Originally posted on davidrosalesfitness.com on August 12, 2018

There is no doubt that sleep is important. After all, we spend approximately one third of our life sleeping. We’ve all had to go through days surviving on just few hours of sleep, and we all know how much it sucks. Being a great sleeper, ney, a skilled sleeper, is so overlooked. If you have systems and strategies in place to sleep well, everything else in your life improves. You won’t feel as tired in class or at work, you won’t have to dread the alarm clock going off, and you’re thinking throughout the day will be much clearer.

Convincing kids to focus on improving their sleep has been incredibly frustrating. In my experience working with a lot of adolescents, a common reason for this is that many don’t have a growth mindset about sleep. They don’t few it as something they can work on to improve, just like their sports or their schoolwork. I hear so often, “Dude, you don’t understand, I can’t fall asleep until at least midnight.” Just writing that down is making me frustrated. The first step is to embrace the fact that sleep patterns and sleep quality are within our control. But, just like anything, it requires a little effort and commitment. Here are three simple ways to get back into our natural sleep rhythms, and improve sleep.

1. Get off all screens at least one hour before you go to bed

Screens like our phone and TV emit a high concentration of blue light. Anytime our eyes see blue light, it signals to our body that it’s day time, like the sun is shining and the sky is bright blue. So if you’re up playing video games or staring at your phone until you get tired, you’re sending signals to your brain that it’s day time, that you need to be alert and awake. You’re fighting an uphill battle. Start making a point to have a screen curfew. Turn your phone off well before bed and replace the time with something conducive to relaxation. Read a book, play with your dog, talk with your family members. To all of my clients who have a hard time developing the habit of foam rolling and stretching before bed, this is the perfect time to implement those practices as well.

You don’t have to do this cold turkey. Accustomed to going to bed at 11 right now? Put your phone away at 10:50 and replace those last 10 minutes before bed with something relaxing. Next week, at 10:40, and so on. You’ll start to notice how tired you get those last few minutes before bed when you’re not in the presence of anything stimulating you to be awake. Another benefit for me personally as a result of this habit, is I’ve been able to accomplish a lot in the last hour of my day. I’ve been able to read more books, and set aside more time to stretch and foam roll. The long-term benefits of this, in conjunction with much better sleep, cannot be ignored. Turn off your damn phone.

2. Normalize your circadian rhythm

Sleep is a hormonal battle. In the morning, we naturally secrete hormones, like cortisol, which keep us alert. Late in the day and at night, melatonin is produced to allow us to relax and easily fall asleep. These hormones have an inverse relationship. So when cortisol is high, melatonin is low, and vice versa. Our bodies naturally should be in line with the day and night cycles of our planet, with high cortisol levels in the morning, and high melatonin levels at night. So, anything that throws us off that rhythm will be damaging to our sleep quality. Generally speaking, we’re looking for activities or strategies that raise cortisol and make us alert early in the day, and keep it down as we get closer to night. Doing this will normalize our natural circadian rhythm. Some simply strategies to improve this are:

• Getting sunlight early in the day
• Exercising early in the day
• Avoid blue light exposure close to bed (put your phone away)
• Reduce stresses close to bed
  • Relax, unwind, ideally you’ve already done your exercise. I know that some kids have sports practice at late hours, and that that is something you’ll just have to work around, or avoid. If that’s your case, make sure everything else is on point for those days.
• Wake up and go to bed at more or less the same time each day. Yes, even weekends, you’re throwing your body for a loop by staying up way later, and sleeping well into the afternoon. Power naps are game changers on those days.

 

3. Plan your sleep and workouts, and schedule life around that.

Every high school student has seen this picture:

Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. If you make sleep number one, the other two improve. I don’t need scientific data to tell you how crappy you feel in class the day after staying up until two am, or how poorly your sports practice is the day after a night out. Forget about trying to talk to your crush on four hours of sleep. My money’s on the nerd who got a full nine hours. When you make sleep a priority, and plan it first, it elevates the other areas of your life. Could you imagine a time when you’re not always tired during the day, and fall asleep without issues? It should be obvious that in this state, it would be much easier to get your schoolwork done, perform better in your sports, and socialize. “But, but, you don’t understand, there’s literally not enough hours in the day to get all my work done and still sleep enough.” I call BS. All it takes is taking a close, honest look at how you’re actually spending your time. How much “study” time do you spend checking Instagram? Are you wasting hours each day on time-consuming but unimportant tasks? For these questions, and other productivity help, I highly recommend The 4-Hour Workweek.

