A Fierce Fitness Perspective On The Importance Of Catching Your Zzzzzzzzzzzzs

By Teresa Anne Volgenau of TAVLifestyle Fitness Training

It’s no secret ... you gotta get your proper snooze dosages to excel in work and play. Beyond aiding us to recover and heal, failing to get the minimum requirements of sleep is detrimental to our entire system.
The latest research tells us that sleep has dramatic effects on our mental and physical abilities. The amount of time that athletes, as well as weekend warriors , spend crashed out on their pillow can be just as important as the time spent in the gym or on the field.
First, get to know basics of Sleep 101 in order to better understand the benefits.
Obviously we have a lot of chaos going on around us at all hours in our daily lives. Without all the external elements and stresses, from alarm buzzers to ghetto birds (helicopters) scanning our streets to crying babies, most adults would sleep an average of 8 hours a night. Teenagers and young adults would sleep closer to 9 hours. This is the ideal. A full 8-9 hours of sleep is the necessary amount for optimum physical and mental health in an ideal world. And given its importance, it is certainly a worthy goal.
Every human brain has a built-in clock. Just above the criss-crossing of the visual-optic nerves is the suprachaismatic nucleus (SCN), which regulates our circadian rhythm. This is important because light exposure greatly affects circardian rhythms and our feelings of alertness or sleepiness.
Sleep itself can be broken down into five distinct stages. Stages one and two are commonly considered light sleep. Stage three and four represent deep sleep. And stage five is REM, Rapid Eye Movement, sleep that is the dreaming stage and only occurs having already slipped through the gates of the proceeding stages. Surprisingly, during a typical night of undisturbed sleep, the normal sleeper will complete a full cycle of sleep stages roughly every 90 minutes.
Each stage of sleep has its own function, but the deep sleep stages three and four are when the natural restoration processes of recovery and repair are at their peak, and when growth hormone secretion takes place. This is particularly crucial to athletic individuals. Our natural growth hormone is essential for building and rebuilding muscles and body tissues. So when you’re not snoozing, you’re actually losing.
When the body is deprived of an adequate amount of zzzzs, it suffers in every way from motor skills to cognitive function. Specifically when coaching my clients, the detriments to athletic performance are most readily noticed in the decreased time to fatigue or punk-out during activity. The power of output, aerobic, and anaerobic performance are not usually affected by mild to moderate lack of sleep. However, ratings of perceived exertion , RPE, almost always suffer when a significant sleep debt is present. Therefore we end up feeling like we are working harder when sleep deprived, even if performance meters say otherwise.
More drastic damage to motor learning abilities and mental function become apparent from sleep deficiencies. This damage is especially apparent with competitive sports where concentration is crucial and decisions must be made in a split-second. Sleep deprivation research has found that reaction time, stress level, alertness, irritability, vigor and overall energy levels are all negatively affected. Researchers have studied extreme cases of multiple sleepless nights with the busiest of individuals, but have also found that subjects with just a mild sleep debt over time will be mentally taxed.
One study found that chronically sleep-deprived people were out performed on a reaction time test by well-rested folks, who also happened to be above the legal alcohol intoxication limit for driving at the time! Such findings show the cumulative damage of sleep debt, because if a person consistently doesn’t get enough sleep over an extended period, the negative effects are compounded.
Another power-packed study has found that our motor skills are battered by lack of sleep. It is well understood that practicing a specific skill over time will lead to improved performance, also known as “muscle memory.” However, studies suggest that it’s not the passage of time that sets the skill within us, but rather the time spent asleep that creates additional proficiency within the body.
Athletic researcher and writer Art Horn tells of a study in which two groups were tested in a specific motor skill, and then retested in the same skill 12 hours later. Members of the first group were first tested at 10p.m., and went to sleep shortly after. The second group was initially tested at 10a.m. and did not sleep afterward. When both groups were tested again, those who got some zzzzzs showed a significant improvement in performance, while those who did not sleep showed no improvement. However, it’s interesting that after 24 hours, once members of the 2nd group snagged a night’s sleep, their performance at the skill improved significantly as well. Yeah, for sleep!
Why exactly this phenomenon occurs is still baffling scientists, yet while we sleep something clearly triggers the brain to causes us to process movements and skills we’ve learned through practice in a way that we simply cannot do while awake. This fact is particularly important to those individuals seeking to perfect their foul shots, gran jetes, tennis serve, volley ball bumps…or countless other athletic and dance activities that rely on precision and learned movement patterns.
And here’s the big kicker… test subjects who suffer cognitive and motor impairment due to sleep debt are often unaware of their decreased ability. Yep! Blind and dumb! The sleep-deprived simply don’t recognize how much the deficit is hindering alertness, speed for mental processing, reaction time, and other skills essential to physical and athletic success.
Whew! So there you have it! Now go to bed!!
And once you wake back up all rested and ready to jam, then I’ll be psyched to see you on the trail, track and field…

