makes doing tasks that I already lack motivation for even harder, such as studying and working to make money to feed myself. And it's not an eating thing as at the moment if anything I am eating too much.

I'm going to experiment with allowing myself more sleep time and see if it makes a difference, but I'm curious as to whether anyone with relatively normal sleep patterns needed more sleep when they started lifting.
 
Of your getting 8 hrs and still conatantly tired your not eating enough. Post up some diet info.
 
Definitely

Before lifting, or any kind of serious lifting, ~6 hrs was typical for me. Yes I was also a teenager then, but the point remains.

Now, 7-8 is typical. However, once or twice a week I usually get 9-10 hrs. I find if that extra bit of sleep doesn't happen, I experience the effects as you describe above and feel generally 'beat up' from training.

IMO extra sleep can be especially helpful/necessary if you are consistently training 'hard', but not often in a large calorie surplus. i.e eating like a bb'er, not a typical fat powerlifter :p

Besides good diet and regular bedtimes, there are various factors that can cause lethargy - e.g underlying medical condition, micro-nutrient deficiencies, shitty job, personal emotional turmoil etc.

I'm always tired, just part of life. Just keep lifting!

I disagree. IMO unless there is some underlying medical reason/circumstance of duress, a healthy person should feel generally energetic, motivated and happy the vast majority of waking hours - if not there are lifestyle factors that can be improved upon.
 
Last edited:
If I get super tired all the time I hit the fluids daily for a while, min 4L a day. I have found this helps my fatigue but anything more than a week I get it checked out.
 
I get 10h a night and will lie in bed for an extra 2h in zombiemode on weekends
I feel pretty good most of the time, especially since putting tyrosine in my morning coffee
 
If I get super tired all the time I hit the fluids daily for a while, min 4L a day. I have found this helps my fatigue but anything more than a week I get it checked out.

That works. Most people don't drink enough water during the day. The coffees and carbonated drinks that many people thrive on are insufficient and often lead to being slightly dehydrated.
 
Thanks for your answers and suggestions everyone. From them I'm going to book an appointment with the doc to see if something is going on. I had suspected low thyroid output several years ago but it cleared up OK then so it might be worth looking at something similar again.

A little bit about me for those who asked.
Female, 25 years
170cm and 85 Kg - So it's a no brainer I'm carrying more fat that is optimal right now. But until the end of the year I'm caring more about my muscles, but don’t want to blow up too much ya know.

Food - I haven't tracked regularly recently so I can’t give an exact answer but I can say I’m getting a lot. I'm aiming for something like 2500 on lifting days and 2000 on non-lifting days. That's made up of 180g or protein and the rest fat and carbs with a minimum of 100g each with more emphasis on fat (I work better that way). I've tracked this before and as I said before I've been getting over this regularly. If you can suggest any changes to this I'm all ears.


But seriously I've been pigging out and eating much more than usual. So if it's anything to do with food it can only be a permanent food coma. Including a week spent away on holiday (even more pigginess) in the last month I've actually put on 5Kg. Yes, you heard right, 5Kg in a month, so I'm not eating too little. Actually that much gain leads me to suspect hormone crappiness even more. What is odd that is that someone actually remarked that I look more lean than before, but even I can’t pretend that's all muscle.


I'll try to take pay more attention to water intake. However I do tend to need to piss every hour. I have to consciously decrease water consumption prior to going to the movies :(

As said before the last month has included a week of holiday (no training) so it's less likely to be adrenal fatigue (even if you use the term 'burn out' instead). But training is high with a typical week being 3 days weight training and 4 of martial arts sessions (MA is not always high intensity though).
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your answers and suggestions everyone. From them I'm going to book an appointment with the doc to see if something is going on. I had suspected low thyroid output several years ago but it cleared up OK then so it might be worth looking at something similar again.

A little bit about me for those who asked.
Female, 25 years
170cm and 85 Kg - So it's a no brainer I'm carrying more fat that is optimal right now. But until the end of the year I'm caring more about my muscles, but don’t want to blow up too much ya know.

Food - I haven't tracked regularly recently so I can’t give an exact answer but I can say I’m getting a lot. I'm aiming for something like 2500 on lifting days and 2000 on non-lifting days. That's made up of 180g or protein and the rest fat and carbs with a minimum of 100g each with more emphasis on fat (I work better that way). I've tracked this before and as I said before I've been getting over this regularly. If you can suggest any changes to this I'm all ears.


But seriously I've been pigging out and eating much more than usual. So if it's anything to do with food it can only be a permanent food coma. Including a week spent away on holiday (even more pigginess) in the last month I've actually put on 5Kg. Yes, you heard right, 5Kg in a month, so I'm not eating too little. Actually that much gain leads me to suspect hormone crappiness even more. What is odd that is that someone actually remarked that I look more lean than before, but even I can’t pretend that's all muscle.


I'll try to take pay more attention to water intake. However I do tend to need to piss every hour. I have to consciously decrease water consumption prior to going to the movies :(

As said before the last month has included a week of holiday (no training) so it's less likely to be adrenal fatigue (even if you use the term 'burn out' instead). But training is high with a typical week being 3 days weight training and 4 of martial arts sessions (MA is not always high intensity though).

If you need to piss every hour you are most likely getting plenty of water. Maybe even too much.

It's very unlikely to be adrenal fatigue since it isn't even a recognised disease unless you go to a quack.

http://www.hormone.org/Public/upload/Adrenal-Fatigue-Web.pdf
 
Last edited:
Top