This may all sound great, but it sounds like I’m going to have absolutely no social life if I follow all of this advice. This is true. I don’t encourage you to follow all of it all the time. I had a long period of time where I took this way too far. So don’t be stupid like me. Go out on a weekend, impulsively go bowling at one am. Stay up until the suns starts coming out laughing with your buddies. You’ll look back and have no regrets. If you’re super type-A like I am, look at it this way: Once in a while, the healthy benefits of social interaction outweigh the benefits of a good night’s sleep. I honestly wish I’d learned this sooner. But, you shouldn’t be up playing video games until midnight on a regular basis. You shouldn’t be going down the YouTube rabbit hole after dinner. Live your life, stay up late, do fun stuff with your friends, but be able to real it back in and get back to work within the next few days.

Personally, I haven’t found anything to be a better performance and productivity hack than mastering sleep. If anybody is interested in learning more simple, easy to apply tips on improving sleep, pick up Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson. In it, Stevenson goes into more detail about some of the things we’ve talked about, but also dives into more methods to improve your sleep.

This article was originally published on my personal blog.

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So, we’ve learned how to resist excessive lumbar extension, and rotation. What’s left? We’ve worked in the sagittal plane and the transverse plane, so that leaves resisting lateral flexion about the frontal plane. Lateral flexion is essentially bending at the side. With this, the main muscles we’re targeting are the obliques, which are located on the sides of the abdomen. With the inclusion of antilateral flexion alongside the antirotation and antiextension, the athlete can now resist movement in all planes of motion.

The two groups of exercises we use to train this are:

1. Side plank
2. Suitcase Carries (or other loaded carry)

Side Plank – The side plank is without a doubt the simplest place to begin. It’s the lateral version of the front plank. With that in mind, a lot of the cues and important points will be very similar. We’re going to squeeze the glutes, push into the floor, and focus in on the deep abdominals. Just like the front plank, the athlete’s attention will be on the breathe, where the goal is to get long exhales in order to further activate the deep abdominals.

Suitcase Carries – In this exercise the athlete will grab a dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand and carry it like a suitcase. The weight will attempt to bend the athlete down to the side, and it’s their job to resist this and keep shoulders and hips square. In the past, I made the mistake of letting athletes go too heavy on this exercise. Although the athletes could hold it and walk, one shoulder was hiked down, and hips were swayed in one direction. So, start off relatively light with this one, get a feel for the concept of resisting bending at the side. Then, while maintaining that, feel free to grab a heavier weight. The nature of this exercise has more moving parts than the side plank. As such, we don’t usually introduce it until side planks can be done proficiently. Cues for suitcase carries are the same as the side plank. Engage abs and glutes, and focus on slow deep breaths.

I also really like the 1-arm bottoms up KB Carry, as it adds a shoulder stability component and is a challenging exercise that can be done with less weight.

Wrapping Up:

As alluded to in the introduction, we now have exercises to safely and effectively train the abdominals in all planes of motion. Incorporating a core program with progressions and regressions from all three categories is not only key to improving performance, but also to preventing injuries. Abdominals trained to resist movement effectively are essential to keeping the spine in safe positions. Ultimately, this is what will allow our athletes to continue to develop athletically and lower chances of pain and injury.

 

Works Cited

“Planes of Motion.” 30 Minutes of Everything, 30 Minutes of Everything. Digital Image

In the last article we began to discuss the important role our abdominal muscles play during physical activity, and how this should guide our abdominal training. To summarize, the abdominal muscles are stabilizers, not movers. Their job is to resist movement, rather than create movement. However, the abs do much more than resist excessive lumbar extension in the sagittal (linear) plane. Another important function to consider is how they work to resist rotation about the spine in the transverse plane.

