4 Nutrition Facts

·      What you eat and how you eat it can really make or break the effectiveness of your program, regardless of how good it is

·       If you drop your calories too low, you will drastically slow down your metabolism and your body will start to feed off of muscle tissue. Not good!

·       A negative calorie food is a food that requires more energy to digest than it provides...a few examples of negative calorie foods are celery, spinach and lettuce.

·       The glycemic index only applies when the food is consumed by itself.

"Way Beyond Weight" Documentary

Who Is My #1 Mentor, You Ask?

10 Ways to Spot a Bad Trainer

1. They Don't Do Any Assessments
The best trainers perform thorough and complete assessments when working with a new client, before doing anything else.

That means the trainers will do a movement screening and even basic performance tests. And on the nutrition front, that means looking at the client's current food intake and assessing a host of lifestyle variables, including: schedule, primary complaints/discomforts, current level of social support, willingness to change, and more.

But many trainers perform no assessments whatsoever! And if any are performed at all, they're usually done during a free consultation that comes with your gym membership. Often this is a tactic used to pressure a client into purchasing personal training.

That's a huge mistake. Good assessments are the only way to gain real knowledge of a client and make the critical coaching decisions -- without which you have about a snowball's chance of seeing real results. If you're not put through a thorough battery of assessments in your first session, get a new trainer.

2. They Can't Demonstrate Past Successes
Personal training and nutritional consultation isn't cheap. So, you better make sure that you are getting your money's worth. The best trainers keep detailed statistics of their clients. They track client adherence. They log how their clients' bodies are changing and over what time period.

They record performance and lifestyle changes. They keep photo albums with "before" and "after" photos. And they can point to compelling testimonials from previous clients about their services. They can probably even introduce you to a few, so you can talk to them directly about the experience.

The worst trainers don't have any tracked data. If your trainer can't show you compelling evidence that they've helped people like you get the results you want, assume that it's because they've never actually done it before.

If a trainer can't demonstrate his or her previous successes, move on.

3. They Don't Keep up with Health Trends
Most personal trainers in the world today have nothing more than a high school diploma and a personal training certificate they got at a weekend personal training seminar. This is fine if you find a dedicated and knowledgeable trainer. However, a bad trainer with little experience or proper training can be a waste of time and money.

I would recommend looking for someone with multiple certifications who has clearly made it a priority to keep up with new trends. Someone who's gone out and sought a diverse array of knowledge, learning about training methodologies, body composition, nutrition, supplementation and more.

The best trainers go out and do this. They're life-long learners.

4 They aren't Healthy or Fit
Just like realtors who've never owned a home or financial planners who are broke, out-of-shape trainers raise a red flag.

Now, let me clarify. You don't have to look like a fitness model to be fit and healthy. So that's not the standard here. However, if a trainer doesn't have more muscle, less fat, and a better health profile than the average person, why would I listen to any advice on building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthier from them?

It's a no brainer. If a trainer isn't healthy and fit -- and doesn't practice the behaviors necessary to remain that way -- they can't be my coach.

5. They Don't Set Proper Goals"I need to lose 10 lbs;" that's an outcome goal. "I need to exercise 5 times per week;" that's a behavior goal. If your trainer doesn't know the difference between the two, you should look for a new trainer.

Focusing on outcomes is the job of the trainer. Their program needs to be built in such a way that the outcome is an inevitable consequence.

However, focusing on behaviors is the client's job. Therefore any trainer worth your hard-earned dollars, should knows that to achieve success, their clients must be rewarded for successful behaviors, not for specific outcomes.

For example, if you followed this week's habits 90 percent of the time and didn't miss any workouts, that's worthy of a reward -- regardless of the outcome -- because it's this pattern of behavior that'll eventually lead to success.

6: They Don't Plan Ahead 
Before day 1, session 1, after all the assessments are complete, the best trainers will already have, in hand, at least a 3-month plan based on their client's level, needs and goals.

Sure, the plan can be flexible. But there has to be some forethought here.

Bad trainers don't have a plan or a big picture goal. They make stuff up as they go. If your trainer can't show you their 3-month outline on day 1, session 1, after all the assessments are complete, walk away. Fast.

7. They Don't Keep Track
Clients want to achieve something measurable. So, what happens when your trainer or nutritionist measures nothing at all?

The best trainers and nutritionists measure everything. They monitor and record performance variables such as sets, reps, and rest intervals. They monitor nutrition habits and behavior compliance. They monitor workout attendance. They monitor body composition. They take pictures. Need I go on?

