By: Chris Gates

Sleep is often forgotten when it comes to building muscle.

It’s just not part of the conventional thought process.

You’ve probably heard that you need to train hard to build muscle. You’ve probably also heard that you need to “eat big to get big” and pack in the protein.

But sleep rarely gets discussed.

Not anymore.

In this article, I’m going to explain to you exactly how much sleep you need to build muscle.

First, let’s talk briefly about those first two items—training and nutrition—just to make sure we’re on the same page about why they’re so important. Then, we can dive into the specifics about why sleep matters and how much you need to build muscle.

Let’s dive in!

Why Training Matters

You’re here to learn about sleep, so I’m not going to bore you for too long with non-sleep stuff. But understanding why training matters for building muscle will help you learn about how much sleep you need to build muscle.

Because, quite simply, training takes a toll on your body.

When you train hard, you create muscle damage and other forms of fatigue that your body needs to recover from.

Strength training is the stimulus that signals to your brain that muscle needs to be built. It goes like this…

1. You complete a challenging strength training session. Let’s say you trained chest…
2. Your brain recognizes how challenging the session was and tells the rest of your body, “we gotta build up those pecs so that it’s not so difficult next time.”
3. Your body gets to work to build muscle.

Repeating that process over, and over, and over again for months and years is what leads to considerable muscle gains.

For much more detail on how, and why, training matters, you can read my article on how to structure your training for muscle growth.

Why Nutrition Matters

Once again, I’m not gonna bore you for too long here. But understanding the role of nutrition is also super important so that you can develop an understanding of how much sleep you need to build muscle.

After you give your body a stimulus from strength training, it helps to have a couple of building blocks readily available that your body needs to actually repair and grow muscle tissue.

That’s where nutrition comes into play.

Building muscle is most efficiently done in a calorie surplus, which means you’re taking in more energy (calories) than your body needs each day. As part of those calories, having a high-protein diet is going to be necessary.

Protein is going to provide the amino acids needed to actually repair and grow muscle.

Here are a few general guidelines you can use for nutrition:

• Eat in a moderate calorie surplus (somewhere between 300-500 calories of a surplus, on average).
• Consume adequate protein each day (take your height in centimeters, and eat that many grams of protein every day).
• Do both consistently, and east mostly whole, nutritious foods.

Once again, repeating this process over, and over, and over again for an extended period of time—combined with strength training— is going to lead to progress with building muscle.

Why Sleep Matters

So how does sleep play a role?

That’s right. We’ve landed on the good stuff!

Sleep is where a lot of your recovery actually takes place. When you sleep, your body produces growth hormone, which is a primary driver of recovery.

Cells and tissues undergo reconstruction, and your body essentially restores itself. Sleep is the period of time where the majority of that muscle tissue gets repaired and rebuilt.

As you can imagine, if you’re not getting enough sleep you’ll struggle to adequately restore and recover your muscles.

There’s a ton of research evidence that shows the positive effects of sleep for muscle growth. Here are just a few of the findings:

• Good sleep quality is associated with greater muscle strength.
• Increasing your sleep time is shown to improve your body composition (aka build muscle and lose fat).
• Testosterone, which is a hormone that assists with building muscle, can be significantly reduced when sleep is low. Obviously, this would impede your ability to build muscle.
• From a performance perspective, more sleep on a nightly basis improves basically every aspect of performance. And better performance can lead to building more muscle over time.

Obviously, sleep is important. And sleep is beneficial to build muscle.

So, let’s answer the question of the day….

How Much Sleep Do I Need to Build Muscle?

It’s generally recommended for adults to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Unfortunately, an overwhelming amount of adults report that they don’t get that much sleep on a consistent basis.

And it’s a shame, especially if your goal is to build muscle. Because that 7-9 hour window appears to be the sweet spot for gains.

Some of the studies linked above speak to how important this 7-9 hour window is.

In one study, subjects that reduced their sleep to five hours a night saw decreases in testosterone. In another study, subjects saw decreases in muscle mass and increases in body fat when sleeping 5.5 hours a night.

In comparison, subjects who slept eight hours a night saw markedly different results, along with performance increases and increases in muscle mass.

So being in that 7-9 hour window is crucial.

But let’s be clear about something…

You need to be getting 7-9 hours of sleep consistently.

And don’t kid yourself.

Don’t lay down in bed with exactly seven hours to get some sleep before you have to wake up, and play around on your phone for 45 minutes, and then try to close your eyes and fall asleep, but lay there for a solid 15-20 minutes before it actually happens.

You need to be in a routine.

A routine that positively impacts your ability to get to sleep on time, and get the absolute most out of your sleep on a consistent basis.

Check out my article on a sleep routine that works, because it will walk you through the most important points of why a routine matters, and how it can promote better sleep over time.

Consistent habits with sleep can make, or break, your success. So treat this part seriously. (There’s research to prove it.)

It’s no different than training or nutrition. What you do chronically is likely to determine what type of progress you make.

If you regularly train hard and focus on the principles of building muscle, you’re likely to build muscle. And if you regularly have your nutrition dialed in and centered around your goals, you’re likely to see your body change in the way that you want.

Add sleep to that… If you regularly get 7-9 hours of sleep at night, you’re likely to experience the best possible recovery from your training and feel refreshed and energized to train each and every day.

Training and nutrition are extremely important. Add quality sleep to the mix, and you’re going to make tons of progress!

I hope this helps!

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If you’re interested in getting customized coaching and guidance to build muscle, I’d definitely recommend checking out my coaching page. I work with clients all over the world to pursue their fitness and nutrition goals, and I’d love to help you! Submit a coaching application form if you’d like to talk about your goals, and what your program might look like.

Thanks for reading!

~ Chris