Just as we don’t want our spine to be excessively flexed or extended, we also don’t want too much rotation about the lumbar spine. Rather, rotation should come about the hips and the thoracic spine. Like when a baseball batter swings, or when a hockey player takes a slapshot, power is generated by rotation about the hips and the thoracic spine. When it comes to power development, Shakira was right, the hips don’t lie. With this in mind, it makes sense that throughout development of rotational power via rotation of the hips and thoracic spine, we must also work to develop our core to resist rotation at our lumbar spine.

 

There are two groups of exercises that we use to develop antirotational strength:

1. Three-point planks
2. Resisted antirotation

Three-point plank variations, beginning with the plank with reach is not only the simplest way to begin to learn anti-rotation, but also a great progression from the front plank. To begin, the athlete sets up in a perfect front plank, remembering all the cues we use to prevent excessive lumbar extension and maintain a neutral spine. From there the athlete reaches one arm out, keeping that perfect plank position. With the limb lifting up, the body searches for a way to redistribute your weight. Your spine will want to rotate and shift weight into the opposite hip. So it is your job to resist this movement and keep everything perfectly stable just like the regular front plank. Alternate arms every rep.

With resisted antirotations, once again we set up stable with a neutral spine, keeping our abs tight. The resistance from the cable will cause your core to twist as we try to resist movement. Focus on the breath and slow exhales. 1 set with 4 breaths will be difficult provided we’re focusing on extending those exhales as long as possible. A big mistake I commonly see is not bringing the cable out in front of the body. In the side view you can see I’m actively trying to extend my elbows.

That’s really it. When starting out with this concept, keep it simple. Antirotation progressions can begin as soon as antiextension exercises (plank and rollout) have reached proficiency. As always, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions please reach out. Stay tuned for the third and final part of the this series where we’ll talk about antilateral flexion.

 

Preface:

Before we begin this article, I would like to invite to all to check out my brand new Instagram account (@davidrosalesfitness). It will be a place where I will be regularly sharing training videos of our athletes and I in an educational and/or entertaining manner.

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There aren’t many things better than coming to a realization that blows your mind, or completely shifts your paradigm. Or coming to understand something that at once seemed so abstract and strange. For me, what’s even cooler is watching that switch go off in the mind of an athlete or a student, and then seeing that translate to other areas. With that said, here are some of the biggest paradigm shifters and lessons learned, or reaffirmed, that I’ve experienced in the first half of 2018.

 

The power of “I don’t understand”:

Probably the worst thing you can do for your learning potential is try to pretend you know what you’re talking about. Sometimes, it’s really easy in a classroom setting to just sit there quietly and nod your head. You may scoot by in the short term, but in the long term, you’re only hurting your own growth. Be the guy who asks the stupid questions everybody else in the class is afraid to ask. I learned this lesson while I was in El Salvador this spring, speaking a lot of Spanish, my second language. A lot of times in conversations I would hear words I’d never heard, or a use of grammar I was unfamiliar with. It can be so easy to breeze by these learning opportunities. And at first, I did. Then, one day I was going for a walk on the beach with some family members. Before we headed out they told me, “David, watch out for the hormigas.” “Hormigas?” I thought. I didn’t say anything though I just nodded my head and kept moving, avoiding the risk of sounding like a stupid American. Hormigas. Got it. Ten cuidado. So we start walking and I feel a sting on my foot, then another, then another. “David! Las hormigas!” My uncle yelled to me. I was getting stung by fire ants. “Ohhhhhhhh, hormigas are ants,” I realized. After this experience I began to develop the habit of pausing a conversation anytime I heard something I didn’t understand. My learning opportunities instantly rose. Oftentimes asking a simple clarifying question led to an entire lecture about the use of a particular word or phrase. “Well, we may say this in this context, but in this context we may say that instead,” others would tell me. Once people saw my curiosity and desire to learn, they would often go out of their way to explain something interesting about the language or the use of a particular phrase. I realized that if I could just ask one question, and learn one thing each conversation then the opportunities for learning exponentially grew. Besides, telling somebody you don’t understand something is a lot better than getting stung by ants.

