Rest and Recovery (Sleep)
First and foremost, when we talk about recovery the biggest and most obvious contributor is sleep! Unfortunately, while everyone may agree that sleep is essential to life, over one-third of the American population suffers from sleep deprivation (according to the CDC). So even though we all know how important sleep is, at least one-third of us don’t get enough.
Let’s begin with why sleep is so important. Sleep is where healing happens. Sure if you have a cut, damaged tissue, or sore muscles your body will heal while your awake, but most healing happens while you sleep. Biochemically, sleep's effectiveness lies in hormones. Two of the most important are Growth Hormone and Melatonin...
During deep sleep, the production of growth hormone peaks. Growth hormone catalyzes the absorption of nutrients and amino acids into your cells and aids the healing of tissues throughout your body. The hormone stimulates your bone marrow, the birthplace of your immune system cells. Fat cells break down their triglycerides and suppress their ability to take up circulating lipids due to GH. Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) is activated by GH, and this is the hormone that is directly linked to muscle and bone growth. Finally, growth hormone is a pivotal hormone in the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.
Melatonin, the sleep hormone, is produced during sleep, as well. This hormone inhibits tumor growth, prevents viral infections, stimulates your immune system, increases antibodies in your saliva, has antioxidant properties, and enhances the quality of sleep.
As an aside, just one disruption in sleep pattern, just one disrupted night sleep, causes the activity of the natural killer cells to decrease by more than one-fourth the next day.
Sleeping too little can also inhibit productivity, the ability to remember and consolidate information. Lack of sleep can lead to serious health consequences and jeopardize your safety and the safety of individuals around you.
For example, sleep debt is
linked with:
- Increased risk of motor vehicle accidents
- Increase in BMI (body mass index) – increases the appetite which in turn leads to a greater likelihood of obesity
- Increased risk for psychiatric conditions such as depression and substance abuse
- Decreased ability to pay attention, react to signals or remember new information
- A growing list of health risks documented in recent studies; hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity have all been linked with chronic sleep loss.
- Persons experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer increased mortality, and reduced quality of life
According to researchers
Michael H. Bonnet and Donna L. Arand, "There is strong evidence that
sufficient shortening or disturbance of the sleep process compromises mood,
performance and alertness and can result in injury or death.
The most important thing you can do is to make sleep a priority. Schedule sleep like any other daily activity, so put it on your "to-do list" and cross it off every night. But don’t make it the thing you do only after everything else is done – stop doing other things so you get the sleep you need.
To
create the behavior for better sleep, experts recommend that you and your
family members follow these sleep tips:
- Establish consistent sleep and wake schedules, even on weekends
- Create a regular, relaxing bedtime routine such as soaking in a hot bath or listening to soothing music – begin an hour or more before the time you expect to fall asleep
- Create a sleep-conducive environment that is dark, quiet, comfortable and cool
- Sleep on a comfortable mattress and pillows
- Use your bedroom only for sleep and sex (keep "sleep stealers" out of the bedroom – avoid watching TV, using a computer or reading in bed)
- Finish eating at least 2-3 hours before your regular bedtime
- Exercise regularly.
- Avoid caffeine and alcohol products close to bedtime and give up smoking
Recovery and Regeneration
Rolling out, utilizing
foam rollers and sport sticks, trigger point work, as well as stretching,
dynamic before and static after a workout, are essential to recovery. It is
well documented the warm muscles perform better than cool muscles. Contemporary
athletes “roll-out” and do light exercise to raise muscle temperature and
enhance enzyme activity. It has become well recognized that this is the
difference between first place and second place performance. Adopting these
different pre and post game routines allows the athlete to perform general
stretching as well as segmental stretching procedures with a high degree of
precision promoting increases in speed, strength, and endurance. Trigger points
are inflexible bands of muscle containing knots. They create an artificial
barrier on muscle performance by restricting blood flow to the muscle. Adding
trigger point therapy (a softball or lacrosse ball does nicely), un-restricts
blood flow vital for both high performance and full recovery from exercise.
Restricted blood flow to the muscles following exercise has a tendency to
hinder muscle growth, muscle repair and glycogen repletion. Blood flow
restrictions are due to generalized muscle tightness and trigger points.
Rolling-out, trigger point work, and stretching relaxes tight muscle which
enhances muscle growth, repairs tissue and augments glycogen repletion
following heavy exercise. Finally, lactic acid builds to critical levels during
exercise where optimal performance is sacrificed. Rolling-out, especially during
exercise, expedites the discharge of lactic acid from your muscles and promotes
its conversion into glucose by the liver.
The best ways to maximize
your recovery are the things that most of you already know. These 6 items are a
quick list to living the 5 elements of the Linked Lifestyle.
- Sleep: take naps and get your 6-8 per night; do this with consistency
- Eat right: lots of vegetables, fruits, lean (clean) proteins, good carbs, and healthy fats.
- Stretch: static stretching (“stretch and hold”) is extremely useful for athletes. Static stretch ONLY after training, practice, or games. Joint mobility equals less injuries and better performance. Dynamic stretching (stretching in movement) is done BEFORE training, practices, and games. This type of stretching is designed to warm-up the body and connect it to the brain, which gets you ready to perform.
- Workout with a purpose: do not isolate muscle groups, you are in-season. Now is the time to train movement based exercises that challenge your strength, movement, and balance. Integrated strength training promotes muscle repair and healing. It also keeps your nervous system primed for competitive play.
- Keep a positive mental attitude: take time for you. Blow off steam when you need it. The number one reason for “burn-out” is mental fatigue. It is a long season, make sure you have strategies in place to fight it.
- Chiropractic care: as described before, make sure your software is fully communicating with your hardware. The brain runs everything, as long as it can communicate unhindered, you can perform at your best
