160606 - CrossFit | The Importance of Sleep and How to Get It.
How's your sleep? Getting a solid 8 hours every night? How about getting even 6?
Sleep is right up there with nutrition and smart training with regard to increasing performance. The less sleep you get, the less time you have to recover. Sleep is your body's natural reset time. Systems slow down, you perfuse tissues, pushing out all the crud from sitting at your desk and from throwing down at the gym.
Here are some tips to help get that much needed shuteye:
1. Turn off all electronics an hour (or more) before bedtime. This includes TV, phones, computers, Kindles, etc. Turning off unnecessary lighting in your domicile is a good idea in general, but even better before bedtime. Get that TV out of your bedroom. I can think of at least one thing more entertaining than Conan that you can do in there.
2. Lower the temperature of your sleeping area before bedtime. The lower temperature helps with making sleeping refreshing and comfortable.
3. No caffeine after about 4pm (for many after 2pm.) Everyone reacts differently to caffeine. I know that if my stress levels are high and my caffeine tolerance is built up, it will not prevent me from sleeping. If I'm making healthy choices and not pounding coffee all day, even a second cup in the morning will keep me from sleeping before 11pm.
4. Black out your room. All ambient light should be gone. Especially if you live in a well-lit area with streetlights. Blackout curtains are a $40 investment that can make a load of difference. I've gone to the extent of covering up the light on my fire alarm. Flip your phone over on the nightstand to keep it from lighting up the room when you get an email, call or text.
5. Read an okay book. Remember in school when you had to stay up late to finish a reading assignment how hard it was to stay awake? It's because the subject matter wasn't super compelling or interesting and you kind of checked out before finishing. Don't read some page-turner that's going to keep you up at night. One of my favorite is the Iliad (thanks Louisa!)
6. Have a routine. In fitness, routine is a killer. It prevents favorable adaptation. When preparing to sleep, it's a good thing. The best sleep I get is when I turn down the lights and shut the TV off, trundle upstairs and take a nice warm shower, hop into bed with one small light on, read about a chapter of a book, then with plenty of time to spare, turn the light out. I'm sleepy now just thinking about it. Have a relaxing routine and your body will respond in kind.
7. Finally, magnesium supplementation. You can take a magnesium supplement like Natural Calm to help offset any potential magnesium deficiency. A pleasant side effect of taking the right dose is a calming of your mind and body before bedtime. An unpleasant side effect of taking too big a dose is possibly explosive diarrhea, so be careful!
Bottom line, sleep can fix a lot of things. try and get your fair share.
WOD
Push press and pull-up ladder. AMRAP 9:
5 push press 95/65
5 pull-ups (C2B if you have them)
10 push press
10 pull-ups
15 push press
15 pull-ups
20 push press
20 pull-ups
etc...