The bodybuilder’s guide to perfect sleep (Part 1)

Difficulty falling asleep, insomnia and sleep apnea are becoming incredibly common among the general population, but especially among enhanced bodybuilders. It’s high time we address these issues and provide proper solutions.

In this article, we will be taking a look at the different solutions you can implement to fix your sleep quality as a bodybuilder and maximize the amount of muscle you can build.

What causes these sleep issues?

There are as many potential causes as stars in the universe. Among enhanced bodybuilders, however, the most common causes of a lack of sleepiness and insomnia are:

• Using stimulants in the afternoon, including coffee.
• Staring at screens right after going to sleep.
• Not exercising hard enough.
• Micronutrient deficiencies.
• Using anabolics. Some compounds will cause sleep disturbances in some users.

Dealing with these issues

The first three factors are easy to deal with (but they require some discipline).

Stimulant use

There is no reason why you should be using stimulants in the afternoon, even if that’s when you train and typically take your pre-workout. If that’s something you can’t live without, accept that your sleep will never be what it could be. Using L-Theanine at 600mg, GABA at 500mg and Valerian Root at 300mg 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime could help relax your body if you took stimulants and still feel too energetic at night.

Staring at screens

You should also try not to stare at any screens for at least 30 minutes before going to bed (preferably 60 minutes). The blue light that screens emit will inhibit your melatonin production. If you absolutely have to use electronic devices before bed, either get blue-light-blocking glasses or supplement with 1 to 2mg of Melatonin (this works even if you don’t stare at screens but still have a hard time falling asleep).

Not exercising hard enough

If your day-to-day life is not intense enough and/or you don’t train as hard as you should be training, you will have a harder time sleeping properly. Why would your body need to sleep for 8 hours if you don’t use it to its full potential?

Micronutrient deficiencies

Most people are deficient in Magensium, Vitamin B6, Vitamin D, Zinc and other vitamins and minerals. These 4 miconutrients play a key role in sleep quality, so getting bloodwork done and supplementing with them if you are deficient could greatly improve your sleep quality. Magnesium is typically dosed at 300 to 500mg a day, B6 at 50 to 100mg, Vitamin D at 5k to 10k iu and Zinc at 25mg.

Using Anabolics

This is not something you can stop doing if you are an enhanced bodybuilder. But how do you know if this is the culprit for you? Easy, if you always had good sleep until you started using a certain PED, you know for a fact it’s that PED that’s causing the issues. If you are using orals (whether they be AAS or SARMs) with a short half-life, try not to dose them before bedtime (dose them later in the afternoon instead) as they could have mild stimulating effects. You can also implement some of the supplements mentioned in this section (L-Theanine, Melatonin, Magnesium, B6, etc…) to try and offset the negative impact of anabolics on your sleep. 

Bad sleep can be caused by many different factors, so taking the time to identify what is causing our sleep to be suboptimal and addressing the root-cause of the issue is essential.

The proposed solutions in this article will work for the vast majority of bodybuilders, but some men will need a somewhat more aggressive approach, especially if they are dealing with sleep apnea.

In part 2 of this series, we will cover some of the more powerful solutions to bad sleep, as well as the symptoms, causes and treatment of sleep apnea.