Can you really build muscle while you sleep? - Advertisement

Flex, Dec, 2002

...The Answer May Surprise You!

Here's a fact most people forget: you don't build muscle when you're working out... you build muscle at rest... making the 6-8 hours while you sleep the most productive muscle-building period of your 24-hour day. That's why the new "nighttime" proteins have created such a buzz, and are the most talked-about sports nutrition products on the market today.

But do nighttime proteins really work? Are they all the same? And what is a real nighttime protein, anyway? Well, the "simple" answer is... it all depends.

So What Is A Nighttime Protein?

Obviously, a nighttime protein is a protein compound intended to be taken at night, before you go to bed. But just because you take a protein supplement right before you go to sleep, that doesn't make it a "nighttime protein." Confused? Read it again. Still confused? You're not alone.

The problem with the nighttime protein debate is that almost every day, some company simply slaps a picture of the moon on a container of ordinary protein and says, "Bam! We've got a nighttime protein!" It's not that easy.

Just tagging an ordinary protein product with the term "time-release" or "PM formula" doesn't make it a nighttime protein.

Real nighttime protein formulations are hugely different from ordinary protein products. True nighttime proteins are carefully engineered and extremely complex compounds designed for one purpose... to effectively confront every aspect of nighttime muscle growth. Not daytime muscle growth... but nighttime muscle growth.

A true nighttime protein addresses each phase of the sleep cycle... from the minute your head hits the pillow to the minute you wake up in the morning. Unless each and every phase of the nocturnal sleep cycle is accounted for, you will never maximize your nighttime muscle growth potential. Simple whey proteins and meal replacement formulas (MRPs) just don't cut it.

Now, don't get us wrong... whey and meal replacements are great to use during waking hours, when your body is active. But at night, while you sleep, your body's chemical and physiological environment changes... and changes drastically. Taking full advantage of this unique physiochemical state will dramatically improve your weight-training results. In other words, nighttime proteins will not only get you bigger, leaner, and stronger, but consistent nighttime protein use will help you wake up feeling more refreshed, will minimize recovery time between intense workouts, and will burn through extra body fat more effectively.

Sleep: Your Most Anabolic State

As we said earlier, your muscles don't actually grow at the gym. Oh sure, they get pumped (a condition called transient hypertrophy), but your weight-training sessions, as hard as they may be, are just the stimulus for muscle growth.

Muscles grow during rest! And no other time is potentially more anabolic than the 6-8 hours you spend sleeping. (1) Don't get enough sleep? Then don't expect to grow to your body's full potential. Don't get high-quality sleep? Again, limited gains.

Even if you get a good night's sleep, you're still limiting your growth potential if you're not taking a real nighttime protein complex--a formulation that not only ensures you get quality sleep, but also maximizes your nocturnally induced physiochemical environment.

The Four Fundamental Stages Of Nocturnal Muscle Growth

Stage I: Initiating Slow-Wave Sleep

Getting into deep, slow-wave, non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep as soon as possible is critical to maximizing nighttime muscle growth. This is where taking an everyday whey or MRP just doesn't cut it--there's nothing in either a whey or MRP to help you fall asleep fast,

And if you take thermogenic stimulants throughout the day, then you really need something to help get you to sleep. The most effective nighttime formulas contain ingredients clinically shown to counteract stimulants, help you get to sleep quickly, and promote a more restful night's sleep. Herbs such as valerian root, passion flower, and chamomile extracts are powerful sleep aids, as are melatonin and other amino acid derivatives such as L-theanine or minerals such as zinc and magnesium. (2,3,4,5)

Stage II: Priming The Insulin Pump

While your nighttime protein is putting you to sleep it should also be priming your body's hormonal environment with the release of insulin. However, at night, you don't want to consume a bunch of carbs to get your insulin to spike. What you want to do is stimulate insulin release without drastically elevating blood glucose levels (elevated blood glucose levels can send a negative feedback signal to your pituitary gland, telling it not to release growth hormone) (6)

Instead, taking a small amount of fructose targets your liver glucose stores. (7) Once glucose is present, insulin is released and shuttled to your liver, exactly where you Want it when GH is secreted from your pituitary. Having insulin present to bind with GH in your liver helps to maximize the conversion of growth hormone into IGF-l (insulin-like growth factor-I) and IOF-il. IGF-I, the most anabolic of the two growth factors, can then enter your circulatory system, where it liberates fatty acids to be used as fuel, helping to build lean muscle. (8) No MRP, whey protein, or, frankly, any ordinary "daytime" protein supplement is designed with this GH/insulin interaction in mind.