 

The value of choosing projects that always provide some skillset or trait:

At the end of the hockey season when I was searching for something to fill the gap in my schedule, I set out to become a substitute teacher at elementary and middle schools. One of the reasons I chose this was because even if I hated it and it was an absolute train-wreck, I would leave with, worst-case scenario, new skills on how to speak more clearly and with authority, how to deal with students who don’t listen, and have a new perspective on the learning process. This criteria is now at the top of my list when considering whether to accept an offer for a project or job. A question I now regularly ponder is: “Even if the experience is a ‘failure,’ will I inevitably succeed based on the skills or relationships I will develop?”

This time corresponded with the start of our middle school Athletic Performance Class in the spring. Here I would immediately have to apply the new skills developed while teaching to a group of twelve 5th-7th graders running around the gym. But now I knew how to keep them more focused, how to bring them back in when they were distracted, and how to keep things engaging. It ultimately became my favorite class that I’ve taught to date. However, my favorite moment putting my newly developed knowledge of classroom management to use was during our adult Fitness 4 Performance class on Mondays. Once, while I was explaining the exercises, I could tell that nobody was listening. “Why can’t I use the strategies to get kids’ attention on adults?” I thought. “Stop. *clap* Look. *clap* Listen. *clap clap* The room went quiet and all eyes were on me. Worked like a charm.

 

I don’t write to teach others, I write to teach myself:

I used to think of writing as a means of sharing what I’ve learned to others. Yet, everytime I sit down to write, I find myself questioning what I had perceived as “truth.” It forces me to really look at whether I understand the concept myself. It makes me look back into my sources, rethink my logic, and reform a more solid argument. Or, it makes me shift my argument, as I come to new realizations. Then, it forces me to ask big questions about how I’m communicating that topic. Does what I’m trying to say actually make any sense at all? Have I just been spouting confusion trainer-talk for the last three months to everybody I train? A lot of times, great speakers with charisma and charm can convince people of their argument with their non-verbal communication. When written down, this is evaded, exposing the argument. So, nearly every time I’ve written about a topic, whether it gets published anywhere or not (it almost always doesn’t), I’ve emerged from the writing session with a much clearer picture of the concept. As such, now I no longer write to serve others. I view that as a byproduct of explaining a concept to myself in a way that can be easily processed and understood. This article is the perfect example. It’s forcing me to reflect on what exactly I have learned this year, how I’ve applied it, and how I can apply it moving forward. It’s really just for me, and if it’s of support to others, then that’s just a bonus.

 

“Don’t be afraid to do something you’re not qualified to do”:

This quote is the reason I have this job. As a high school senior and not yet with a certification, John and Sheila asked me if I could start teaching bootcamps. Of course I had on paper absolutely zero qualifications. I was nothing more than a guy who had read some books about training and gone through it himself. But I did it, just started getting experience and putting myself on the steepest learning curve I could (see lesson #2). This lesson became reaffirmed when, after the hockey season this year, I decided to become a substitute teacher. Now, in what planet would a 19-year old be qualified to teach kindergarten? Well, apparently this one because the school district let me. Through this experience, I learned how to communicate better, give clearer directions, speak more confidently and fluidly, and become an all-around better teacher and coach. If you don’t do things you’re not completely qualified for, there’s no way to move beyond where you’re at. You’ll be stuck there forever. This lesson I think should also be applied on a smaller scale. It’s a simple as adding five pounds to the bar that you couldn’t do last week. Doing an extra rep you didn’t do even last set. It’s a reminder to keep moving forward, keep progressing in some way.