Teresa Anne Volgenau is a professional fitness coach in Silver Lake. Certified with NASM, NSCA, IDEA Insured and specializing in Outdoor Sport Conditioning for Private/Semi-private/Group Fitness Training. Contact her at 323-605-4401 or visit www.TAVLIFESTYLE.com

THE HIERARCHY OF FAT LOSS

TAVLifestyle Bloggin’

Okay! Let’s get the ball rollin’! My hope is to create an informative, inspiring and fun blog spot for all my current clients and friends and for my future clients and friends. I want to offer my insight on anything and everything related to fitness, nutrition, balance and basically healthy living and thriving. I hope you’ll connect with me regularly.
So to kick it off strong, let’s discuss a popular topic in my notebook and in my training sessions. FAT LOSS; to aid all fitness folk at every level, it’s important to understand that there is actually a Hierarchy to Fat Loss (a quick thank you to fitness coach extraordinaire, Alwyn Cosgrove, CSCS*D, who has helped me differentiate training/activity levels and be able to clearly define them for my people on the field).
I’m into my 11th year of training as a fitness professional and all who know me are aware of how much I love, love, love what I do. The sports and fitness industry is constantly evolving and keeps me excited year after year as I continue to refine and expand my training techniques and coaching style. My work is further enriched by what I see and study in the health and fitness industry, and by the ambitions and accomplishments of my clients. Every day is an adventure for me. Challenges and thrills come my way whether I’m coaching athletes or 9-5ers. Interesting still, is time and time again and despite the diversity of my clients, the number one request I receive is for guided weight loss.
We’re all so busy! The difficulty for time efficient training and maximized weight loss is particularly high for my regular (non-athlete) clients. Most can only train 3-4 times a week, so the question is how we can get the most bang (maximized fat loss) for our buck (time invested.)
So here it goes! The more I can educate and inspire you, the more readily you can obtain your goals.
So with the help of Mr. Cosgrove, I’ve developed my own explanation on the Hierarchy of FAT LOSS.

1. First things first…NUTRITION. Bottom line is…no amount of training can be done to make up for a sloppy-diet. While still eating enough protein and essential fats, you have to create a calorie deficit. Period! There’s no other option.

2. Secondly, UNDERSTAND NUTRITION. The primary difference between training for fat loss and training for muscle gain is all about your diet. This is a tremendous oversimplification, but still it emphasizes how effective and important proper nutrition is.

3. Activities that burn calories, maintain/gain muscle mass and elevate metabolism. The majority of calories burned are determined by our resting metabolic rate. While calories burned outside our resting metabolism, via exercise, thermic effect, etc., contributes a smaller amount each day. Also your resting metabolic rate is a function of how much muscle you have on your body and how hard it works. Therefore, activities that promote/maintain mass make the muscles work hard and elevate the metabolism. Therefore this should be a priority in fat loss programs.

4. Activities that burn calories and elevate the metabolism. The next level of activities for fat loss is those that eat up calories and increase EPOC (Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption). Basically, you want exercises that continue to burn calories after the training session. However, scientifically, EPOC is defined as the “recovery of metabolic rate back to the pre-exercise levels.” And this EPOC recovery can demand several hours after hard interval training, or merely several minutes for light exercise.

5. Activities that burn calories, but don’t necessarily maintain muscle or elevate metabolism. This level of training essentially will burn up calories, but not necessarily contribute to upping your metabolism. It’s kind of like the cherry on top, and the least effective mode to fight fat as it doesn’t burn much outside of your time training.
Whew! This is a lot to digest. Take a few minutes to muddle the hierarchy I’ve described and figure out how your own current training regimen matches up. Feel free to shoot me a line with your feedback or questions. I’d love to hear from you! And please check back to TAVLifestyle BLOG next week, as I dive deeper into the topic of the FAT LOSS Hierarchy, and discuss FIVE KEY FACTORS for FAT LOSS TRAINING.

'Til then, see you on the field, track, trail…
Sweat and kisses! ~Teresa

Welcome to the TAVLifestyle Health and Fitness Blog

Hey!

Thanks for visiting. I'm so excited to be blogging.
Be sure to check in regularly for news bites concerning lifestyle, fitness, nutrition tips; the latest updates with "Fusion"--outdoor sport conditioning and much, much more.
In between Blogging, see ya on the track, field and trail!

IT'S NOT TOO LATE--join me for the "Nike Human Race" happening tomorrow August 31. It's the first 10k race of its kind with participants running simultaneously in 25 cities around the world--AWESOME! I am obviously registered in Los Angeles with a start time of 8:30p.m. and Buenos Aires (la ciudad de mi corazon) has a start time of 1:30a.m. Millions of runners will be sprinting for various causes and indulging in natural endorphines. Good times!