utorok 7. januára 2020

Do not exercise during illness or sweat it in the gym? Find out when it is better to take a break and what approach to exercise | Steroids4U.eu

Do not exercise during illness or sweat it in the gym? Find out when it is better to take a break and what approach to exercise


Practice when a six-letter fatal disease attacks a volcano? Or put the gym visit aside? Influenza, colds, coughs or other unpleasantness have already affected everyone, and there is often the question of whether to exercise in this state. You may think of a clear answer that depends on how you feel. However, this topic hides more than that. Should you take a break or sweat it? Do you exercise a positive effect on immunity? And when is bed better than activity?

Understand immunity first

On the one hand, we are attacked by viruses, fungi, parasites or bacteria, especially the upper airways, and on the other, our immune system. Fortunately. He is fighting these pliagami. So let's talk about the immune system first. About two, since you may not know that you have two immune systems.

It is an innate immune system that serves as such a basic defense line. Something like when you see "low-carb is the best style of eating" or "start with detox" profiles on Instagram. You just shake your head and try to argue simply. The innate immune system includes various barriers, such as physical (nasal mucosa), chemical (stomach acids) or various protective cells.

Then we have an adaptive immune system. It is a little more sophisticated and consists of specialized processes and cells. As if instead of simplifying arguing, you draw concrete meta-analyzes on the keto of a madman, evidence-based arguments in conjunction with practice. This adaptive system reloads its weapons when the innate system is no longer in control. It fights infections by preventing the colonization of pathogens and killing microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. The advantage of this system is that it remembers. And when a pathogen attacks again, it can fight it better and more effectively. This process is called lay building of immunity. And yes, that's why children are more often ill - they haven't yet developed an adaptive immune system with such a large “brain”.

That's nice, but the answer to the question if I should go to the gym is still not :(

You don't, because we want to educate you a little. But we'll get to it, don't worry. It should be noted that weight training is an additional stress for the body. When we are healthy, the body can quite easily adapt to it. Gradual adaptation = you are stronger, you have more muscles, you feel better. However, when you are sick, this additional stress can be a good bat for your immune system. This implies that it mainly depends on the type and intensity of the activity.

Walking, low-intensity cardio or light training (any, not just in the gym) can improve immunity! However, even one high-intensity macaque can make it more susceptible to infection. For example, a marathon can temporarily suppress the adaptive immune system for up to 72 hours. Visiting the gym, however, is far from copying the marathon, and science says shorter intensive exercise does not have the same effect of suppressing immunity. Consistent workouts can boost immunity over time, so if you're healthy, work! If you're not healthy, the opposite can happen, so high-intensity workouts or long workouts would be better to put aside during the illness. Exercise and immune system has an inverted "U" curve. This means that people with no exercise usually have an inferior immune system, and conversely, people who exaggerate too much with exercise usually also have a lower immune system. Again, we get to the cliché of the candle. Golden mean.

The general rule is that if you are sick only upside down (volcano, sneezing, less headache, sore throat…), exercise can be fine. It is better to choose lower / medium intensity or lighter cardio. However, if you are ill from your throat (chest, caught bronchi…), training in the gym is not a good idea, as this is a sign that the disease is probably getting worse.

Higher doses of vitamin C and glutamine can also help you fight the disease (especially when you feel something is coming at you). Then glutamine as a supplement finally has some effect! But don't forget about nutrition, as chemicals in the digestive tract fight viruses and bacteria, with the digestive system making up 70% of our immunity. It is worth increasing the intake of vegetables and fruits, yoghurts, kefir, fermented products such as kimchi, pickled cucumbers, tempeh or sauerkraut to feed healthy bacteria in the body.

