NUCLEUS OVERLOAD™ AND SLEEP - HOW MANY HOURS SHOULD YOU GET?
If you’ve been watching my videos for years, you know that I’m a huge proponent of getting quality sleep if your goal is to maximize muscle growth (or fat loss) naturally. In fact, I rank sleep as the #1 most anabolic thing you can do once outside of the gym, next to water and protein intake.
But unfortunately most natural lifters simply don’t sleep enough. My general recommendations are at LEAST 8 hours per night. If you’re doing full body workouts, or Nucleus Overload™, I recommend around 10. The reason is simple: Even when normal or obese individuals who don’t do any form of serious weight training reduce their total sleep, their body composition drastically suffers (they tend to lose more muscle mass instead of fat mass). In one study, 2 groups of obese individuals went on a caloric deficit for 2 weeks, and although both lost around 3 kg of weight, the low sleep group lost mostly muscle, while the other group lost mostly fat. Another longer (8 weeks) study with a bigger sample size came to the same conclusion.
Now one thing to keep in mind is that those studies were performed on individuals not involved in serious strength training like you and I. If you’re a serious lifter, the stress you put on your body daily is far more than what the average or even obese person experiences. If you’re doing Nucleus Overload™, then that’s even more stress than the average lifter experiences. All of this drastically increases the amount of recovery (and sleep) your body needs to maximize anabolism.
So in short, the old saying “train, eat, and sleep” doesn’t include sleep just for show. It is mandatory to maximize both muscle growth AND optimal fat loss. Aim to get at LEAST 8-10 hours of good quality sleep per night. If you’re doing Nucleus Overload™, shoot for the higher range, and add some naps on top of that if possible. if you want more details on the mechanisms behind why sleep is so crucial for muscle growth and fat loss, watch my 2 videos below.
Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29438540
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20921542