Hi guys,
I’m wondering if there is some non-functional overreaching/potentially overtraining syndrome causing sleep disturbances? About one year ago, I developed some middle of the night insomnia that I eventually used Sleepio CBT-i to address. I tracked sleep daily as part of the Sleepio course, which lasted about 8 weeks. I happened to also be switching from a high volume/moderate intensity block to a lowish volume/high intensity block in the second week of the Sleepio course. Within one week of switching to the low volume work, I was sleeping very soundly and full nights. At the time I attributed this improvement to the Sleepio course. Fast forward to the last couple weeks of the Sleepio course, I started up a development/high volume block again and the middle of the night insomnia came back instantly. This trend has continued over the last 2-3 cycles of 4-6 week high volume blocks followed by 3-4 week low volume mesocycles. I’ve continued what I would normally program for myself and have been stubborn, thinking “what am I going to do- not train high volume?”
Anyways, I just wanted to check to see your opinion on whether you’ve seen this association between high training stress and sleep issues. I figured it’s entirely possible that I may be fooled by randomness and perhaps the sleep issues are not caused by the biological response to high training stress. Also of note, I’ve been using Sleepio strategies to hopefully mitigate nocebo effect causing poor sleep and think I’m using these strategies correctly, however I realize there still could be nocebo effect of me thinking high volume might cause sleep issues.
Thanks for your input!
First of all, nice work self-managing with the CBT-I work in the past.
It’s difficult to say for sure given the number of potential confounders that are always present in these discussions, but it’s plausible that there may be a relationship here.
I’d suggest continued experimentation to find a dose and formulation of training that works well for you – both in terms of training response and also sleep quality. If you were making good progress on the lower volume work, it’s obviously fine to stick with that - it’s certainly what we would do if we could respond to a lower dose of training! If not, and you suspect that you may need a higher dose of training volume, a more gradual transition (say, adding a work set every 1-2 weeks, as needed) may work better for you than an abrupt switch between a low and high dose of training stress. Another possibility may be that training volume you’re doing on the “higher” volume approach may itself still be at too high of a relative intensity - which is another factor to experiment with.
Hope this helps.
Thanks so much, Austin!
Yeah, I was happy to be accepted into a Sleepio trial as the program did feel really beneficial. I plan to continue refining my use of CBT-i principles while also implementing your suggestions. A more gradual progression into higher volume seems to be a prudent direction for me. For a while I’ve been using a block periodization that does have more of an abrupt transition between mesocycles. I was also trying to using Emerging Strategies so I think maybe I felt too connected to maintaining the same microcycle from week to week and didn’t plan to gradually progress volume, as you recommended. For my situation, the gradual progression might be enough to allow me to adapt to the specific training stress at an appropriate rate. You also raise a good point about the relatively higher volume phase occurring with too high a relative intensity. I’m looking forward to experimenting with these changes as lift performance has been fairly stagnant overall.
Your response was helpful. I really appreciate your generosity of time to answer my question.