But staying at home has one major advantage - you don't infect other people in the gym. You may be nervous that the missed workout will collapse the world, lose all your muscles and lift no more than 10 pounds (no, nothing like that will happen), but at least don't be selfish and do not spread the disease in a full body. If for any reason this sentence does not apply to you, use the tips from the article and we believe that you will soon overcome the disease.


nedeľa 5. januára 2020

Famous 8, 10 or 12 reps. Why exactly these numbers and how many repetitions should we do to maximize muscle growth? | Steroids4U.eu

Famous 8, 10 or 12 reps. Why exactly these numbers and how many repetitions should we do to maximize muscle growth?


After the demolition of several myths, we are going to start another one today ... well, it is actually not a myth and it certainly is not a major problem. It is in the gray zone, so to speak, and this issue is called the number of repetitions in each series and their effect on increased muscle mass or strength.

Since the 1950s, the bodybuilding scene has had the idea that fewer reps (1-5) with a sufficient load (about 85% or more of your 1RM - maximum per repetition) have built up strength, a medium number of repetitions (5 -12) has a better effect on muscle formation and a large number of repeats (12-15 +) have been associated with endurance. In this article, we will be interested in those ± 5 to 12/15 repetitions that are found in the so-called. “Hypertrophic range” - a range of repetitions that should have the best effect on increased muscle mass growth. But is there a direct magical range of repetitions? And why does everybody do 8, 10 or 12 reps?



Before we dive deeper, we need to clean up what we already know, thanks to a huge pool of research. Performing a small number of repetitions with great weight builds our strength. However, exercising with lower weights with a greater number of repetitions, respectively with a moderate load and a moderate number of repetitions, also affects the generation of strength. But strength gains at lower repetitions + heavy load are significantly higher! Something similar is true for muscle endurance, where training in “medium” reps helps build up, but higher reps is a better and more optimal tool for improving muscle endurance. But now we are interested in muscle mass creation, trying to find the “miracle zone” of the number of repetitions.

We have written about it a long time ago, so today just in a nutshell - how does muscle grow at all, or what factor stimulates muscle growth? From a mechanical point of view, this is mainly metabolic stress and mechanical stress. The more you load on the dumbbell and add weight (increase the mechanical tension), the less you do the repetitions (reduce metabolic stress) and vice versa. You can therefore imagine muscle growth as the center of the rope between these two competing factors. This implies, very simply, that you can use a variety of repetitions and weights for muscle growth.


Doing only rumors such as 8, or focus on a larger variety of reps?

Now a little science is coming. If we're talking about muscle growth, Brad Schoenfeld always knows what to say. Not so long ago, his team gave us not one but two researches on this issue. The first deals with the effect of small / medium number of repetitions on increased muscle growth, while the second research addresses the effect of medium and higher number of repetitions on muscle growth. Well, what we are extremely interested in is only a few dozen days ago published study, which compared exercise using only the so-called. "Optimum number of repetitions for increased muscle growth" (6-15 divided by group) versus the use of a full range of different repetitions - the use of DUP (Daily Undulating Periodization - in a nutshell, this means constantly changing workload, repetitions and series counts). And yes, everything with trained, on average 23-year-olds.

This is the first research specifically addressing this problem, using specific instruments to measure muscle endurance, thickness and size. However, we will not bore you here with a detailed and lengthy description of the study, if you look closely at it, we would rather pinpoint the potential that we can put into practice when working out in the gym. Research has shown the potential advantage of using a different number of repetitions to increase muscle growth and muscle strength in the upper body. Unfortunately, to what extent we do not know when it also depends on many other variables (type of sport, personal preferences…). It is also not entirely clear why the results were not identical with the muscles of the lower body. However, what you should take away from this is that performing repetitions in the so-called. The "hypertrophic zone" is not superior to the use of a variety of repetitions in terms of muscle strength and gain.

So is there a slight increase in muscle formation at a specific number of repetitions? Yes, it does. Should you only perform this range of repetitions? No, I didn't. Although this “zone of increased hypertrophy” when performing 6-15 repetitions results in better muscle mass growth than when performing LEN low or high number of repetitions, this benefit is not so much noticeably higher - about 10-15% only one unit of activity. Using a variety of repetitions, you can effectively influence and increase muscle production, and this publication has also shown us that by using all the repetitions, we induce almost identical elevations in muscle protein synthesis, but the pathways that signal muscle growth respond quite differently to small / medium / a large number of repetitions in a series. It follows that using only "hypertrophic" repetitions is likely to cause you to lose some muscle growth.

