I feel like the opening hot take on sacrificing sleep for a workout missed the mark and is more common than they think. Quick poll: on average, how many days per week do you sacrifice sleep for a workout?
6am wake up & rise and to bed at 9:30pm every day.
Evening workouts during the week at 6pm.
Morning workouts on the weekend at 7am or later.
Goal is equal times to bed and to get up every day regardless. I supplement with a 20-minute nap over lunch 3-5 times per week based on feel. I only “sacrifice” sleep unintentionally via stress or out of the norm trips & events.
This was a big issue when my daughter was less than 1. I might be up multiple times in the night (and multiple days of the week) to rock her, feed her, etc. when the alarm would go off at 4:45 I’d lay there exhausted trying to decide whether to sleep in till 6 and skip my workout or get some caffeine and push through even though I had a night of interrupted, low quality sleep
My wife and I decided to try a strategy where one person would take baby duty for the whole night. Which meant if you were on duty you might be getting up 4 time during the night and get less than 6 hours of (low quality of sleep). But the nights you were off duty you could get 7-8 hours of decent sleep. I was just never sure if it was better to get the good night of sleep the night before a hard workout (to be well rested) or the night after (to be better recovered)
Little kids were part of it but mostly just work hours. Lots of early morning starts, shift work, long days, kiddo activities after work, giving the wife a break when I get home, commute, etc.
I’ve been trying to get more sleep and actually skipped this morning’s ride due to a late night of activities last night but it’s an ongoing effort for sure. The long term health impacts aren’t lost on me, either.
“Simple life” for me with a regular schedule that includes time for workouts at reasonable hours. That said, anyone with cats (we have 2) knows that they are can be just as much an interruption for sleep as kiddos. So I have it pretty good from a time up/down & duration perspective, but I do get more than a few wakeups other than the ones from my aging body
My youngest kid is six, so not many wake ups in the middle of the night, but I still try to be off the bike soon after he wakes up on the weekends, hence sacrificing sleep for workouts most days of the week.
Frankly I think it’s untenable to sacrifice sleep for a workout. Something has to give, either your health or the training. In my case, my health (and family) suffered, so I stopped structured training.
For those that have been sacrificing sleep for working out, I submit that you aren’t actually sacrificing sleep or you just haven’t hit that wall yet. As @Nate_Pearson mentioned on AACC today, multiple days of 7 hours sleep in a row leaves him suffering while for me, 7 hours of sleep is a godsend.
I get roughly 7 hours sleep most nights. I found the more I stressed about getting 8 hours the worse I actually slept.
I start work at 6am and get up around 4am most mornings to get an hour zone 2 outside ride in on my commute to work. I really enjoy this morning ride, I feel it does more mentally and physically for me than an extra hours sleep would.
Agreed that it’s not optimal. I’ve cut back my training hours in a couple of steps and probably need to cut more. Right now my commute is the biggest challenge. I live an hour from work without traffic. Every minute after 6 am that I leave for work costs an additional minute of commute time (6:15 departure means arrive by7:30, 6:30 —> 8:00, etc).
Work start time is flexible right now but will become less so next year. I can easily do Z2 rides at the gym at work but not structured intervals. Still working with the gym for 24/7 access, too.
With a 6 month old and being back in the office, I basically have to choose between waking up at 4:15 every morning and missing out on about 2.5 hours or sleeping until 6:45 when she wakes up and not having time to workout for the day. I suppose I could go to bed at 8 or 9pm to try to get almost adequate sleep, but then that would mean only having about an hour or so of decompression and hanging out with the wife once the baby goes down. Long story short, I sacrifice sleep every morning that I have a workout (currently 6 days/wk on HV plan) and I’ve cut back my volume about 50% from pre-baby.
I get hit on both ends. I get up at 5am during the week because my wife works out before going to work. I then workout after my daughter leaves for school.
On the weekend I get up at 5 am because we tend to ride outside at sunrise in Houston due to the heat.
As a result, I am lights out at 9pm. As others have mentioned, I’m over 50, which means I get up a few times in the night, so I’m happy when my Fenix says I got 7 hours. I’ve been on that schedule for 25 years now, so no matter how late i go to bed, I haven’t slept past 7am in at least a decade.
@RJones07 yes! This is my story too, except I’m doing a MV plan. Dropping to LV doesn’t change much time wise because I’d still fill in the gaps.
I started out LV, but I realized I was just filling in the off days and moved to MV after a few weeks, then I figured HV is only an extra day, considering I was already selecting longer alternates on my workout days, so here we are.
I’m super jealous.
