Who else on 'sleep more train less' attitude to training?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve been on the ‘sleep more, train less’ attitude to training in the past 1-2 years.

I’ll first preface this with the reality that I’m M40-45, and even though I’m not fat or overweight with fat, I suffer from severe sleep apnea that went undiagnosed for nearly 20 years, and which limited my sleep usually to the 5-6 hr range for most of my life until I got a CPAP machine 4 years ago.

Even with the CPAP machine, it’s taken me several years to experiment and adapt to the high pressures it requires to give me a ‘normal’ 8-9 hours of sleep, and only in the last 8-12 months have I been hitting 9, even the occasional 10 hours of total (broken up, though) sleep a night. (It’s actually challenging for me to maintain sleep though - I wake up after 5-6 hrs every day, and have to ‘actively’ put myself back to sleep repeatedly, which can take awhile and remains incredibly frustrating and even limiting to this day.)

As a result of more sleeping, I’ve been training less. A LOT fewer 5AM or earlier workouts, and I’m averaging about 7 hours training per week total as a result. I only broke 10 hours of training for 3 weeks total in the past 8 months I think, which compares with averaging 11-13 in prior years where I wasn’t sleeping as much.

Hit my highest USAT scores ever at M40-45 this year, on what I thought was ‘not-so-serious’ training, after all, I wasn’t putting up big volume. Granted these were Oly and not IM distance, but considering how hard I’ve trained in the past to hit my older USAT records while HIM training at 12-16hrs/wk, it was surprising to me. I also didn’t do any special peaking for the races this year - I was doing them more for fun than as an “A” race, and was thus actually surprised with how well they turned out since I know in the past if I trained this low volume, it would not have turned out so well.

I will state the almost obvious, that quality of workouts improves a lot when maxxing out sleep. It’s not so much that I can put out more max power during the bike sessions, or hit faster VO2 paces in run workouts, but I can hit my prior paces without digging deep into myself and burning myself out. (I’m on the train-less-hard philosophy now since I’m apparently pretty good at overtraining myself so I intentionally avoid doing super Z5 efforts as much as possible unless they are very short, like 25-50yd pool sprints with tons of rest.)

Anyone else sleeping their way to better results?

2

I can’t say I follow the philosophy–I became a new dad in December of last year and tried to train pretty high volume until I burned myself out. So now I’m on the sleep more, don’t train plan. :smiley:

But, I can relate to having undiagnosed sleep apnea as well as the battle it is to get good sleep.

I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea around 2011/2012 (can’t remember exactly) and prescribed a CPAP. I am not overweight nor do I have a big neck. I have a pretty severely deviated septum (tried correcting with surgery in 2013) and have trouble breathing during sleep.

The process of trying to get a good night of sleep is SO incredibly frustrating. I can go a few weeks where I sleep fine during the nights–I breathe fine, no congestion–and wake up super refreshed with great energy during the day. Then it’ll go away as quickly as it came and I’m left feeling sluggish, moody as hell, depressed, unmotivated, etc.

Sleep affects the quality of my life to a great extent. My mood is super dependent on the quality of sleep I get and it takes a huge toll on me and my family. I get so frustrated that I have to deal with massive mood swings and swings of energy levels. I hate it for my family that they have to deal with my ups and downs.

3

Good luck to you and despite the sleep issues, consider yourself lucky that you discovered your sleep apnea earlier rather than later.

I had horrendous sleep during my daughter’s years 1-3 of life, and turns out it wasn’t all because of her. It wasn’t until she was 2.5 yrs old, sleeping well thru the night all the time, that I realized that something was def wrong with me since I wasn’t going back to even 5-6 hours of sleep, but waking up after 3-4 hours and finding it impossible to go back to sleep after that despite feeling dog-tired.

Turns out my body was refusing to let me go to sleep since my respirations weren’t giving me enough oxygen. In my case, there’s both an obstructive case (floppy throat?) and also decreased breath effort with REM sleeping, so I basically don’t breath enough at night after a few hours. Even after getting diagnosed, it’s taken 3-4 more years of experimenting with pressure to get ‘normal’ sleep volume, and as said, sleeping for me is a daily challenge - I estimate I have to literally focus on going back to sleep at least 4 times per night, every night.

It’s been a gradual improvement for me, but it’s remarkable how much better I feel with the 8-10hrs/sleep vs 4-6+naps. I’m very high energy to begin with so it was easy to overlook as I can seem almost hyperactive even while totally sleep deprived, but in terms of workout quality and recovery, it’s been a big improvement.

4

Good luck to you and despite the sleep issues, consider yourself lucky that you discovered your sleep apnea earlier rather than later.