 

Cuanto mas sabes, mas te das cuenta que no sabes nada:

This one, as you can see by the title, was accomplished primarily through language learning. After this realization, the light bulb went off on how this is applicable to any learning process. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. When I hear this I think of the scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when they’re in the department of mysteries. They’re surrounded by twelve doors and they have no idea where each one goes. The first door they open brings them into a room with twelve more mysterious doors. That’s what learning is like. Everytime you open a door, and grasp a concept, all it does is bring up tons more questions that had never even occurred to you before. When I returned from my trip in June, I saw how this applied to much more than language learning. I thought about how when I first started out as a trainer, I thought I had certain exercises figured out and how to coach them. For a hex bar deadlift, we start in a neutral position, hinge at the hips, drive through the heels. Boom. Simple. But I learned that that’s not the full story. Some people will have a more extended posture, and we’ll have to set up with more of a posterior tilt. Others will shove their hips back too far, while others not enough. I’ve seen funky things going on at the shoulders, the knees, the neck, and each athlete is different. Furthermore, each person responds to the same cues differently. “Think about shoving your knees out,” may improve an athlete’s position instantly, while another athlete with the same problem will just give me a funny look. With respect to form and how to coach it, each time I have a new breakthrough it opens up so many more smaller yet significant potential weaknesses. We’ll never get to the perfect hex bar deadlift. But we’ll keep trying to get there with each athlete. The lesson here is that you can keep getting closer and closer to complete understanding, but you never get there. There’s always twelve more doors to open.

All elite athletes have a lot in common. That’s largely because many sports, when it comes down to it are all played on the same foundation of well-rounded athletic development. Power on the basketball court and power and on the soccer field are examples of how the same ability can be transferred in different ways. Whether it’s basketball, lacrosse, soccer, or ice hockey, wrestling, or track, many abilities are transferable across sports. Think about how prized speed is. How beneficial it is be able to change direction and accelerate quickly, or be able to withstand an opponent trying to take the ball from you. Speed, size, strength, quickness, and coordination are traits that are transferable to any sport. The development of these abilities are all built upon a strong foundation of sound movement patterns and mechanics. These movement patterns are the bedrock of any elite athlete’s overall development.

When an athlete can learn how to move, and move well, all other activities down the road become much easier. Proper squat and hinge patterns are the same movement patterns that make up a sprint. The aggressive hip flexion and knee flexion as the knee drives up in a sprint is the squat pattern, while the hip reaching full extension is like an athlete coming up out of a deadlift. Without the development of these motions in a controlled environment with attention devoted to proper technique, an athlete is missing a big piece of the puzzle. A well-designed and well-coached strength and conditioning program avoids and improves mobility restrictions and muscle imbalances. To give an example, consider a student-athlete who sits in class all day. Immediately after school, with their hips predisposed to a flexed position they go run at soccer or lacrosse practice.  Since the front of their hips are tight, the extension comes from the lumbar spine when they run instead of the hips, a situation we’ve talked about previously. The next day, the athlete complains of low back soreness which leads to further, chronic, low back pain. However, if the athlete has learned how to engage the anterior core and the glutes properly through combination of abdominal, squat, and hinge movements, there’s no low back pain, because the glutes are activating the way they should. Furthermore, performance will be improved as a result of teaching the body to move in a way to that recruits the right muscles for the job.

So many young athletes today want to jump into training hard. They’re in the weight room “grinding out” reps, working their butt off. In the weight room, or in any athletic setting really, you have to earn the right to work hard. Yes, learning how to do all the basic movements correctly is boring (though we try to make it exciting), and it will take time. If you’re rushing this process and loading weight on before you’ve mastered the technique, you’re not only wasting your time, but you’re just increasing the likelihood of injury. This is where I think a lot of sports coaches miss the boat when it comes to their strength and conditioning programs. They push their athletes to work harder and harder, lift heavier and heavier, which only further facilitates poor movement patterns. If you’re a basketball coach, you wouldn’t encourage your players to take as many free throws as they can with poor mechanics. You fix the mechanics first, however long it takes. Don’t load dysfunction. Just as loading good movement patterns will multiply the benefits, loading dysfunction will multiply the detriments.

For those looking to learn directly from myself and my colleagues at Fit 2 Excel, join us for our 7-week summer athletic performance program at Mount Mansfield Union High School, South Burlington High School, or at our facility in Essex. Learn more about the program and sign up online at fit2excelvt.com

If you’re looking to learn more about these movements, and how we coach them to get the most out of our athletes, please feel free to get in touch with me at [email protected].