Sleep And Lifting Weights: How Building Muscle Is Directly Tied To Owning The Perfect Mattress

Most of the time, the last thing you’re thinking about after leaving the gym is immediately hitting the hay and thinking about your mattress situation. New research and science further supports what we’ve known all along, though, and that is that restorative sleep and owning a great mattress is critical if you want to capitalize on that workout.

An intense work out pushing weights at the gym is invigorating and will often juice you up for a night out. If you work out in the evening, which is the typical time frame for most people who work during the day, you might want to burn some of that energy off. Instead, we advise powering down and letting your body repair torn muscle fibers and stressed connective tissue, so that you build additional muscle and bulk, which is mission critical if you are trying to build mass.

The mattress you sleep on should also be a critical factor if you are an elite athlete or train frequently, that is 3-5 times per week or more. You can check out our performance page which discusses how poor sleep habits drastically alters athletic performance and even suggests where athletes can buy a mattress designed to enhance performance and provide results that build mass and properly support an athlete’s body.

It turns out that restorative and uninterrupted sleep is critical for strength training recovery and assists with muscle repair after a strenuous workout. At the same time, inadequate sleep hygiene and failure to get 7-9 hours of deep REM sleep can interfere with the body’s ability to recover after pushing weights and inhibits the body’s ability to build maximum muscle strength. You should also consume protein supplements and drink a lot of water immediately post workout, and if in the evening, shower, wind down, and get into bed within 3 hours of your workout.

Along with supplemental dietary protein to assist with muscle repair and additive muscle fiber growth, your body manufactures its own muscle-growing hormones while you sleep, including HGH, or human growth hormone. While you’re in the middle of what is called the N3 stage of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep, blood flow to your muscles dramatically surges, and tissue growth along with repair begins to occur. During REM sleep (rapid eye movement), muscle tissue tends to go limp and relax, which relieves tension and can help minimize certain types of chronic pain. Much of the restorative functions in the body which are critical, such as tissue repair and muscle growth, occurs when when we are sleeping.

Weightlifting And Owning The Right Mattress Are Your Partners In Building Muscle Mass

The mattress you have chosen to help build muscle along with your gym regimen should provide buoyant and uplifting support, help distribute your body weight laterally and not downward, and should be comfortable enough to allow your hips and shoulders to immerse slightly. Spine alignment is extremely important, and during nights of recovery sleep, you don’t want your body to have to work against your mattress, which is common with lower priced promotional grade beds that bottom out easily or don’t push upward to levitate your body. Click here to see who we recommend for the most uplifting performance type mattresses. 

A tightly maintained sleep schedule of 7-9 hours a night (or more if you are an elite athlete) will greatly speed up the muscle-healing process.

In addition to muscle strengthening and tissue building, neurological processes such as coordination, transmission speed, and neuron proliferation improves with restorative sleep. The right mattress plays a big part of these physiological processes. As an example, basketball players who added an additional two hours of sleep to their sleep regimen enjoyed a five percent increase in reaction time and acceleration on the court. Sleep is vital for improving and locking down muscle recall linked to body movements. Along with muscle repair and growth which occurs during sleep, this allows for dramatic improvement of athletic performance. 

A mattress with a built-in system of pocketed coils suspends and supports the body uniformly, evenly distributing weight and minimizing pinpoint pressure, and is a really good option for performance athletes who want to capitalize on muscle building when at rest. 

The exercise-sleep cycle really cuts two ways: strength training itself can deliver a better night’s rest. Research shows that individuals who lift weights may fall asleep faster, have better restorative and deeper sleep, and wake up less frequently during the night. Not a weight lifter? Get the same benefits with  running, yoga, or aerobics. Any type of exercise where you increase heart rate is beneficial will contribute to a better night’s sleep. Good rule of thumb: avoid getting into bed within two hours of an intense work out.

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