I had horrendous sleep during my daughter’s years 1-3 of life, and turns out it wasn’t all because of her. It wasn’t until she was 2.5 yrs old, sleeping well thru the night all the time, that I realized that something was def wrong with me since I wasn’t going back to even 5-6 hours of sleep, but waking up after 3-4 hours and finding it impossible to go back to sleep after that despite feeling dog-tired.

Turns out my body was refusing to let me go to sleep since my respirations weren’t giving me enough oxygen. In my case, there’s both an obstructive case (floppy throat?) and also decreased breath effort with REM sleeping, so I basically don’t breath enough at night after a few hours. Even after getting diagnosed, it’s taken 3-4 more years of experimenting with pressure to get ‘normal’ sleep volume, and as said, sleeping for me is a daily challenge - I estimate I have to literally focus on going back to sleep at least 4 times per night, every night.

It’s been a gradual improvement for me, but it’s remarkable how much better I feel with the 8-10hrs/sleep vs 4-6+naps. I’m very high energy to begin with so it was easy to overlook as I can seem almost hyperactive even while totally sleep deprived, but in terms of workout quality and recovery, it’s been a big improvement.

Intetesting! Im trying to move on to that diet of sleep, but am not yet there. Though - my sleep disorder comes in the form of lots if small kids:-) working on getting early enough to bed to Get atleast 7hrs, sometimes 8. The last year Ive been going for runs at 22:30 instead of going to sleep. Eventually, Ive come to think my time is best spent sleeping, not training.

I havent gotten permanently into A good routine, but I can feel key workouts going Alot better if Ive gotten A few days good sleep!

5

I’m on the sleep more train more path.

6

Can certainly relate to the sleep / training issue.
I would kill to get even 5 solid hours of sleep a night.
I have chronic insomnia and havent had an 8 hour sleep for years maybe decades.
Since i had glandular fever actually, about 20 yrs ago. I enjoyed that aspect of that condition!
It certainly impacts every aspect of life negatively.
I have no physical condition just a very light sleeper who is rarely in deep sleep.
No doubt this limits my ability to recover well from training sessions.
I do get a lot of reading time though😁

7

I shoot for 7-8hrs/night. If I have one bad night and get 4-6hrs, I don’t miss a beat, but if I have two bad nights in a row, I take the following day very easy in terms of intensity (but keep the planned duration).

8

Can certainly relate to the sleep / training issue.
I would kill to get even 5 solid hours of sleep a night.
I have chronic insomnia and havent had an 8 hour sleep for years maybe decades.
Since i had glandular fever actually, about 20 yrs ago. I enjoyed that aspect of that condition!
It certainly impacts every aspect of life negatively.
I have no physical condition just a very light sleeper who is rarely in deep sleep.
No doubt this limits my ability to recover well from training sessions.
I do get a lot of reading time though😁

Sleep study yet?

9

Yes
I was duly informed there are no physical issues and that i am just a very light sleeper.
I think it is just a mix of an early childhood of severe allergies that ruined sleep for a long time that has caused a neurological habit of light and poor sleep…along with an unfortunate genetic inheritance as a sibling has similar issues.

10

You might want to re-check that sleep study (repeat it) it if it’s been awhile. Things do change as you get older.

Even with my sleep apnea, it’s not at all typical. I’ve spent 3 years finding optimal pressures for my breathing through the night at different sleep stages, and my doctor keeps saying that’s not needed, I can just use one pressure. Too bad I spent literally an entire year with the pressure he prescribed, and it MAYBE added 45 mins extra of sleep on average, which is a pittance.

After a year of suffering, I started crankingup the pressures as I felt short of breath chronically, and once I started hitting the ‘high’ pressures of CPAP support, I started really sleeping for real, for 8-9 hours. Took me 3 years to figure this out because I was following my sleep doctor’s erroneous advice for too long. Even now, he tells me it’s likely placebo effect, despite the 12-month failed trial of lower pressures that he prescribed.

It’s worth double checking these things if they are chronically problematic, as quality of life improves a lot if you can fix it.

11

Sleep is my number 1 training weapon
.

12

training hard is pointless if you’re not recovering, and sleep is essential to recovery. Young folks can get by on hard training and little sleep, the rest of us have to plan recovery as well as training loads.

“After working with athletes from all professions and life circumstance, I can attest that the range in training response to a given training load between those athletes who lead the most stressful lives and those who live the most simply can be as great as 50%, i.e. it can take twice the amount of training to get the same fitness benefit when an athlete has other stressors to deal with.” Alan Couzens

lack of sleep is a major stress…

I have positional apnea only so insurance won’t cover the CPAP. Like you I wake at 3 or 4am every morning and spend an hour or more putting myself back to sleep, it’s very boring.

