Training and Insomnia

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

Felt this would be better directed to the training board rather than the medical board, as the question is in regard to training. I have been struggling with some fairly trenchant insomnia that I am addressing through CBTI with a psychologist (not at risk for sleep apnea per the questionnaire in the “Where should my priorities be for improving my health” article, and have struggled with anxiety and sleep issues before, so that seems to be the best approach). This is helping, but a lot of the CBTI strategies do involve some measure of, effectively, sleep deprivation, especially early on. I am continuing to train while doing this. Two main questions:

  1. Any approach I should be taking other than using RPE to guide the training I’m doing and not worrying about numbers for now? (I’m running powerbuilding 1+have signed up for BBM group programming for next month). I have found my performance has not really suffered, at least not yet, though I have had days I’ve used RPE to decrease weight. To the extent it matters, last 1RMs were:

PR: 175
BP: 290 (TNG)
DL: 455
SQ: 385

  1. Nutritionally, I’m focused on losing fat right now (I’m 6’0’’ ~200 lbs with a ~36’’ waist; I lost about 10 lbs using TBAB prior to the sleep issues popping up). Is there any reason it would be better to eat at maintenance until I resolve the issues with insomnia (e.g., avoiding excessive LBM loss), and then transition to fat loss, or should I just continue my current plan for fat loss?

Thank you!

2

Carl,

Thanks for the post and hopefully you’re on the right track with managing your insomnia!

As for your questions:

  1. Nope. RPE would be sufficient here. Happy to have you in our group!

  2. I don’t know that you need to lose a bunch of weight right now to improve your health, so I’d probably put it on pause until you start getting some more consistent sleep.

-Jordan

3

Thank you!

4

I think that a new mattress or blanket can help you with insomnia. It helped me a lot at the time.

5

It is perfectly normal to sometimes sleep poorly or suffer from insomnia. This becomes a serious problem when people become anxious and fixate on their inability to sleep.