The point here is that you miss what you don't measure and record. Also, without metrics, no one knows if progress is actually being made.

8. They Can't Help Every Client 
There are basically three types of coaches. First, there are the ones who are not good trainers, who can't get great results with any of their clients. Next, there are the ones who are great trainers, and can get great results with all of their clients no matter who they are or where they're coming from.

And finally, there are the in-between ones, those who seem to get great results with some clients but can only help a small percentage of those that actually come to see them.

The goal of every trainer should be to learn the techniques and strategies necessary to help every type of client that comes to see them. That's the hallmark of the great ones.

9: They Don't Integrate Training and Nutrition
In order to change your body, there is something you need to know. And you will likely never learn it at a commercial gym.

Exercise, alone, doesn't work. Time and time again, the research has demonstrated that without dietary intervention, even performing 5-6 hours of well-designed exercise programming each week leads to surprisingly little body composition change.

So you can bet that the best trainers offer an integrated nutrition solution as part of their programming. They schedule private nutrition sessions. They assess your nutritional intake and compliance regularly. They show you around the grocery store. And more.

The worst trainers? They either leave you to figure it out on your own. Or they offer useless nutritional sound bytes in between workout sets.

10. They Just Don't Care
Let's be honest here. If your trainer doesn't do most of the activities I've listed above, regardless of whether or not they say they care, they simply don't.

They don't care about being good at their job. They don't care about helping you achieve your goals.

-courtesy of LIVE STRONG: Dr. John Berardi

The Truth About Saturated Fats

With the possible exception of cholesterol, there has never been a more misunderstood facet of nutrition than saturated fat.

Check out the full article here: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_truth_about_saturated_fat

Alternatives to Crunches

Check out the above video, along with 4 other "Crunch alternatives" here:  http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/fitness/getmovingblog/2013/08/five_alternatives_to_crunches.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed2

Growing Younger....for FREE!

The best things in life for growing younger are free.

Getting 8 hours of high-quality, uninterrupted sleep every night is tops on my list. So many age-related and fat-burning hormones become optimized when you sleep well.

Exercise daily. Find something that you enjoy and that challenges you. Even a brisk 30-minute walk will do wonders for your health and your mood.

Seek joy and see the world through an inquisitive child's perspective. Happiness lowers your stress hormone cortisol and boosts endorphins.

Now it's your turn: what would YOU add to this list that's free and contributes to vitality and growing younger?

What Are the Psychological Benefits of Exercise With Depression?

Check out the full article here: http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/exercise-depression

Should Kids Strength Train?

One question I've been asked countless times over the years is the following: "Does strength training stunt growth in kids?"  My answer is- and will always be- absolutely not, assuming the individual is performing exercises with proper technique and under the supervision of a qualified instructor.  

I was so incredibly fortunate enough to study under one of the world's top experts on youth strength & conditioning, Dr. Avery Faigenbaum (http://hes.pages.tcnj.edu/faculty-profiles/avery-faigenbaum-2/).  He taught all of his students one major rule when it comes to children and strength training: there is no set chronological age at which a child can begin strength training.  It's the age when a child is emotionally ready to accept and follow direction.....simple as that.  For some kids, this may be age 8, and for others, age 15.  It's all relative.

Excellent Vitamin D video

What's the BEST Nutrition Advice???

One of my favorite nutritionists, Dr. Chris Mohr, said it best......

There's no one diet that's "best" for all. There's no one training program that's "best" for all. Tailored programs are what's "best."

Basketball Power article

Optimizing Basketball-Specific Power

-Paul J. Connolly, NSCA-CPT

Wav Oaks Athletic Club Pers. Training Director

Introduction

As a basketball enthusiast who both plays the game and trains others who do, I’m constantly seeking out the best methods to enhance and optimize the performance of my clients.  If there’s a way to jump higher, enhance agility, or simply improve overall conditioning levels to avoid getting winded, I want to know about it.  Admittedly, you’ll often find me scouring the Exercise Physiology journals and attending seminars featuring the industry’s top strength and conditioning specialists to not only discover what works, but more importantly, what works the best.  The purpose of this article is to review some basic principles of what an overall basketball strength and conditioning program should possess.  My focus in this article will be power-specific training and will not include conditioning-specific workouts (i.e. cycling and treadmill interval workouts).  I’ll include two specific exercises to incorporate into your training that you should be selecting over others that have little direct transfer onto the court.  