If we look at this question from a practical point of view, doing 6-15 reps will provide us with a hard enough workout by practicing for us with reasonable weight, doing the exercises technically correctly, not doing too much cheat repetitions, igniting the central nerve system and last but not least we have less chance of injury. Also, the load is heavy enough to provide the necessary stimulus for muscle growth. It follows that there is more or less no "miraculous" range of repetitions performed in the series, but the possibility of performing good and sufficiently heavy training. So why do they usually do rumorful 8, 10 or 12 reps? Essentially, because the average number of repetitions is probably the easiest way to create a sufficient amount of training with a sufficiently heavy iron. Let's take another example and compare the following:

3 series of 10 reps with 75kg weight (= 2250kg total)

5 series of 5 reps with a weight of 90kg (= 2250kg total)

If you do the first variant (3x10x75kg), you will work on muscle endurance. If the second variant (5x5x90kg), your power will come to the fore again. But you can see that the total volume of training would be the same, which suggests that the differences in muscle size will at best be very, very small, and the result, ie muscle growth, will be the same.

If we were to put this issue in a few sentences and provide some good conclusions with recommendations, it might look like this. To maximize hypertrophy, try to do 60-70% of your workout in the range of reps that are most convenient for you, 15-20% of exercises with higher weights and fewer reps, and the remaining 15-20% should be light weights and more reps. However, it is very important to perform all scales of repetitions and not to neglect one or the other. On the last sentence, the above mentioned and not only respected and respected Brad Schoenfeld, Eric Helms, but also the whole scientific / fitness community, which is worth watching, agree.

štvrtok 2. januára 2020

Cellulite: Nightmare affects more than 85% of women who consider themselves a disgusting mistake on their body | Steroids4U.eu

Cellulite: Nightmare affects more than 85% of women who consider themselves a disgusting mistake on their body


Don't worry, you're not alone. Cellulite affects 85-98% of post-adolescent women. If you have cellulite, even after this sentence, you should feel not as the outcast of society, but as a completely normal woman. Today you will learn more about cellulite, we will not omit the effectiveness of various preparations to get rid of it and a dose of facts and reality simply miss you. Cellulite is not a problem. It is simply a normal function, or rather, the way women deal with fat. Cellulite has vegans, bikini contestants, celebrities, models, fat women, slim women… just about everyone. But why? And how to get rid of it?

First of all, cellulite tends to be hereditary. If your mother or siblings have cellulite, it is quite likely that you will have it. You know it. Something like height, hair or eye color. It may be a proper heel, but genetics plays a huge role here. This affects how your fat is distributed and where it is stored a little more. Some women may be pretty fat, but cellulite almost circumvented them, while others may be relatively slim and the orange skin on their thighs could not be avoided.

Where was this curse of women born, why and what is it?

If you say cellulite, we'll automatically connect it to women, and it's not a coincidence. It can rarely occur in men and is due to the composition of human skin. The skin and its tissue have three base layers. The top layer consists of a tissue called the dermis. Protects the body from external contaminants. The middle layer consists of fibrous connective tissue, which can also be referred to as a surface fascia. It is stronger than the dermis and acts as an internal component in the skin support. The backsheet is formed of adipose tissue. It also has its functions, whether in isolation of the body, in internal organs or in providing energy.

Said surface fascia, which is responsible for keeping body fat in place, is arranged in men as a cross pattern that is strong and consistent. The fat is under the skin and it is simply smooth and elastic. In women, however, this fascia is largely irregular and has a vertical distribution, which creates a "bee coat" under the dermis, a layer of connective tissue skin that protects the body from damage. When fat accumulates, it moves in clusters towards the skin, giving the skin a lumpy appearance, or in other words, cellulite. This is further exacerbated by localized lymphatic fluid accumulation, and research suggests that it contains many so-called lymphatic fluids. glycosaminoglycans, which attract water to adipose tissues, causing even more extensive "swelling" in areas affected by cellulite, and thus may be even more pronounced.


