The Night Shift Worker’s Guide to Superhuman Sleeping

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Having worked 12 hour shifts as a night shift worker for over 4 years, I can attest to the fact that it is very hard to be superhuman while working the night shift. If you aren’t getting any sleep, and aren’t eating well, you can’t be superhuman. In this series of 3 articles, I’ll help you overcome the challenges of being a night shift worker. Keep reading to learn how a night shift worker can start to become superhuman by improving his or her sleep habits.  Continue reading

Improve Your Performance…Sleep.

If you could do just one thing to increase your mental power, speed, build muscle, and lose fat – would you do it? Yes? All you have to do is sleep. Sleep leads to performance.

Runners are always looking for the next best shoe, apparel, supplement, training plan to improve their performance. We spend millions of dollars trying techniques or products that will keep us injury free and achieving that elusive PR. I have found the “magic” pill, it will not cost you a thing! sleep. Sleep is one of the most overlooked aspects of training by runners, even though it is the most important aspect in preventing injury, enhancing your recovery, building strength, and improving speed.

Elite runners all know the value of sleep. Rare is the pro athlete who doesn’t nap and get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Paula Radcliffe, women’s marathon world record holder, sleeps around nine hours each night and takes 1-2 hour naps in the afternoon. Why all the extra sleep? So she can rebuild stressed and damaged muscles faster. During the deepest stage of sleep the body releases human growth hormone for repairs. During this time the muscles are paralyzed allowing maximum healing. So by sleeping twice a day, she gets a double hit of the growth hormone to accelerate her recovery.

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What’s Up With the “Old” Gymnast? How to Maintain Peak Performance As You Age

Olympic athletes like Yordan Yovchev, the 39 yr old Bulgarian gymnast, are amazing examples of how you can maintain peak performance with age.   He  and many others defy aging performance rules to excel at the Olympic and elite levels…

…so are they Superhuman, or have they somehow cracked the code on aging and peak performance?

Is it possible to enhance your performance potential into your 40’s, 50’s, even 70s?

It is exciting to note that there were 187 athletes over the age of 40 in this year’s Games.  Most of the over 50 crowd are competing in Equestrian events and Shooting.  while they are indeed physical demands in these sports (I ride Dressage, I know!) these sports rely more on years of skill development and finesse, less on athletic strength and speed.

Believe it or not there are some strategies that you can begin to use right now to resist declines and even maintain peak performance as you age.

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