Movement Patterns & Exercise Selection

Think about the sport of basketball for a minute.  Consider the movements your body is engaged in throughout the course of a practice or game.  Your thought process should include actions such as accelerating (sprinting on a fast break), decelerating (leading a break and stopping on a dime for a jump shot), and arguably most importantly, power/vertical jumping ability (leaping as high as possible for a rebound).  These three aforementioned movement patterns constitute a large portion of what your body will go through during a practice or game.  The next step is, of course, to consider what exactly you should be doing in the weight room so that the benefits of your resistance training workouts carry over onto the basketball court.  

Suggestion number one would be to eliminate over-isolation type movements.  These are exercises that typically target only one joint and one muscle group during an exercise.  Leg extensions are my favorite example to use for only the knee joint is involved and the muscles being worked (quadriceps) are done so in isolation.  When in basketball do we isolate the front of the thigh?  If you said “never,” you’re exactly right!  A great lower body exercise that incorporates power (to improve vertical jump) is the “Jump Squat.”  This exercise is a type of lower-body plyometric (jump training) activity.  Go from a standing position into a mini squat and then jump straight up as high as possible, extending the hips and squeezing the glutes while simultaneously reaching as high as possible to stretch the lats.  Performing this movement rather than leg extensions 3 times/week for 3 sets of 6 repetitions should help improve your vertical jump, allowing you to elevate higher for a rebound or even throw one down, a la Kevin Durant.

A second exercise that doesn’t make sense from a basketball standpoint is the classic machine seated chest press.  While the exercise can be beneficial for upper-body strength, it does not improve one’s power.  To improve a basketball player’s horizontal pushing power (think a quick outlet pass to start a fast break), he/she must practice releasing the resistance.  On a chest press machine, the upper back muscles fire/activate at the end of the pushing phase, subsequently slowing down/decelerating the movement.  We never want to slow down an outlet pass.  Sure, we may want to decelerate our momentum as we pull up on a break for a jumper (see page 1, paragraph 2), but never a pass.  

The medicine ball chest pass can be done with a partner (see middle figure below) or against a wall (make sure you are using an appropriate medicine ball that is made for bouncing and a sturdy wall).  Starting from a knees bent position, (I prefer the body position of the figure to the far right below as it portrays a more accurate/safer landing phase after skying for a rebound) throw a chest pass to your partner (or against the wall).  Make sure to throw as hard as you can, extending your arms straight forcing all the upper body muscles involved in pushing and extending your arms to engage (primarily the pectorals, triceps, and anterior deltoids.).  This exercise is considered an upper body plyometric movement.  Like the jump squat, it can also be performed 3 times/week for 3 sets of 6 repetitions.  It can also be used as part of a warm-up (as can the jump squats) prior to the start of a game or practice.  

Conclusion

My hope is that you will consider adopting the aforementioned exercises as part of your basketball strength and conditioning program.  They’ve each been proven to be far more effective than their respective counterparts to improve power- a major variable when it comes to basketball.  As I mentioned, leg extensions and chest presses can improve strength, but certainly not athletic power.  Jeff Green, Blake Griffin, and Dwight Howard are not spending time on leg extensions to improve their power (as an important and often overlooked side note- genetics plays a large part in determining one’s ability to develop jumping ability via the type of muscle fibers one possesses).  Lebron James and Kevin Durant are not practicing machine seated chest presses to improve their explosiveness either.  Rather, they are engaging in powerful movements like medicine ball chest passes to enhance their outlet passes to their respective point guards, initiating the fast break.  I think you should be doing the same!

About the Author

Certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, Paul Connolly has been involved in the fitness industry since 2003, splitting his time between personal training, lecturing, and running group exercise programs.  He maintains an online wellness blog (www.pcconditioning.blogspot.com), and officiates basketball year-round.  Paul can be reached via email at paulconnolly123@gmail.com. 

4 Nutrition Facts

-I recently posted this at the facility I train clients at.  Some of my favorite foods....and super tasty!

4 NUTRITION FACTS

Ø  Bananas have less potassium than Kiwi, Apricots, and Avocado

Ø  Greek Yogurt is high in protein, which helps promote fullness. A typical 6-ounce serving contains 15 to 20 grams, the amount in 2 to 3 ounces of lean meat.

Ø  Blueberries have one of the highest antioxidant capacities among all fruits, vegetables, spices and seasonings. They rank only second to strawberries in popularity of berries in the United States.

Ø  Sardines are one of the most concentrated sources of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which have been found to lower triglycerides and cholesterol levels.  They are named after Sardinia, the Italian island where large schools of these fish were once found.

Love me some Bison!!

I've been recommending Bison to my clients for several years, and so many have enjoyed it.  I typically have it once/week.

Outstanding Closing Commentary by Bryant Gumbel on the latest "HBO Real Sports" re: A-Rod

“Finally tonight, what are we supposed to do with Alex Rodriguez? Embrace him? Pity him? Scorn him? I can easily understand any or all of those reactions because I think he’s a liar and a fraud. But what I don’t understand are the expressions of shock and outrage over his alleged drug use because, frankly, this country’s crazy about drugs.

Modern Americans reach for a drug for any and everything – for problems real and imagined. It’s why we consume more pills than any nation on earth and why TV ads are relentlessly selling us Xarelto, Abilify, Stelara, Prodaxa, and dozens of other drugs we never ever guessed we supposedly needed.

Americans are only about five percent of the world’s population yet we take 80% of the world’s painkillers and a whopping 99% of the world’s Vicodin. We have four million kids on Ritalin, 22-million women on antidepressants, over 30-million adults on sleeping pills, 32 million on Statins, 45 million on another drug I can’t even begin to pronounce. The list goes on and on.

So think what you will of Alex Rodriguez but when so many moms and dads are active parts of a national drug epidemic, let’s stop crying that a ballplayer’s the one setting a bad example for kids. And let’s skip the expressions of outrage and shock because however you may choose to view A-Rod’s alleged drugs use, there’s no denying the ugly reality that that’s become the American way.”

2013 Dirty Dozen

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has updated their “Dirty Dozen” list of produce items that typically contain high levels of pesticides.  The current recommendation is that, if financially possible, you consider purchasing the Organic option of the following items:

-apples

-strawberries

-grapes

-celery

-peaches

-spinach

-sweet bell peppers

-nectarines

-cucumbers

-potatoes

-cherry tomatoes

-hot peppers

What does 200 calories look like??

Recent Positive Feedback

A mentor of mine once told me that a little unexpected positive self-affirmation is good for the soul.  That being said, I was very pleased this week to receive some great feedback from a couple of participants who were enrolled in my Weight Loss Boot Camp. The comments were as follows:

"Paul Connolly worked so well designing his exercise routine for the age group. It got increasingly more robust with each class which was great and helped several of us with foot/knee, etc. issues use substitute moves during the class. I loved the stretch cords we got and used throughout the class and at home! He answered all of our questions/concerns about exercise thoroughly and completely. Wonderful instructor! "   (-Newburyport, MA participant)

"I really enjoyed the class with Paul.  It was a pleasure to meet Paul.  He was really a delight. At his young age, Paul is great at making a group of women feel successful about any positive changes they can make in their lifestyle."   (-Bolton, MA participant)

Suggested Warm-up Routine

This is a great pre-workout mobility routine designed by my colleague, Tony Gentilcore.  Our colleague, Alli McKee, is the model demonstrating the exercises.

Great Lecture from Mark Bittman

Reading, MA Weight Loss Boot Camp Success!

Great article here on some recent success I had in Reading, MA with their town employees:

Reading Employees Succeed with Weight Loss Boot Camp

Posted on April 25, 2013

 

    

 Upload Photos and Videos                                              For Pat Iapicca, it was the combination of dietary changes with exercise – and the encouragement to track all meals and snacks – that were key to helping him lose 11 pounds during Weight Loss Boot Camp, an 8-week wellness program offered free of charge to Reading employees and their families by the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association (MIIA), the town’s health insurance provider. Iapicca is one of 20 local participants who completed the program on April 1. During the instructor-led Boot Camp, participants met each Monday after work for hour-and-a-half training sessions at Parker Middle School, and were encouraged to track food intake and physical activities throughout the week. The group lost a total of 67 pounds during the course of the program – the most for any MIIA Boot Camp Program to date.

         Pat Iapicca, a police officer with the Reading department for 30 years and married father of three, has lost a total of 35 pounds since he began participating in MIIA’s wellness programs five years ago. In 2008 he also completed Heart Matters, an 11-week multi-disciplinary program designed to promote cardiovascular health, and in 2010 he participated in New Directions in Weight Loss, which included components focusing on nutrition, weight loss, and relaxation through hypno-therapy.

“I love the common sense approach of all of these programs and the combination of nutrition with exercise in particular,” Iapicca said. “There is very little pressure, the approach makes sense and works out very well. Participating in something every year or so helps reinforce what works and keeps me on the straight and narrow.” Although his weight had inched up a few pounds over the last year, Iapicca noted that the recent Boot Camp helped him get back on track and down to his ideal weight.

During the Monday afternoon meetings, local participants learned to integrate both nutrition and exercise recommendations into their lifestyle to promote weight loss, improve cardiovascular fitness and increase strength. Program leaders, Sandy Sarni, a registered dietitian and MIIA’s Nutrition Specialist, and Paul Connolly, a certified exercise trainer, led the sessions – which focused on a variety of topics including goal setting, food tracking, portion control, smart snacking, and the relationship between activity level and weight loss. Participants spent half the time each week learning diet and nutrition tips, and the other half doing cardio and stretching exercises. Iapicca noted that Connolly was “really great” with showing group members how to get their heart rates up quickly and achieve the most exercise benefits in a short period of time and with suggesting ways to incorporate exercise into a busy lifestyle. “Sandy taught us proper eating habits and Paul taught us that it doesn’t have to be a three-hour workout every day,” he said. “Just incorporate walking, keep moving and keep track – it makes sense and works well.”

Reading Town Manager Peter Hechenbleikner said he is happy the town can offer opportunities such as MIIA’s boot camp to municipal employees. “Research tells us that weight control through diet and exercise are a key to being healthy, and common sense tells us that healthy employees are a key to health insurance cost containment and improved productivity,” he said. “Programs such as this boot camp help establish and maintain healthy habits among our employees to the benefit of the employees and the Town. Pat Iapicca and the other participants deserve a lot of credit for participating and carrying through on this program.”

Reading Boot Camp participants weighed in at the beginning of the program, halfway through, and again at the end. They each received a training notebook with curriculum materials, background information and resources, and were encouraged (but not required) to track food intake and exercise either manually or using a smart phone app. Each week, group members motivated each other and discussed ideas for making healthy food choices and getting on track with exercise in everyday life – such as tips for dining out and staying active despite foul weather. Post-program survey results revealed that 70% of the participants lost weight, improved the quality of their diets, and are more physically active after completing Boot Camp.

According to Sarni, the program always ends on a positive note. “Participants appreciate the support of the group and are typically sad to see it end, but are also energized to continue incorporating the changes they’ve made into their everyday lives,” she said. “When they see how we put healthy eating and exercise together, they really come to value the process, see how it works and realize they can do this. We like to instill a positive energy and enthusiasm they can carry forward.”

For his part, Iapicca plans to continue tracking meals and exercise after completing Boot Camp, and he looks forward to getting outdoors for more walks as the weather improves and to participating in a recreational volleyball league this spring. He was the only police officer to complete the Boot Camp in Reading this time, but notes it would be fun to complete a local fitness challenge sometime against the fire department.

Reading is the third municipality to complete the Weight Loss Boot Camp program, which MIIA launched last September, with two other districts currently in progress. MIIA offers the Boot Camp and other innovative “Well Aware” programs at the work site free of charge to employees and at no cost to participating towns as a membership benefit. With this program, Reading continues with its commitment to helping employees and family members adopt and maintain healthy behaviors through convenient, unique and engaging wellness programs. Over the long-term, creating new habits and making such changes can improve employees’ health and quality of life as well as lead to bottom line savings on the districts’ health insurance costs.

Six Steps to Teaching Push-Ups

http://www.strengthcoach.com/Six.pdf

Quality of Sleep Improves Basketball Performance

Snooze you win? It's true for achieving hoop dreams, says study

BY MICHELLE L. BRANDT

Cheri Mah

Young basketball players spend hours dribbling up and down the court aspiring to NBA stardom. Now, new Stanford University School of Medicine research suggests another tactic to achieving their hoop dreams: sleep.

In a study appearing in the July issue of SLEEP, Cheri Mah, a researcher in the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory, has shown that basketball players at the elite college level were able to improve their on-the-court performance by increasing their amount of total sleep time.

The study suggests that “sleep is an important factor in peak athletic performance,” said first author Mah. In the paper, she and colleagues wrote that “athletes may be able to optimize training and competition outcomes by identifying strategies to maximize the benefits of sleep.”

It’s no secret that lack of sleep can have negative consequences. Extensive research has shown the impact that sleep debt has on cognitive function, mood and physical performance. But, as Mah and her colleagues point out in the paper, very few studies have looked at the opposite: the effect that sleep extension can have on performance. And few other groups have looked specifically at the effect of sleep on athletes.

While things such as nutrition and physical training are part of an athlete’s daily regimen, Mah said competitive athletes at all levels typically do not focus on optimizing their sleep and recovery. They are usually just told to get a “good night’s sleep” before a competition.

“Intuitively many players and coaches know that rest and sleep are important, but it is often the first to be sacrificed,” she added. “Healthy and adequate sleep hasn’t had the same focus as other areas of training for peak performance.”

In 2002, Mah conducted a study on sleep extension and cognitive function in Stanford undergraduate students. By chance, several participants were collegiate swimmers and mentioned that they had beaten personal swim records during the portion of the study in which they slept more than normal. A light bulb went off in Mah’s head. “We had been investigating the effects of sleep extension on cognitive performance and mood, but I was now curious if sleep extension may also impact physical performance,” she said.

Mah began working with sleep expert William Dement, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and they turned their attention to the men’s basketball team. Over the course of two basketball seasons, Mah and colleagues worked with 11 healthy players with a goal of investigating the effects of sleep extension on specific measures of athletic performance, as well as reaction time, mood and daytime sleepiness.

The researchers asked the players to maintain their normal nighttime schedule (sleeping for six to nine hours) for two to four weeks and then aim to sleep 10 hours each night for the next five to seven weeks. During the study period, players abstained from drinking coffee and alcohol, and they were asked to take daytime naps when travel prohibited them from reaching the 10 hours of nighttime sleep.

At the end of the sleep extension period, the players ran faster 282-foot sprints (16.2 seconds versus 15.5 seconds) than they had at baseline. Shooting accuracy during practice also improved: Free throw percentages increased by 9 percent and 3-point field goal percentage increased by 9.2 percent. Fatigue levels decreased following sleep extension, and athletes reported improved practices and games.

Using a questionnaire-based sleepiness scale at the beginning of the study, Mah and her colleagues also discovered that many of the athletes had a moderate-to-high baseline level of daytime sleepiness — indicating that they were carrying sleep debt accumulated from chronic sleep loss. She called this one of the most surprising aspect of the study.

“The athletes were training and competing during their regular season with moderate-to-high levels of daytime sleepiness and were unaware that it could be negatively impacting their performance,” she said. “But as the season wore on and they reduced their sleep debt, many athletes testified that a focus on sleep was beneficial to their training and performance.”

The findings suggest, Mah said, that it’s important for sleep to be prioritized over a long period of time, not just the night before “Game Day.” She called optimal sleep an “unrecognized, but likely critical factor in reaching peak performance.” She said the findings may be applicable to recreational athletes and those at the high school, semi-pro or professional level.

Mah and her co-authors noted several limitations to their study. The sample size was small and the players’ travel schedule made maintaining a strict sleep-wake schedule difficult. (Mah noted, though, that this was an unusual opportunity to study actively competing elite athletes.) It’s important to note, also, that the study didn’t focus on in-game performance: The team aspect of basketball makes it tricky to do so, she said, but future studies could focus on swimming, track and field, or other sports more conducive to examining individual performance.

Mah has already laid the groundwork for this research. Over the last several years she has investigated sleep extension in other Stanford sports teams including football, tennis and swimming. She has presented abstracts with preliminary findings on these sports that suggest a similar trend: More sleep led to better performance.

Mah now works with many of the Stanford sports teams and coaches to integrate optimal sleep and travel scheduling into their seasons and also consults with professional hockey, football and basketball teams, in addition to continuing her research. She hopes to next turn her attention to the quality, versus quantity, of athletes’ sleep.

Dement was the senior author of the study. Kenneth Mah, MD, a pediatric cardiovascular ICU hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, was also involved in the research. The work was funded by the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory.

One of my fav Videos (Derek Redmond)

Are You Too Busy To Get Better?

Business experts and business coaches often talk about the difference between working in your business and working on your business. If you are always working in your business, you are no more than another employee. You need to spend time working on your business for your business to thrive. In coaching it is the same principle. If you are always coaching but never trying to learn, you eventually fall behind. It’s like playing game after game with no practice.

Don’t be too busy to get better. Set goals for yourself. Set a goal for the number of seminars you want to attend this year. Set a goal for the number of books you will read and DVD’s you will buy. Maybe even set a goal for the number of other coaches you intend to visit this year. I attend a lot of seminars as a speaker and ask anyone, I also sit and listen to the lectures. In addition I set a goal of attending at least one seminar a year as a participant, not as a speaker. Ask yourself honestly “have I been too busy to get better?”.