Since cellulite is related to the structural composition of connective tissue, it is obvious to everyone that some creams and ointments are simply a waste of money. As Brad Schoenfeld said: “It is not possible that any such external application can penetrate the skin and“ reconfigure ”the underlying connective tissue.” This is also mentioned in the last year's summary, in which the researchers made a clear statement. "There is no non-invasive (without any intervention in the body, such as a needle) method for getting rid of cellulite." We have another summary showing that none of those fancy cellulite products work.

So how to get rid of it? When I am ashamed of such a cliché, it will help exercise and eating. These are not methods that will remove cellulite once and for all, but will make it less visible. You just need to lose some fat and gain muscle, and with that, resistance training and proper diet will help.

If I mentioned at the beginning that we cannot call cellulite a problem, then I was actually wrong. We can. But a mental problem. Often it is just a pursuit of perfectionism that does not exist. Media and photoshop models run around women's heads, and they think their cellulite is something to be ashamed of. Even men don't take it as negative as women themselves. In real life, those normal men know that some of the stretch marks and cellulite markings are simply normal in women and are not breathtaking and terrible. The fact that this is a mistake is only forced by the media and convinces every single woman that perfection exists, cellulite is a mistake, and… and .. come and buy this gel, we need to earn. Any man judging the value of a woman based on some cellulite is probably a fool because we all know that in the real world there is no Photoshop, not a good looking photo, always the best light highlighting our muscles, filters or perfect angles. Men should value a woman for what she is and not for any marks on her thighs or buttocks.

utorok 31. decembra 2019

Exercise is an amazing activity that supplies us with many benefits | Steroids4U.eu

Exercise is an amazing activity that supplies us with many benefits and not just strength and muscle mass. These 7 reasons will convince you


Let's start a bit motivational. A study of 400,000 people who trained on average only 92 minutes per week told us that such subjects have a 14% lower chance of death for any reason. Just a short day's exercise (15 minutes) helps us reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It pays, doesn't it? Many researchers consider exercise to be the closest thing to miracle treatment in many areas. Let's take a look at some of them where exercise can be done. resistance training a real cure and this time it will not just be an obvious gain in muscle mass and strength.

1. Your mental health will thank you

Strength training contributes greatly to mental health, improving memory, reducing the risk of depression, improving sleep quality, helping with chronic fatigue, and improving cognitive ability. Somehow in a nutshell. Last year there was a big meta-analysis on exercise & depression. Exercise (both aerobic and a mix of others) has been found to have a very significant impact on this poor mental state and all data suggests that exercise is a legitimate, science-supported treatment for depression. The authors of the meta-analysis say that the evidence is so clear that we would need approximately 1,000 studies that negate this fact in order to think that this may not be true. Resistant training greatly reduces the symptoms of anxiety that may be associated with depression, mood swings, sleep disturbances and fatigue. This factor is studied quite a bit and the results are really unreal. One of the very nice benefits is that exercise helps us feel better and be more balanced with each other, and resistant training is generally associated with better quality of life. Do you want to feel better, be more self-confident and well-tuned? Practice.

2. If you are trying to lose weight, you should exercise in addition to calorie restriction

Weight loss is influenced by two essential things that every Fitclan follower is already familiar with. It is primarily a caloric deficit, a period when you receive fewer calories than your body emits. However, if the caloric deficit itself is combined with resistant training, miracles happen. The weight loss process is more effective, so if you're trying to lose weight, try focusing on exercise. First, you will look better, the girls will become more shaped, not just flat and poor and at the same time encourage more effective loss of fat. Not to mention that the muscle building process requires more energy, but we wrote that in our earlier article. Do you want to lose weight more efficiently and shape your character? Practice.

