Sleep to WAKE UP!!

If you’re anything like me and my fiancée Mary, then you train you ass off nearly every day of each week. You know what you’re eating days ahead of time to be sure you’ll have enough fuel for that training and to get the desired results you’re looking for physically, AND, if you’re anything like Mary and I, then you get tired and need some freakin’ sleep!! In regards to sleep, everyone is different in their needs. Most articles you read state how we need 7-8 hours of sleep each night for optimal health. Well, some people need more (that would be me) and some folks need less (that would be Mary), but everyone does needs sleep and almost everyone falls short of getting what they need at some point in time.

A Stanford University study* showed that tennis players who increased the amount of nightly sleep and made up for accumulated sleep deprivation** showed improvements in sprint drills, service accuracy and hitting depth. Athletes improved by as much as 30 percent in some tests. The athletes attempted to sleep 10 hours per night. This test demonstrates just how critical sleep is for maximizing physical performance as well as the ability to focus mentally during a physical performance.

But the benefits of sleep go far beyond sports training if course. Getting enough sleep improves your mood, heightens your awareness and focus, increase your ability to concentrate on long term tasks, develops your ability to learn and your memory, improves your mood, helps with cardiovascular health, repairs damaged tissue and can even help with your metabolism and weight.

Sleep tight…don’t let the bed bugs bite!

*American Academy of Sleep Annual Meeting June 8, 2009
**It has been shown that one cannot stock-up on sleep, but can make up for lack of sleep.

2 Steps To Stay On Point

Have you ever had to take time off of training due to an injury? I sure have- plenty of times! As an athlete, you’ll find that you’ll incur more injuries than your neighbor who enjoys TV far too much- but you’ll also keep diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease away as well! (THOSE are more dangerous than a pulled muscle or strained ligament!) During the more than two weeks I could not train, I did two very important things: 1-I stayed focused on the goals I had set and didn’t let this set back affect me in a negative way mentally, and 2-I stuck to my food intake as well.

1. Over the years I have not been the best of patients when I’ve had an injury as I used to get incredibly frustrated and irritable about the situation, but having to deal with this type of situation every so often allows you to get better at it and make it work for you. Rather than getting angry, you’ve got to learn to simply stayed focused on getting better because the sooner you heal, the sooner you can begin training again. Also, develop the skill of staying focused on what you want to achieve and allow yourself to get excited about reaching the goal, instead of feeling that you’ve fallen too far back and “what’s the use anyhow?” By being patient in healing and getting mentally focused and excited on your goals, you’ll be better able to enjoy the process when you do finally get back to training!

2. The other aspect of dealing with an injury is dealing with “Down-Time-Munchies”. Since you won’t be training you’ll have more time in front of the TV and that is a typical time to get a craving for chips, etc. Hopefully you don’t have chips in the house, so that will be a saving grace, but throughout the day you’ve got to stay on point with your food intake because that was the one place I know people will have the most trouble! The training will come, but if you stray away too far on the food, you’ll find that it can take a longer than expected time getting back to where you want to be.


Is That All?: No, there are so many MORE things you'll need to do in regards to dealing with injuries, like ice, heat, massage and better yet- go see your doctor if you think it's bad!! These are just two simple steps you can get increasingly better at to help you mentally and emotionally through a rough patch.

See you next training session!

Failure Leads to Success!!

I have yet to meet someone who enjoys losing a contest or challenge they face, yet I do know people who are very comfortable with “failing” on a consistent basis. You’re thinking ‘how can someone be comfortable or enjoy failing at ANY point in their lives?!?!’ The answer is simple really- IF you know the correct way to apply the principle of “Failure Leads To Success.”

Let’s start with a simple demonstration of this principle in regards to physical fitness. By taking each set you perform, let’s say for seated shoulder presses, to failure, you’ll develop microfiber tears in the muscles. You know you’ve reached “failure” when you cannot push the weight above your head anymore and will need rest before you attempt another set. This is referred to as “reaching failure” in weight training and exercise.

The benefit of this training style is that once you eat healthy protein and carbs immediately after a training session and all day long, the protein will then help to rebuild the muscle fiber to come back stronger (or faster, or flexible, or whatever demands you place upon it) and it will also increase in size as well as increase endurance. If you were to simply stop at the 7th rep of the shoulder press, instead of taking it to rep number 12 or 15 where your muscles failed, you’ll see almost little to no improvements of what you’re striving for. To get the best results from training, you’ve got to take the muscles to “Failure”.

Another area I’ve found that this principle works wonders is in business. (Sounds crazy I know.) In order to find programs, marketing or systems that work, you have to try several various ways that DO NOT work first which means that they have failed, which will ultimately lead to success if you simply stick with it. Here’s an example: Since 1988 I have taught certain Martial Arts styles that I had to teach because I was working for someone else. These folks also wanted me to pass it off as self defense! Not only were the styles useless in a street situation (I knew as I had grown up hanging out with the tough crowd) but it was incredibly boring! Over time, people would simply quite because of it. IT DID NOT WORK as a long term business venture! As I opened up my first gym in Hawaii 15 years ago and now my second gym here in Florida 2 years ago, I knew what would bring us to failure financially and what 2 things would bring us success: an amazing and fun workout, and a practical skill set that could help them defend themselves. Now the gym is going gangbusters and the clients are happy and bringing in all of their friends!

Remember this: if you’re failing from time to time, then you’re simply not trying hard enough. After all Thomas Edison “failed” 5000 times before succeeding in making the light bulb