About this episode

The episode explores the relationship between sleep, body composition, and supplementation, focusing on creatine and its effects on sleep and cognitive performance.

Trexler and Helms dig into sleep and how it intersects with body composition and supplementation. They open on the sleep-and-lifting landscape, then work through the frequently cited 2010 study on insufficient sleep and fat loss, laying out its design and the details behind its dramatic-sounding numbers. From there they discuss what the broader literature does and doesn't establish, the acute effects of sleep restriction on power, skill, and pain perception, and observational data — including sleep patterns in hunter-gatherer societies and among elite athletes — plus the relationship between sleep duration and sleep efficiency. The back half turns to supplementation. They trace the history of research on creatine and sleep, from early findings that creatine might reduce sleep need to newer work on brain creatine under sleep deprivation. This leads into a crossover trial testing caffeine and creatine against a sleep-deprivation cognitive challenge, its findings on rugby passing accuracy, and how to interpret an isolated positive result on a little-studied question. They cover a more recent high-dose replication, then close with the practical side — creatine dosing, the common…

People in this episode

Host: MASS Research Review

Guests: Trexler, Helms

Topics covered

• sleep
• hypertrophy
• creatine
• body composition
• supplementation
• cognitive performance

Keywords

• sleep
• hypertrophy
• creatine
• supplementation
• cognitive performance
• fat loss
• power
• skill
• pain perception

Sponsors

elitefts.com

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MASS Research Review

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