3. Bone density is a very important factor

Especially women who are in a long-term calorie deficit and literally hurt themselves should be aware. They can lose up to 4% of bone mineral density (bone density) per year under conditions of long-term caloric restriction and this loss can be permanent! Something such a number of women underestimates or does not know about, the menstrual cycle is less than a year long, holding a low percentage of fat, and they are more fond of Instagram and stellar belly. Although we turn a bit, but amenorrhea is associated with, among other things, heart disease, infertility, fatigue, sleep disorders, greater risk of inflammation, negative digestive system adjustments, PCOS or thyroid problems, or even scarring of uterine tissue or podmozgovym tumor. This is the first thing related to diet. The second thing associated with training is that weight training increases bone density and reduces the risk of osteoporosis. In meta-analysis, resistant training has been shown to prevent or ameliorate 1% of bone loss per year in adult women, and there has been shown an increase in bone mineral density of 1-3%. In the two-year research this positive effect was again, when the improvement climbed up to 3.2%. In any case, it is not enough to just exercise and be years in deficit.

As mentioned by B. Schoenfeld, resistant training counteracts bone loss through the process of bone remodeling and contributes to the development of bone osteoblasts. These are the cells that re-create the bones. Some of the benefits can also be achieved by aerobic exercise, especially in the lower body, but resistance training is the best way to maintain and improve the overall strength of bone mass. Do you want to have healthy bones, joints and tendons not only now, but even when you're older? Practice.

4. You will improve your memory and other cognitive functions

Cognitive functions allow us to think, recognize, learn, remember things. These are all those at first sight automatic things like concentration, understanding of information, memory, perception, ability to plan, solve problems, judge things and so on. It is crazy to imagine that such a thing simply would not work in humans. However, resistant training helps us greatly in these processes, significantly affecting all cognitive functions. Do you want to be smarter, more attentive, remember more, and simply have better cognitive functions? Practice.

5. Alleviate aging and loss of muscle mass or strength at an older age

We know that if a person has a totally sedentary lifestyle and almost does not move at all, from about 30 years of age begins to lose muscle mass. This represents about 1% of muscle mass loss (depending on man) and 1-3% of strength loss. However, when a person is active, has enough protein and exercises, he can push this limit up to the age of 50! During exercise, positive changes were observed in 179 genes associated with age and exercise, and the conclusions of various investigations are clear. Resistant training can reverse the aging factors. Do you want to be stronger and more muscular even at an older age? Practice.

6. You give your farewell to the diseases, or at least keep them far apart

This is probably quite logical. The more muscle mass and less fat through training and good diet, the more illnesses will be circumvented. Exercise has strong anti-inflammatory properties, which are often a risk factor not only for heart disease. The skeletal muscle is a secretory organ and releases anti-inflammatory proteins called myokines, which then circulate in the bloodstream and work with other organs. In this research, resistant training was enough only twice a week and significant decreases in several indicators of inflammation in overweight women have already been noted. As a result of the exercise, we will also improve blood lipid profiles, and this analysis says that resistant training is definitely effective in lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol. In a further analysis, strength training is recommended to reduce obesity and at the same time as one of the solutions to metabolic disorders, and it is also often declining insulin sensitivity. In this research exercise was identified as a very important factor in the prevention of 35 chronic diseases and the treatment of 26 chronic diseases. You want to be healthy? Practice.

7. Pain will be a thing of the past. Even though…

Often it is just the opposite and many times we just say that sports to permanent disability. However, this is mostly caused by driving for heavy weights without proper warm-up, incorrect technique or simply bad luck. However, resistant training alone can fight pain, and much research has been done on probably the most common pain - back pain. Training is therefore a science-supported and health-promoting medicine. If you have pain, mostly in the lower back, exercise.

