Sleeping a lot--normal?

Creator

Topic
February 24, 2021 at 9:50 am #51190

emwa
Participant

Hello everyone. I’m 8 weeks into the 24 week mountaineering program. From a workout and fitness perspective, I feel great. I can tell I’m getting fitter and I finish most of my z2 workouts (long days aside) feeling bright and exhilarated.

But I’m sleeping *a lot*–like 10 hours a night and even then I might feel sleepy during the day. On weekends I might go down for a few hour nap in addition to a long night’s sleep.

This is the first time I’ve done structured training and the first time I’ve been so consistent with aerobic work. I know from the past that lifting does make me very tired, but I’m not lifting a ton on this program and I’m wondering if all this sleep is normal.

Has anyone else new to training had this experience? It makes sense to me that I would need a little extra sleep from more training, but this is starting to feel absurd…

Appreciate hearing about anyone’s experience!
Creator

Topic

Posted In: General Training Discussion

Participant

TPL3 on February 24, 2021 at 6:18 pm #51221

EMWA. Sleeping lots while undergoing heavy training can be both cause and effect. If you are sleeping lots, recovering, and feeling more fit, that’s wonderful. I don’t know how old you are, but when I was younger I found myself particularly able to absorb hard training with sleep. On the counter, really hard days can sometime make one sleep restlessly. Good sleep hygiene, with consistent bed and rise times, caffeine caution, rituals/etc can help you better monitor if you are going in right direction. Pro endurance athletes sleep tons. Chicken and egg. Tom

Participant

TerryLui on February 25, 2021 at 1:34 pm #51253

TPL3 has good suggestions!

Your situation is understandable and not entirely surprising.
Lifting weights uses a different system than aerobic endurance, so with this being new aerobic training for you (if I read that correctly), continue giving your body the rest it needs.
You can expect to feel this drowsiness (at varying levels) as you continue forward. Key is to pay attention to how your subconscious is reacting for upcoming training days. Once you start feeling less excited/not motivated for the day’s training, your body is telling you to dial it back. Add in an extra rest day or go for a simple walk/recovery jog (i.e. w/ grandma).

Many people choose to “tough it out” and silence this subtle internal alarm…over time this can lead to overtraining and an accompanying crash that is much more difficult to recover from than “under” training (aka getting enough rest, playing the long game, etc).

It’s great you have the ability to get that much rest, take advantage of it and count your blessings 🙂
Your body will adapt so be patient w/ it and the “absurd” levels of sleep will normalize.

Inactive

Anonymous on March 25, 2021 at 8:56 am #52375

In addition to the above, make sure you “come up for air” on occasion. A lot of sleep will allow for more training, but it doesn’t mean it’ll go indefinitely. So make sure you have regular recovery weeks.

Participant

sadokhinaolya on April 7, 2021 at 5:16 pm #52892

It seems to me that this is absolutely normal, it was like that for me too, but over time my sleep returned to normal.