Sleep

You count your calories, you time your cardio and you chart your weights. What about sleep? Sleep is so important and most of us don't get nearly enough. It really can make or break your physique and your performance.


I am writing this after the 4th of July, I have had interrupted sleep now for three nights due to the fireworks. I have been just absolutely skittish thinking that I can sleep tonight!

I never appreciated how important sleep was until several years ago, and now, I plan my sleep as much as I plan my food, training and supplements, they all go together. 

SC used to always tell me to get more sleep, and I thought he was just being a lazy bum making up excuses for lazing around in bed on weekends, now I know he was right.

I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle where researchers from Stanford University conducted a very small study with the Varsity basketball team. The study has been published in the journal Sleep.

Basically every single one of the players showed improvement when they increased their sleep, not some of them, not most of them, but all of them. 

Collectively, they took almost a full second off their times in 282 foot sprints on a basketball court, that's equivalent to the length of a court three times- and they improved the accuracy of both their free-throw and three-point shooting by 9%

The Stanford study seems to demonstrate that athletes- elite or not - might seriously consider making sleep a part of their training programs, alongside nutrition or weight lifting, sleep experts said.

Read the entire article here, then get some extra shut eye!

Sleep and Rest

Sleep, it is oh so very, very important! Sleep is when your body grows, when you produce growth hormone (which is in short supply the older you get), when your body regenerates after all of the stress of the day.

The growth you experience from weight training happens outside the gym, after you have eaten proper nutrients, and then sleep. Take away one or the other, or short change yourself and your efforts are wasted.

You can train like a champ, but if you do not allow your body enough sleep, it will not grow or improve, simple as that.

You cannot "catch up" on sleep. Sure, you can sleep in and rest longer on weekends if you want or feel you need to, but you cannot stay up late and then plan to sleep in to make up for that lost sleep, it doesn't work.

People who stay up later on weekends, and sleep in are not as successful in the gym as those who adhere to a "regular" schedule. The body is a finely tuned machine, that runs on a schedule, mess up the schedule and it rebels!

Often, you may find that you end up skipping your training too- you stayed up late, slept in, had things you had to get done, so the gym time suffered.

You should try to limit TV, computer, all electronic and light stimuli before bed. Give your brain time to relax and unwind.

Many people confuse lack of sleep with "over training". They are pushing themselves to the limit in the gym, eating right, working a full time job and are exhausted. They get sick a lot too, their immune system is shot and they blame it on "over training". 

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but hardly any of us, in most cases, unless you are an Olympic level athlete are "over training". What is happening is "under sleeping". You have "sleep debt".

People who have a mid afternoon slump can usually blame that on sleep debt too, their body just didn't get enough.

You try to fit it all in, and then you still want to watch four hours of TV at night, or go out with friends after work, so you end up going to sleep later than you should. Cut out the TV and the partying go to sleep earlier instead and you will suddenly feel better, you will not feel "over trained" and you will probably have better results.

You will know you are getting enough sleep when you start to wake at approximately the same time every single day, regardless of when the alarm sounds.  So, if you usually get up at 5:00 am, and then on the days you aren't working, you start to automatically wake at that same time, you are getting enough sleep.

Here is a saying from Al Schoterman, a Strength Coach and Olympian regarding the importance of sleep and rest for the athlete.

The Phases of Rest

Never run when you can walk

Never walk when you can get a ride

Never stand when you can sit

Never sit when you can lie down

Never lie down when you can go to sleep

` Al Schoterman