Exercise is just great. Many change us not only physically but also mentally, and as we have said, it is a real cure.


nedeľa 29. decembra 2019

Shoulders or triceps are not small muscle parts. Forget such mislabeling and learn more relevant names | Steroids4U.eu

Shoulders or triceps are not small muscle parts. Forget such mislabeling and learn more relevant names


“What are you practicing today? Ooooh, I will have one big body, chest today, and a small one, for example, shoulders. ' Probably yes. We have been naming muscle parts for a long time, depending on whether it is small or large. Biceps are rooted as a small game, as shoulders or triceps. Legs, chest or back are big muscle parts. Today you will find that it is not so.


Thanks to the new publication, we should all recover a little and choose better words when we talk about muscle parts. Do not use “big” or “small” because it is considerably inaccurate. Such mislabeling is even used in many studies, be it the lower or upper body. This is because we focus on the visual perception of muscle size and not the actual muscle volume. A few studies have referred to shoulder exercises as small muscle exercises, but triceps is actually one of the largest muscles in the body by volume. Even larger than latissimus dorsi (back) or pectoralis major (chest), these muscles are considered to be large muscle parts. area, ie length and width.

Moving the pulley to the triceps or tightening the shoulders are probably known to you. The usual naming of the exercises, respectively. Exercise for “small” muscle parts, and this is incorrect. Instead, it should be said that this is a one-joint exercise in which muscle work is less than in multi-joint exercises. Instead of evil concepts, say we know multi-articulated resp. complex exercises (squats, deadlifts, benchpress, backslides…) or vice versa Insulated exercises (stumbling, kicking, restraining, pulling the pulley on the triceps, furnace deck…) in which we strike the individual muscles.

Thanks to studies and measurements, we know that the largest muscle part of the upper body is the shoulders, followed by the triceps and chest. Thighs and buttocks dominate the lower body.


štvrtok 26. decembra 2019

Can squats also cause greater muscle growth in the upper body | Steroids4U.eu

Can squats also cause greater muscle growth in the upper body and to what extent do they increase growth hormone production?


We hope that the following information will not resolve any of our readers. Leg training is extremely important for several reasons that we discussed in earlier articles, and that squats are one of the best exercises ever to be bigger and stronger. In any case, you have already heard several times the question of what is the best exercise for biceps. And you have read several times that the answer was one-word. Squats. Today we will look at whether such an answer is relevant or whether it is a broscience assertion of a promoted macaque. To help you call another expert on nutrition, sports, strength training, but especially the author of many super books, using his irony to fight the stupidity and nonsense in the world of fitness. Lyle McDonald's his name, and if you haven't followed him yet, be sure to remember that name. Squats, upper body muscles, hormones, leg training & bigger biceps… let's put it all together.



Taking a closer look at testosterone or growth hormone, we find that testosterone is far more anabolic than growth hormone. Yes, growth hormone helps in losing fat, it is also amazing for connective tissue, but it does not miraculously affect muscle growth or strength. However, on the other hand, testosterone is highly anabolic, when it even builds muscles without training them.

We know long ago that muscle growth is primarily a local effect caused by a combination of tension, exertion, muscle damage, and the most important factor - the local hormonal response. Many years ago, researchers have identified the IGF-1 (Insulin like Growth Factor) model in muscles called Mechano Growth Factor, which is crucial for the anabolic response.

Finally, we are getting a little encircling to the merits, as we needed to clarify and organize the ideas on this issue through the two previous paragraphs. It is not only on the lines above that we can prioritize, and thus local muscle training that we want to focus on will bring us better results than using foot training to "chase" hormones and pray for a larger biceps. This statement is confirmed by scholarly literature with an exhaustive analysis by Brad Schoenfeld, who mentioned that if there is any direct link between the influence of hormones caused by squatting or leg training and increased muscle growth (eg upper limbs), this benefit would be maximized only up to 8%. However, the potential impact mentioned requires further investigation, but in the real world for physical exercisers this is absolutely negligible.


