Improve your Sleep - Improve your Athletic Performance

Good sleep is important for your maximum athletic performance.

Sleep is very important for you for many reasons. As an athlete, you need your sleep to recover from the hard training, and to rejuvenate and repair all the damaged tissues in the body. Deep, peaceful sleep is also important for your mental clarity and emotional well-being.

Good sleeping habits can have tremendous impact on your well being, athletic performance and recovery. You should wake up feeling refreshed and alert, and you should generally not feel sleepy during the day. If this is not the case, you need to look at your sleeping habits and start changing them a little bit.

There are a lot of things that you can do to sleep better. Start incorporating them little by little, until you sleep like a baby every night.

• Don’t eat a big, heavy dinner and avoid hot and spicy foods, coffee, black tea, cigarettes and alcohol.
• Don’t do any intense exercise activity very close to your bed time.
• Don’t engage in heated discussion or arguments before bed.
• Don’t have a TV or computer in your bedroom. If you are watching TV before bed time, watch some calming and relaxing programs rather then action or scary movies.
• If you have to work at home, stop at least 1-2 hours before bed and try to relax, possibly by stretching, breathing and visualizing.
• Keep your bedroom cool, dark and quiet.
• Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, workday or weekend. The body likes routines. The more hours before midnight you go to bed, the more quality sleep you get. Going to bed between 9-10 pm and getting up between 5-6 am would be ideal for your athletic performance.
• Don’t nap during the day. But if you need to have a nap, restrict it to maximum 20 minutes, approximately 8 hours after awakening.
• Don’t drink after 8 pm so you don’t need to get up to go to the bathroom. If you have to go, don’t expose yourself to bright lights.
• Set today’s events and tomorrow’s plans aside, so that your body and mind can rest.
• If your pet sleeps with you, remember that they might snore or move excessively and as a result disturb your sleep. It would be more beneficial for your sleep to have your furry darling sleeping in his/her own little bed.
• If you have a difficulty falling asleep, taking a sleeping pill or Tylenol sleep does not promote deep restful sleep, and you wake up drowsy and tired the next day. Drink a glass of hot milk with a little honey instead.

Another less known fact is that trigger points can cause sleeplessness and chronic fatigue. Muscles with a lot of trigger points over-contract and have difficulties to relax. The constant tension causes you to tire easily. Pain from trigger points disturbs your sleep and keeps your muscles from resting. Chronic fatigue and a possible future injury could be a result. Therefore it is very important to work on getting rid of your trigger points with regular myo-fascial release (read other articles how to do it).
 

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• Stretch your hips with the Pigeon, Frog, and groin stretch.
• Do the myo-fascial release for your feet, booty, and lower legs.
• Strengthen your booty with lunges, squats, and windmills.
• Work on your agility, coordination and balance with some fun footwork drills.
• And because the weather and conditions in Los Angeles are very hot, don’t forget to drink a lot of water, because it will increase your performance and well-being.