The athletes at California Strength are making gargantuan leaps and bounds in strength and mass, and the U.S. has been watching. People are bombarding us with questions about what our secrets are, and what protocols we are using to make such freakish gains without the use of performance enhancing substances. Well the truth of the matter is that we aren’t using any secret formulas or techniques. We do, however, make sure that our guys are doing everything they possibly can to ensure that they recover quickly from their brutal training sessions. In this series, we will reveal the various recovery procedures that we use and why they work, and hopefully you can learn something that you can use to take your training and results to the next level. In Part One, we discussed how to use hydrotherapy/temperature manipulation techniques like cold tubs and saunas. In Part Two, we took a look at how to utilize tissue and chiropractic work to speed recovery, and Part Three highlighted the diet protocols that our lifters use to fuel their training. Then, in Part Four, we showed you the supplement regimens that help to keep our lifters performing at elite levels. Now in this series finale, we will take a look at the last area of recovery that we utilize with the elite team at California Strength – sleep.
While the other areas of recovery like tissue work and diet help to really tip the recovery scales in our lifters’ favor, it could be argued that sleep is the most important aspect of recovery that we emphasize. The debate rages on regarding just how much sleep you need, but studies show that getting at least seven hours results in better health and longevity. We take the stance further, insisting that our guys get as much sleep as possible. We like our guys to get at least eight hours of sleep every night, preferably more. It is not uncommon for them to get as much as 10 hours of sleep in a night and take 1-2 naps throughout the day (and between training sessions on top of that). Why the emphasis on sleep?
Exercise is great for reducing stress and helping to manage cortisol levels, but when you train with the intensity and duration that our guys do, the amount of stress on the body is through the roof. High cortisol levels can lead to a number of bad conditions, including decreased immune functioning, muscle breakdown, and fat accumulation. Obviously we want to fight this as much as possible. While you sleep, your cortisol levels decrease, and natural growth hormone levels increase, both of which help with recovery. A growth hormone can help to maintain muscle mass and keep fat levels low, which is essential for guys who need to keep their weight in a particular range to stay in their weight class. The manipulation of these two hormones is most profound during deeper, “slow wave” types of sleep (hence the reason we want the guys to get enough hours at night), as well as using naps throughout the day. Daytime naps actually mostly consist of this deeper, slow wave type of sleep, so they are a great way to boost growth hormone levels and reduce cortisol levels throughout the day.
Hormones play a huge role in dictating how well you recover and how healthy you can keep your body, so getting enough sleep to help optimize your hormone levels is essential to maximizing recovery. There are tons of tips for getting better sleep throughout the site, so check out some of the other articles for ways to help improve your sleeping habits.
And with that, we can lay to rest the recovery series (pun intended). These are the recovery techniques that we use to keep our guys healthy and give them the opportunity to make the freakish gains that is catching the nation by storm these days. You might not train with the intensity that our guys train, and you might only put in a tenth of the time that is required to be an international level athlete, but even weekend warriors can utilize these simple techniques to keep their bodies in shape and recover from their workouts. Work these tips and tactics into your program and daily routine, and you just might see some impressive gains yourself.
David Spitz – David is the founder of California Strength Academy in San Ramon. This former high school football player was also a USA Junior National Team thrower in track and field. He is currently working towards his CSCS certification. Clients he has recently trained include Chris Cooper (just resigned with the Oakland Raiders), TJ Ward (second round 2009 / 2010 NFL Draft pick) and Cameron Colvin (former Oregon Ducks and San Francisco 49ers player).