13

training hard is pointless if you’re not recovering, and sleep is essential to recovery. Young folks can get by on hard training and little sleep, the rest of us have to plan recovery as well as training loads.

“After working with athletes from all professions and life circumstance, I can attest that the range in training response to a given training load between those athletes who lead the most stressful lives and those who live the most simply can be as great as 50%, i.e. it can take twice the amount of training to get the same fitness benefit when an athlete has other stressors to deal with.” Alan Couzens

lack of sleep is a major stress…

I have positional apnea only so insurance won’t cover the CPAP. Like you I wake at 3 or 4am every morning and spend an hour or more putting myself back to sleep, it’s very boring.

Be like me, I get up around 3 to 4 and get ready to exercise for 3 hours. Sorry to hear about your apnea

14

I don’t have the sleep issues you do, but have always been a strong believer in a lot of sleep. My background is bike racing, and in particular I’m a big disbeliever in spending much time on “recovery rides” a couple times a week - I’d far rather use the time for more sleep or relaxing or taking care of errands so to sleep more consistently throughout the week.

15

Last couple years I was finishing up my undergrad and I struggled to get to bed at a decent hour. Last year especially I got very little sleep and got absolutely crushed, even though I wasn’t training much. In my postgrad now, and while I still don’t get 8 hours a night, it’s a huge difference just getting 6 as opposed to 3 or 4. Nest semester I should be able to actually get sleep and I’m looking forward to seeing how much better collegiate nationals goes in particular.

16

Be like me, I get up around 3 to 4 and get ready to exercise for 3 hours. Sorry to hear about your apnea

Sounds like you don’t have sleep issues so it isn’t that simple. Even if you’re up you just can’t go out and get workout in and expect a benefit. It adds more to the exhaustion like trying to workout hard when your sick…just going to make it worse. I’ve tried it a few times and it just lead to me getting sick to add to the exhaustion.

I also have obstructive sleep apnea and have a CPAP for years and can’t consistently get good sleep. Can’t consistently keep that mask on all night on a regular basis. Only when my body is so exhausted can I sleep a few nights with the mask on and get quality sleep. Then after a few days when I start to feel better rested the cycle of not being able to sleep with the mask on all night starts again.

Think of when you have a newborn in the house (first kid) and not being able to sleep well or long enough for a few months. Now imagine that happening for years or even a decade or more. By the time my wife got me to go to the doctor I was drowsy most of the day when I wasn’t extremely focused on something and my memory wasn’t as sharp as it was when I was younger. It still isn’t as quick as it was to this day and it is because I can’t consistently get good sleep. I knew I snored but didn’t know about the apnea until she told me I’d stop breathing while sleeping. Some nights if get 10 hours on the weekends and still feel exhausted like I only got 3 hours of sleep.

I tried a couple of time to mess with the pressure but with no change on my CPAP. I might crank it up high like the OP did to see how my body responds. Can’t hurt to try and thanks for sharing your experience OP.

17

I’m glad you figured out your sleeping issues. And I am not saying this to be one of those people who is holier than thou about not sleeping much. Paraphrasing Bertrand Russell, “people who don’t sleep well, like those who are unhappy, are always proud of the fact”. That said, anybody who has the time in their life to consistently get 9 hours of sleep has a pretty un-harried lifestyle. It MAY be the increased sleep, but as another poster alluded to, it may just be that you have a lot less stress (sleep being one factor) in your life, so you are absorbing the effects of training much better than before. I bet you would be A LOT faster if you slept 8-9 hrs/night and increased your training load to your prior load. But either way, keep it up. I’m jealous.

signed,
overworked, sleep-deprived father of young kids

18

You are probably right! Unfortunately, being s dad of a young kid, full time job and 9 hrs of sleep doesn’t allow me to train 9-10 hrs per week consistently - unless I neglect the kid and wife!

But yeah, if I could do 9 hrs training on 9 hrs sleep, I def would improve.

19

Sleep more and train less is not an attitude, it’s a way to improve your health.

20

I’m glad you figured out your sleeping issues. And I am not saying this to be one of those people who is holier than thou about not sleeping much. Paraphrasing Bertrand Russell, “people who don’t sleep well, like those who are unhappy, are always proud of the fact”. That said, anybody who has the time in their life to consistently get 9 hours of sleep has a pretty un-harried lifestyle. It MAY be the increased sleep, but as another poster alluded to, it may just be that you have a lot less stress (sleep being one factor) in your life, so you are absorbing the effects of training much better than before. I bet you would be A LOT faster if you slept 8-9 hrs/night and increased your training load to your prior load. But either way, keep it up. I’m jealous.

signed,
overworked, sleep-deprived father of young kids

Wow did someone actually say that…what an idiotic thing to say…