ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Everyone has always heard that it's important to get as much sleep as possible. I can bet that you've never heard that you can become a better athlete by simply getting 10 hours of sleep per night. I know it sounds crazy and maybe even outlandish but if you increase your amount of sleep systematically and gradually, you'll feel and perform better than you ever have.

In any sport that I've ever played, the night before the game, my Coaches would all say the same thing, "make sure you get a good night sleep before the big game tomorrow!" As this article suggests, it is simply not enough to get one night of quality sleep. You must be willing to commit to repeated night of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep of 10 hours or more. Read the article (LINK BELOW) to see how a group of collegiate tennis players completed a sprint test, on average, almost 2 seconds faster just by concentrating on their nightly sleeping habits.

MORE SLEEP = ATHLETIC SUCCESS

No Shoes?!?!?!

If you read exercise mags of any kind you have probably seen the latest fad (that has actually been around for more than 1000's of years) of running and training barefoot. I'd like you to watch a video that Velocity put out that explains some of the concepts behind training barefoot. It's not for everyone but hey, give a try, you might find something you love.

If you're not willing to go all out and run like a caveman, try the Nike FREE shoes (like they recommend in the video). I have a pair myself and can honestly say they are my favorite shoes! Nike FREE is a line of shoes and I have had more than 6 or 7 models in the line, AMAZINGLY comfortable!

Here's the video:
http://velocitysp.com/blog?id=94

10 Nutritional Facts to Live by

10 Health Tips for the Week
* These tips are general guidelines of healthy eating. We are neither dieticians nor nutritionists. All of this information can be found in medical and sports nutrition journals.

1. Color your Plate. Your plate should have color to it. For example, if I am eating some roasted chicken and a baked potato, the plate will look pretty bland…add a side salad, maybe a full slice of fresh tomato, some cooked baby carrots, and now we are talkin’.

2. You cannot eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables. Simply not possible. Snacking on such foods while you cook meals will decrease your appetite for a huge, heavy meal.

3. Eat foods that are fresh, not processed or preserved.

4. Drinking one full glass of water before you eat a meal will work wonders. You won’t be as hungry and your digestive track will thank you.

5. Graduate to whole wheat, always. You can find almost everything in whole wheat form and if you can’t find it, you probably not looking hard enough!

6. If you have an addiction, try these substitutes…chocolate, eat dark chocolate…alcohol, drink one glass of red wine…cigarettes, slap yourself in the face, which is what we want to do to you when you smoke.

7. Add more fish and poultry to your diet. Turkey is not reserved solely for Thanksgiving (the gravy can wait another year, however).

8. Eat breakfast. Need help?—buy a six pack of yogurt and a box of granola. Marry the two in matrimonial bliss and you will be a breakfast lover for life.

9. Eat slowly. Enjoy your food. Slow eating tricks your body into thinking you have eaten more than you really have.

10. Do not wait until you are hungry to eat. Always have some peanuts or dried fruit handy (or some types of snack, SEE BELOW).

Staff’s Favorite Snacks
1. Oven-roasted sweet potato fries
2. Wilted spinach with cooked pine nuts
3. Hard-boiled eggs, no yolk
4. Cut apples with nut butter
5. Cooked broccoli

Happy Holidays and the Last Installment of Speed Myths

I trust that everyone had a glorious holiday season! Mine was the best I've ever had. It was the first Christmas spent with my beautiful wife as a married couple on top of the fact I got to spend it back where I grew up, in the great state of Michigan.

We skied (around 1.5 ft of snow while in Mich while averaging around 10-25 degrees outside), relaxed, watched football (totally different than relaxing because there are so many amazing college football games over the holiday season), played some games out on the ice (a frozen lake, not an ice rink that's indoors, for all you southern gems), spent time with family (the best time of all), visited with many past and present friends, and reflected on how much I have been blessed with throughout my life.

Now that I have got my holidays bliss out of the way, lets' get to the last installment of the top 10 speed training myths! Pay special attention to #9. Flexibility, in my honest opinion, is the most overlooked component of any strength and conditioning program. Parents and athletes alike are amazed when I tell them I can make them faster by simply making them more flexible. Enjoy!

8. Interval training is the same as speed training.

Repeatedly running 100s, 200s, etc. won’t improve top speeds. Even running repeat 40s with short recovery periods won’t improve acceleration and top speed. Speed work is defined as 2–8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means there should be at least two minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This goes against the experience of some coaches but is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they don’t recover properly from each interval, they won’t be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can’t improve.

9. Flexibility won’t help you get faster.

Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training, and conditioning, they often forget a fundamental component of success—flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. This is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. We see this in the hips and hip flexors where the stride lengths of athletes appear conspicuously short. Most often we see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard, and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work.

10. Lift your knees.

When parents and coaches want their kids to run faster or when the kids are beginning to fatigue, I hear many yell at the kids, “Lift your knees. Get your knees up.” This is one of the most backward cues that we can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction so the more force that you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees, we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of your glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed?

Second, we’re cueing them to do a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age seven to lift his knees when he needs a burst of speed, the improper cue will be hardwired into his brain. To unlearn that as a teenager and to do the opposite and drive down will delay the athlete’s progress. He or she will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backward. That’s why it’s critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground with the foot landing underneath the hip.