|
Fitness |
Performance |
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A. |
A. |
|
4 Rounds 9 Bench Press, Rest 1:00 30 Banded Pull aparts, Rest 1:00 |
Bench Press 5-5-3-3-2-2 |
| B.
3 Rounds of: 3:00 AMRAP 9 Wall Balls 6 Box Jumps 3 Burpees 1:00 Rest between rounds |
B. 3 Rounds of: 3:00 AMRAP 9 Wall Balls 20/14 6 Box Jumps 3 Burpees 1:00 Rest between rounds |
Engineering the Perfect Nights Sleep by Colby Knepp
You hear it time and time again – sleep is important! Well, how important is it? Check this out.
During those precious hours of rest, your body releases growth hormone and testosterone – hormones that give us more strength, muscle and vitality, and help to repair your broken down body (assuming your nutrition is up to par). This is ideal for anyone who wants to look, feel and perform their absolute best on a daily basis.
In addition to helping support the recovery process, getting enough sleep will also help you maintain a lean physique by improving your insulin sensitivity. Having high insulin sensitivity is generally a marker of good health. The more sensitive your body is to the storage hormone insulin, the better your body will process carbohydrate (storing carbohydrate in your muscles and liver rather than your belly fat). This is great news if you want to maintain a low body fat percentage.
Who doesn’t want that? But with all the modern luxuries (see: distractions such as Facebook, YouTube and Game of Thrones) that we have at our disposal, chances are you are missing out on the best sleep of your life – every night.
Here’s how to do it.
- Purchase a good bed. Memory foam does the trick for me.
- Establish a bedtime routine. Turn off the electronics one hour before bed. Drink some decaf tea and do some light reading. This is also a good time to work on your soft tissue – pull out those foam rollers and start mashing!
- Sleep in a cold environment (65 degrees) or take a COLD shower. I mean COLD. Turn that handle ALL the way to the cold side – five minutes minimum (or more if you’re a real man). I have no idea how or why this works, but you’ll feel like you’ve been hit with an elephant tranquilizer within about 30 minutes.
- Make your bedroom as quiet as possible. This means no television. Some white noise in the background such as a fan will help shut your brain down, however.
- Make your room as dark as possible. Blackout curtains will do the trick nicely.
- No cell phones or electronics. Seriously. Put them in another room and turn your notifications off. Purchase a plain jane alarm clock to replace using your cell phone as an alarm.
- Do some light reading before bed. Fiction or non-fiction; just be sure to shut it down after about 20 minutes.
- First thing in the morning, get 10-20 minutes of sunlight as soon as possible. Because sunlight is awesome. If your schedule allows it, go for a quick walk outside.
- And gosh darn it; wash your freaking sheets! Once a week, minimum.
The bottom line is this – you can train 5 days a week, eat clean most of the time and make some good progress towards your goals. But why miss out on recovering faster, having more energy throughout the day, and making GREAT progress towards your goals? Make ONE of these changes tonight and let us know how it goes.