Why Getting Your Beauty Sleep is no Longer Just About Beauty…and other Interesting Stuff.

5 Unbroken Sets For Max Load:
5 DB Deadlifts
5 DB Hang Squat Cleans
5 DB Push Presses
Rest as needed

Then 8 Rounds For Time:
Run 200
Row 250

Are you someone who lives and breathes health and fitness?  Do you come into the gym 5 days a week, eat a Zone/Paleo diet, plan your life around rest days, and have every fitness tool or gadget that claims to increase performance?  If your life revolves around “Kenzo-ing” Justin off of the board (like mine does) then you better start thinking about whether you’re getting enough sleep and evaluating its effects on your life.

A good night’s sleep will leave you feeling aware, active and fresh. Lack of sleep will result in low Central Nervous System (CNS) activation (a fancy way of saying you’ll feel sluggish).  This has huge ramification on your ability to recruit muscles with the greatest effect on high demand gymnastics movements, 1 rep max powerlifts, and Olympic weightlifting.  When training (note the difference between practice and training below) for a neurological adaptation (this is a buzz word now-a-days) it is of utmost importance that this system is worked with the utmost of care.  You don’t become a better gymnast through sluggish and sloppy movement and you don’t become a better weightlifter by pulling the crap out of a bar with no regard for life or limb (or technique).

This brings me to my next point; I want you all to understand the difference between training and practice in lifting and gymnastics.  Practice refers to neurological adaptation (becoming more skilled) while training refers to activities that create change at an organic level (muscle composition, oxygen utilization, etc.).  You take your kid to soccer practice and you train for a marathon.  It would seem pretty silly to “practice” for your marathon.  Take these definitions and use them to understand the demand and training stimulus intended by the wod.  Recognize that when you are warming up with 2 rounds of: 10 hang power cleans, 10 push press, and 10 push jerk you are practicing those lifts and if you do so sloppily you’re effectively engraining shit movement patterns into memory.

Now back to what I’d originally intended to talk about.  Practicing movement is cognitively VERY demanding.  Doing so when fatigued or tired will drain much of the benefit from this kind of work.  Its actually very similar to cramming before an exam or presentation in regards to effectiveness.  Your brain has essentially made a connection to a specific stimuli or intended action and fires specifically and precisely when confronted by that task.  When you try to create the neurological connections at 4am in the morning right before game day you often fail miserably because CNS activation is so low.  This is why caffeine is often an appropriate study supplement just as crack-cocaine is an appropriate lifting supplement—they increase CNS activation.  This is also why one is most likely to pr a lift in the heat of competition or lift a car off of the chest of their child (it could happen)…the most motor neurons are available and actively firing because you’re “amped up.”

On top of all this sleep deprivation causes increases in stress hormonal levels and can add to inflammation.  I recognize that sleep for the sake of performance in the gym is not every person’s priority but do recognize that you are doing yourself a disservice in all facets of life if you are living in a sleep deprived state.