The steady and long-standing claim that leg training tremendously affects your muscle gains throughout the body, even without their direct training, is unfortunately not true. Another important thing to remember is that squatting is basically an exercise where we engage muscles all over the body (whether the back, the center of the body or even your hand - holding a dumbbell…), which indirectly also stimulates these muscles. Drep is simply one of the most important exercises where it is one of the leading exercises not only for beautiful and round butt. It is also worth mentioning - have you ever seen a man who is training his legs hard and really hard and does not train everything else, including the top of the body? We doubt it. People who practice their legs and do not miss leg workouts (real leg workouts, not 2 half-squat series) usually put energy into hard upper body workouts. He who trains his legs hard, he trains everything, and everything grows. A person who coughs on his feet and exercises only the top of his body cannot simply expect his feet to grow, as growth is a local effect and the hormonal response is basically insignificant.

As with all fitness things in life, the foundation is specialization and goal setting. If you want to be good at benches = go beneath, if in zumba - continue to grow to the rhythm of music. Do you want to make 30 turns at once? So bending exercise will be your way. Want bigger biceps? Exercise biceps. Unfortunately, the motivated answers that squats are the best exercise for biceps are false.

utorok 24. decembra 2019

How does little sleep affect your performance not only in strength, learning or health? You'll also find out how sweet naps are during the day | Steroids4U.eu

How does little sleep affect your performance not only in strength, learning or health? You'll also find out how sweet naps are during the day


Let me start with one beautiful, motivated quote: "While you sleep, your opponent is training!". Uhm, okay. Let's leave this to everyone who shares motivational pictures on Facebook 7 times a day, while not moving their fingers a day. In today's article, we look at how sleep deficits affect not only our health, memory, learning, but also performance. Next, we will find out how it is with the afternoon nap and you will certainly get a lot of new and interesting information again.

Wound under the belt at the outset because we have to say that sports performance (eg speed, endurance), neurocognitive functions (attention, memory), physical health (illness, risk of injury or weight maintenance) all proved to be negatively affected if one coughs to sleep and actually has a lack of it, or somehow limits it. Perhaps I did not discourage people from further reading, but it is probably clear to any average intelligent person that when there is little sleep, it may not reflect positively. However, it is interesting that many athletes still do not have enough sleep. Compared to non-athletes, they tend to sleep less (around 6.5 to 6.7 hours per night) and even their sleep quality is lower. We can only guess why this is so, but probably what-and-do training plans, the times they train, traveling (jet-lag), pre-competition anxiety, and so on.


Sleep Deficiency & Performance

There are several overlapping areas within the exercise that have been severely negatively affected by sleep deficits. For example, we talk about speed, stamina, strength, attention, executive functions (acting, thinking) or learning (for example, new movements).

Physical performance

The researches were of different character. These two solved the performance and speed of a man on a treadmill all night without sleep. In one case, the distance was smaller, and in the other, the performance deteriorated. Among other things, it turned out that one night without sleep can affect that we will not rule a little before we get used to and increase oxygen consumption during rest and also the rest production of carbon dioxide. During one test during cycling, they found an increase in heart rate and oxygen consumption, as well as higher lactate levels. Again on a single night without sleep. Even a slight sleep restriction can negatively affect accuracy during sports performance. For example, when researching tennis players who slept for less than 5 hours, they found that their first strike accuracy dropped from 37 to 53% as early as the first night. Loss of accuracy has also been shown in research when throwing arrows after a night's sleep limited to 4-5 hours compared to full-time sleep. And let's have a basketball. They investigated the effect of increasing sleep time from an average of 6.6 to 8.5 hours per night. After five weeks, the subjects increased speed by 5%, throw accuracy by 9%, and the threes also tossed 9.2% more accurately. Such benefits of increasing sleep time have also been shown here (this time by 2 hours), again in tennis players, where their accuracy of administration has improved by 5%. The research summary says: "Sleep deficit has a direct physiological effect, manifested by reduced speed, accuracy and endurance."

