How Lack of Sleep Affects Performance

Next question is from pizza con. How does lack of sleep affect performance in the gym? Does it affect pumps negatively? Oh, man, I can't think of anything that would Negatively affect performance faster than lack of sleep. Maybe just chronic low calorie No, no chronic low calorie long enough not faster Like imagine if you did you ate no calories one day how much that would affect your performance now Imagine if I had no sleep one night like the sleep really messes up performance it puts you in the thing with lack of sleep is it is such a stress signal to the body because For most of human history. The only time you would not sleep at all at night is if you were in danger or Scared or you know in a really bad situation and what your body does in that case is it ramps up stress hormones? Ramps up catecholamine production Changes hormones and really doesn't care about the long term because your body perceives the immediate threat to be something that needs handled right away You can forget about your body adapting and building muscle and doing all that stuff in that particular space lack of sleep They've done studies on lack of sleep and they can induce psychosis in people. I don't remember what the time frame Yeah, it's like three days people like a majority of them start to go crazy. What about the pump though? Is there anything there's there is there a direct mechanism that is affected by that? I don't think so I don't know about the direct mechanism. I mean, you know if blood vessels are me more constricted. You're more stressed You're probably gonna get less blood flow. I For me it does cortisol would that affected it? Anyway, I don't know if it would or not like I don't know Yeah, I think so. I think it's more I mean the fact that the fact that it affects the overall workout means it would affect the pump, you know indirectly But I don't think there's a direct. I feel a more central nervous system Like I just don't have access to that type of like force production. It's just like it is so much more fight Within what would normally be something I'd have access to if I'm lacking sleep It just feels like my body like wants to just shut down. And so I lack luster Go through those types of X now Have you guys had though examples of like when you you were really exhausted you probably should have took the day off of working out You'd ramped up on some, you know pre-workout and you did anyway She's full of adrenaline and then you had like the best workout of your life though. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's because you're Occasionally, yeah, you got fight-or-flight kicking in. Yeah, right, right I mean so that I think that that that's why this I think sometimes it's tough for people to like read or know what they should or should not do because most people that have been lifting for a long time can recall something like that to where they're like I don't know what these guys are talking about because I Hit a PR on a day where I only got two hours of sleep and I went and did this and this is how I Felt and like so I don't believe that bullshit And that's I mean I know that I was in that camp in my 20s because I I knew that I could draw back to times where I had Incredible workouts where I pushed through you see athletes like on you know benders on cocaine for a few days And then they like pitch a no-hitter. Yeah That was LSD to Yeah, you know this was the last piece of the puzzle that I put together I Took me a long time to figure out workouts nutrition probably was next Sleep took me a long time because we're remarkably humans in general remarkably good at coping With lack of sleep like we could get by and we have caffeine and stimulants and you know We don't notice we can like I said, we can get by and especially when you're young man My motto literally I used to say this. It's so stupid. I used to literally say this in my sales meetings I'll sleep when I die. I used to tell people this all the time. I don't need sleep sleep for weak people I was you know, and I would sleep five hours a night That was my average and I would just go and go and go and you know and wonder why I got you know I would get ill and stuff like that, but it took me a long time to piece that together now Once you piece it together the contrast is dramatic like go for you know Even just do like six and a half hours of sleep versus seven and a half hours and do the comparison and you'll see that It's a huge difference Well, I think because the adrenaline the in the isolated situation Sometimes you might have this example of where it was great for you But it overall I think the compounding effect of poor sleep and training I think it starts to take a toll on that. You know where this really becomes obvious when you have your first, baby Because you're you're sleep, you know when you're in your 20s your sleep deprived for like a weekend Yeah, but you know what though to that point again, I was I was I was on a little bit of a high I remember a couple weeks after that. I remember talking ---- about it. How easy it was Some of my best workouts have been these last couple weeks like that, but guess what it eventually catches up Yeah, that's why but that's what I mean by that It's like, you know in an isolated event where it's just maybe one or even a handful or maybe like something on adrenaline Yeah, I mean I just had a child probably the most amazing experiences of my life Weeks later, you know, it turns into two months three months. That's right. You're like, okay. This is a whole different book I think that that's the that's the part though I think that throws people off when you when you talk about that or even Threw me off as a young fitness trainer like thinking that Oh sleeps overrated I used to say it sleeps overrated, you know, because I could I'm King power through I can get through it I'm fine, but not realizing man when you Optimize your sleep how much and I think that's the better thing to focus on not Could I survive or get a good a sing a good single workout on a lack of sleep It's what happens look like what happens when I truly dedicate myself to you know a week or two weeks or three weeks of Consistent going to bed at like a really early time for myself or preparing myself for bed and getting good sleep and diet Then I think that's the better thing to teach people is like instead of saying oh It doesn't affect me that much or oh, I've had bad sleep and had my best workouts forget looking at like that How about have you ever actually made an effort to get great sleep? Consistently for a period of time to actually see how much it benefits That's a great point because the challenge with this is that I think people are in such a chronic state of poor sleep for so long They don't know what they don't know. It's like that. I've never experienced it Yeah, it's like that story, you know like the man that was born with one eye sewn shut and everybody tells him you can you open your eyes and he's like I'm see just fine. And finally when they open it, he's like, oh my god I can't believe what I was missing. I have a buddy who All just was always chronically tired. He would just you know, he would always have to have caffeine He would nod off and meetings and just whatever. He just thought this is just how it was. Well anyway when he got He had this girlfriend that moved in with him and she was like, you know that you like stop breathing when you're sleeping You choke and all stuff. He had apnea. Yeah, he had sleep apnea Did the sleep test got put on the what is it called the CPAP machine? Mm-hmm, and he's like I had no idea how big of a difference it would make he's like it's a game but he didn't know because he had nothing to compare it to so, you know what Adam said I think is Exactly, right like make an effort to do this for a week. So you have a contrast Otherwise, it's like water. How many times you get clients? I go you need to drink more water I'm fine. And then when they finally do like I had no idea how much better I would feel from drinking more water It's really no different than that Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe