Workout of the Day:
Push Jerk [wmv][mov]
1-1-1-1-1-1-1
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New athletes Aindreas, Podge, and Scott getting their first taste of CrossFit, helped along by Kyle and Shane F
Robb Wolf, Sleep! More Important Than…
CrossFit Vancouver, Sleep, One of the CrossFit Essentials
How much sleep do you get each night? What are some of your sleeping habits, good, bad, or otherwise?
Hey guys – good to see the numbers swelling down there in sunny Dublin
I don’t have enough weight handy to do single rep max push jerks, so I did shoulder presses.
3-3-3-3-3-3-3
45, 46, 47, 48, 48, 48(2), 46
Snowed under with work and a few things, so it’ll be Monday when I’m down again for a group workout.
On the topc of sleep and trainig: Next week I’m back into doing seven days of night shifts. For the week I usually sleep from about half six to half twelve, and then get up and do some stuff before going back to bed for an hour or two in the evening and then going training and going to work. I’ve tried various other ways of doing it, but this is what works for me. We get two days off following a week of nights but it’s not really enough to re-pattern yourself back into normal sleeping patterns. The rest of the month I would hazard a guess that I get on average five to six hours of sleep a night, because we do a mixture of evening shifts and early morning shifts that are almost as bad as nights if they overlap. You build up a ‘sleep debt’ as a result of this and then when I do have a proper few days off I can sleep ten hours a day or longer.
I’ve seen the effects of lack of sleep in a couple of ways: I know two guys who have written their cars off driving two or from work due to nodding off or losing concentration. And on training days where I’ve made myself get up too early and trained with no sleep I’ve seen pretty big (about 10%) drops in what I can lift.
I’ve actually read Light’s Out and to be honest, am very conflicted about it. It is highly endorsed by a man who is much, much smarter than I and it points to several studies to support its claims, however it makes some pretty wild claims and some that just don’t make sense.
You’ll see adherents to this book talk about sleeping in a completely dark room with blackout curtains and no electrics (not even that clock radio) on, which to me seems extreme. Sure cavemen lived in caves. But every single hominid in the evolutionary timeframe lived in a cave? Nobody was sleeping under a full moon and stars? And no light whatsoever got into the cave? Seems a stretch.
Same goes for their theory on cholesterol. You develop more of it in preparation for the freezing temperatures of winter to keep your cells supple. What about those that lived where it didn’t freeze? Doesn’t that, in fact represent the vast majority of human evolution? I don’t think we ventured to the sunny climes of Ireland until human evolution was pretty well done.
If I remember correctly they also say you should never run because the body thinks it is being chased, and prepares to die. Apparently that’s why you release endorphins after a long enough run—so as to assuage your anxiety of dying and let you be eaten with a smile of your face. Now why the ability to die happily is an evolutionary benefit escapes me, and why the authors only assume you could be running away from something and not toward something like, say, dinner of your own, does not make sense to me.
So do you do as Mr. Wolf suggests and take the parts that make sense and discard the rest? I dunno. Call it a logical fallacy if you want but when someone tells me the secret to health is the wearing the right crystal around your neck I have a hard time taking their diet advice seriously.
[edited for ease of reading - Col]
Kyle, Lights Out is unfortunatley an extremely bad, sensationalist book that contains a lot of extremely important information.
I’d been doing most of the stuff it prescribes before actually reading the book just on the strength of Robb Wolf’s posts on the CF forums, but reading the damn thing actually made me believe it was all a pack of bullshit for a while. The ham-fisted attempts at tying in quantum mechanics to their arguements were particularly lame.
Thankfully, most of their claims are empirically testable. If 9.5 hours of sleep in a darkened room improves your performance and general well-being, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, do something else.
It’s not really important whether or not it works because it’s what cavemen did, the important thing is that it works.
Similarly, whether or not excessive long distance running messes us up because it makes our bodies think we’re being chased by tigers doesn’t really matter, what’s important is that excessive long distance running messes our bodies up.
It’s fun to try and hang theories on all this stuff, but to drag out my favourite Art Devany quote: “We need to recognise the limitations of knowledge and just get on the path that favours better outcomes”.
Where do I go to get one of these crystals by the way?
Will–good points as usual. In fairness of all the theories/programs that I do subscribe to each has points that don’t make sense to me. You always do have to take what works to some extent. However, some day I’ll give you my diatribe on the black box approach as well because, let’s face it, I’ve got issues with pretty much everything.
Colm–you edited my post to split into paragraphs but didn’t fix electrics to electronics? Slacker.
the selfish gene has been all but abandoned, and you’re right it takes place at the genomic level.
I studied evolution as part of my college course and a lot of people say silly things about how we are living now and how it is different/”wrong” compared to early hominids. Well no shit sherlock, but we are not early hominids, we are Homo sapiens, a different species living in a different time and environment.
Things like how much sleep and where these early hominids would have slept annoy me quite a bit because it is pure speculation. Truth is we havent a clue what they did.
I try to get about 7 hours a day, maybe a few more if im hungover!
To quote Napoleon on sleep “Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.”
the selfish gene has been all but abandoned academically, but you’re right evolution takes place at the genomic level.
I studied evolution as part of my college course and a lot of people say silly things about how we are living now and how it is different/”wrong” compared to early hominids. Well no shit sherlock, but we are not early hominids, we are Homo sapiens, a different species living in a different time and environment.
Things like how much sleep and where these early hominids would have slept annoy me quite a bit because it is pure speculation. Truth is we havent a clue what they did.
I try to get about 7 hours a day, maybe a few more if im hungover!
To quote Napoleon on sleep “Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool.”
So I tried my hand at soccer tonight and am not embarrassed to admit I don’t the first thing about it. Does anyone have any mad skills? Anyone want to introduce me to the basics of the sport?
Do you wake up without an alarm feeling refreshed and alert Colm? If so, 7 hours is probably plenty for you. If not…well, you know what I’m going to suggest as an alternative
Kyle – I stink at soccer too. Maybe I should try and get good at it as part of this “regularly learn and play new sports” thing. I tend to neglect that.
not always, but it does the trick.
I was in the mood for KB swings and DL so did 5 rounds of 42.6kg push-jerk, 45lb KBS and 72.6kg DL in 17mins.
Like with anything, a bit of practice is what you need Kyle. When i was younger (and thought i could still go pro!) i used to practice against passing against a wall alternating feet. Keeping the ball in the air is also useful for control. I recently started poi ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Sfih3u6p-Y ) as a means of increasing my dexterity and control, not to mention they look really cool when on fire!
i should add my WOD was 5 reps, 10 reps and 15 reps respectively
“Colm–you edited my post to split into paragraphs but didn’t fix electrics to electronics? Slacker.”
I cannot do it all for you, Kyle.
‘tf’ below indicates a technical failure, where the weight was pressed out at the top
Amy (3RM) – 10,12.5,15,17.5,20(f),20
Dan (1RM) – 30,32.5,35(tf),35(tf),35(tf)35
Jeff (1RM) – 30,32.5,35,37.5,40(tf),40
Paddy (3RM) – 27.5 across, working on getting under the bar quicker
Tabata Squats
Jeff – 16,15,16,16,17,18
Paddy – 16,17,17,18,17,18
Tabata Push ups
Dan – 13,8,6,6,5,5