You ask what about your benchpress, squats and other exercises? There is one good and one bad news. The good news is that studies examining the strength and performance of lifting dumbbells in conjunction with sleep deficits show mixed results. The bad news is that some of the results were negative. Here in ten (yes, we know few) weightlifters, there was no noticeable difference in performance during one night without sleep, but the negative existed in the form of increased fatigue and sleepiness. In another, they found that the force was not adversely affected, also during one night without sleep. However, in another weightlifting study, they found that a three-day sleep deficit was associated with a lower workload (less kilograms) in exercises where the largest muscle groups were involved. The studies were small and used different strategies.

In general, therefore, it can be seen that the combination of low sleep = poor performance is here. Already 4-5 hours of sleep compared to 7-8 hours (which is recommended for most adults) can, or can negatively affect performance in many ways, although purely in the activity of lifting the dumbbells is all sorts of things. Personally, I think it already plays a role in more factors in life (and days around training) and while some are cool, others may be weaker. Either way, all research suggests that adequate sleep plays an extremely important role!


Neurocognitive performance - attention, executive functions (thinking about strategy, making decisions) and learning (new strategies, memory)

Attention turns out to be a highly individualized matter and one sleep deficit can do much more harm than another. However, several conclusions agree that little sleep negatively affects the above-mentioned attention and even. In executive functions, studies tend to speak the same language - little sleep adversely affects an athlete's ability to make quick decisions, read and change tactics, and respond to opponent's strategy changes. And in learning? Sufficiently long sleep enhances faster and higher performance in learned tasks that require physical realization, not to mention that it enables better classification of learned information in the brain.

Sleep Deficiency & Health

Little sleep, poor performance, but great health? Unfortunately not. Numerous studies show the link between sleep deprivation and the risk of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, and unfortunately 40 years of research suggests that little sleep has a higher mortality rate.

It is accumulated that lack of sleep increases the risk of injury, respectively. accidents. Mostly these are only correlations (for example, little sleep = higher accident rate, 1.7x higher chance of injury during exercise, and so on), but in connection with the things we discussed above, it is quite relevant and there will certainly be something to it. In addition to injuries, it is also susceptible to disease. In this study, participants monitored the length of their sleep and were given a dose of cold virus, a classic cold. Those who slept less than 7 hours were three times more prone than those with a sleep time of 8 hours or more. Similar conclusions have been shown here. So if you don't want to have an increased risk of developing a bitch who triggers a volcano, coughs and feels under your dog, you'd better sleep. Sleep also plays a role in pain management, but in this study they found a reduced pain threshold of 8% after one night without sleep, and there was a 5-10% increase in pain size by a full night without sleep or disturbed sleep. This can be useful not only for various athletes, but also for ordinary people who go to the dentist, for example.


What about the nap during the day?

First of all, it is best to sleep within normal circadian rhythm, ie at night. But, fortunately, there is the potential to drive performance in conditions where one has limited sleep. But beware, the nap counts as a nap. Not like a three-hour nap! Indeed, a longer nap (more than 30 minutes) has a connection with worsened performance after waking, with such hesitation and shakiness, and also napping at a later part of the day can have a negative effect on good sleep during the night. Therefore, it is recommended to use the classic nap at the latest at 3 pm to 5 pm. In any case, as we mentioned, the effect of a nap on physical performance may or may not be here. Unfortunately, there are few researches and they are very tiny (although some have found the positive effects), so we will not dare say anything completely to the dot. But for the sake of interest, we will mention a few. In a mini-research, they found that a 30-minute nap during a night's sleep shorter helped to improve alertness, attention, sprint time along with other variables; their physical performance before training. The summary of all the research on the topic of nap rather underlines benefits such as better vigilance, reaction time, accuracy, fatigue reduction and the like. But let's be honest. If such little things accumulate, the performance is likely to be higher for many. A nap may have a positive effect on performance, but is likely to be highly individualized and will depend primarily on the type of performance, the total day of the person, the days before, and the size of the sleep deficit at night.