Sleep and Sports Performance: Part 2

Part 2 of the Sleep and Sports Performance series will dive into specific recommendations to improve your sleep quality, including a cool trick to make your brain think you’re tired, and a few effective supplements you’ve never heard of. If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here: Sleep and Sports Performance: Part 1

The Foundation of Quality Sleep

Improving your sleep quality is a lot like improving your diet. The best strategy is master the basics, and then use more advanced strategies to troubleshoot individual deficiencies. With this in mind, these are the biggest “bang for your buck” strategies to immediately improve your sleep:

  • Make sure your room is completely black (e.g. no internal or external light at all) and cool
  • Stop using electronics, including TVs, computers, and cell phones ~30-60 minutes before bedtime
  • Put your phone on silent and turn it face down on your nightstand so it doesn’t make sound, vibrate or light up while you’re sleeping. “Do Not Disturb” mode will keep the phone quiet, but will still allow your alarm to go off.
  • Attempt to go to sleep and wake up within an hour of the same time each night.

Of these, the minimal electronic use is likely the recommendation that will be met with the most resistance. Your body naturally produces melatonin, a hormone that most people are familiar with as a sleep supplement, in anticipation of darkness. When you expose your eyes to light, particularly blue light from electronics, it inhibits melatonin release and essentially signals to your body that you need to stay awake.

            “I SnapChat because I can’t sleep. And I can’t sleep because I SnapChat.”

Further, electronics that require interaction (e.g. everything except TV) lead to difficulties falling asleep and less refreshing sleep (Gradisar, Wolfson, Harvey, Hale, Rosenberg, & Czeisller, 2013).

Just as you can tell whether the lights in a room are on or off even with your eyes closed, your eyes perceive light even while you sleep. Even if your phone is on silent, if it lights up on your bedstand, it will still have a stimulatory effect and pull you out of deeper levels of sleep. Naturally, the same is true of lights coming through the window or from alarm clocks. Complete darkness is essential for optimal sleep.

Hacking Your Sleep

If you follow the above recommendations and are still struggling to get restful sleep, these are effective strategies worth the time and financial investment to try.

1) Take a nap

A complete sleep cycle lasts ~90 minutes. However, Thun et al. (2015) point out that 30-minute naps are effective at restoring performance to a higher level compared to a no-nap condition. From a practical standpoint, this means that naps should be ~20-30 minutes or ~90 minutes. Waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle is why many people feel groggy when they wake up; avoid the 45-75 minutes time zones.

2) Take a quick warm shower before bed

It is easier to fall asleep when your core temperature is low (Waterhouse, Fukuda, & Morita, 2012). Intuitively, you might think jumping in a cold tub would help facilitate this process. However, Rattray et al. (2015) commented that cold-water immersion had no effect on sleep measures, but increasing skin temperature did. This may be a combination of heat having a soothing/calming effect on the body and the fact that after heat, the body’s temperature needs to drop to restore homeostasis. This falls into the “try both and see what you like better” category.

3) Change your diet

According to Halson (2014), eating a meal with carbohydrates ~1-4 hours before bedtime can decrease the amount of time it takes to fall asleep, increase REM sleep, and decrease light sleep, and low protein diets impair Deep Sleep. There are a lot of considerations in optimizing your diet, but for sleep purposes it appears that making sure you get sufficient quality food throughout the day and eating a small carbohydrate-based meal for dinner (or post-game) will help optimize your sleep quality. This isn’t a free pass to punish a box of cereal right before you brush your teeth; food quality still matters. A “carbohydrate-based meal” may just mean a small chicken breast along with a sweet potato, and large serving of vegetables.

4) Fall asleep faster with brain “entrainment”

Sleep zones, and all states of being, are associated with different frequencies of brain wave activity. For example, Deep Sleep is characterized by “delta frequencies” at 0.5-2.0 Hz. Brain activity within certain bands can be stimulated through auditory stimulation. This simply involves playing two sounds at different frequencies in each headphone, such that the difference in their frequencies falls within the range of the target brain activity. In other words, if we wanted to stimulate 2.0 Hz activity, we could put a 6.0 Hz tune in one ear, and a 4.0 Hz tune in the other. 6.0-4.0= 2.0.

NeuroAthlete

Assuming you, like me, have no idea how to do this on your own, you can download an app called “Neuroathlete”, which allows you to select the desired outcome (in this case “Rest and Recover” and it will play the appropriate tunes for you. It also lets you superimpose “sounds of nature” tunes on top of the humming of the different frequencies. Abeln, Kleinert, STruder, & Schneider showed that this technology had a positive impact on the sleep patterns of youth soccer players (2014), and given the cost, it’s definitely worth trying. I’ve used this personally and had several athletes use it as well.

5) Supplement

Most sleep-related supplements receive mixed reviews. Tryptophan in doses as low as 1g has been shown to improve sleep quality (Halson, 2014). Magnesium supplementation, which has a relaxing effect on the nervous system, improves sleep time and sleep efficiency (the amount of time spent asleep while in bed; Abbasi et al., 2012). Valerian is an herb that has a similar calming effect on the nervous system, and results in improved self-reported sleep quality (Halson, 2014). Lastly, L-theanine is an amino acid that may help promote relaxation.

Some of these ingredients can be found combined together. For example, I really liked Poliquin’s UberMag Plus Px, which has magnesium and tryptophan.

UberMag Plus Px

The end of sleep trouble

6) Sleep More

Lastly, you may just need to sleep more. Two studies have shown that lengthening sleep duration have had significantly positive outcomes on speed and skill-related performances in basketball players (Mah, Mah, Kezirian, & Dement, 2012) and swimmers (Mah, 2008).

Wrap Up

Sleep can have a profound impact on your physical and mental performance. Use the sleep “hacks” in this article to help optimize your sleep, and troubleshoot issues as they arise.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

References:

Abbasi, B., Kimiagar, M., Sadeaghniiat, K., Shirazi, M., Hedayati, M, & Rashidkhani, B. (2012). The effect of magnesium supplementation on primary insomnia in elderly: A double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 17(12), 1161-1169.

Abeln, V., Kleinert, J., Struder, H., & Schneider, S. (2014). Brainwave entrainment for better sleep and post-sleep state of young elite soccer players – A pilot study. European Journal of Sport Science, 14(5), 393-402.

Czeisler, C. (2011). Impact of Sleepiness and Sleep Deficiency on Public Health – Utility of Biomarkers. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 7(5), S6-S8.

Gradisar, M., Wolfson, A., Harvey, A., Hale, L, Rosenberg, R. Czeisler, C. (2013). The Sleep and Technology Use of Americans: Findings from the National Sleep Foundation’s 2011 Sleep in America Poll. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 9(12), 1291-1299.

Halson, S. (2014). Sleep in Elite Athletes and Nutritional Interventions to Enhance Sleep. Sports Medicine, 44, S13-S23.

Mah, C., Mah, K., Kezirian, E., & Dement, W. (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34(7), 943-950.

Mah, C. (2008). Extended sleep and the effects on mood and athletic performance in collegiate swimmers. Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, June 9; Baltimore, MD.

Rattray, B., Argus, C, Martin, K., Northey, J., & Driller, M. (2015). Is it time to turn our attention toward central mechanisms for post-exertional recovery strategies and performance? Frontiers in Physiology, 6(79), 1-14.

Reyner, L, & Horne, J. (2013). Sleep restriction and serving accuracy in performance tennis players, and effects of caffeine. Physiology & Behavior, 120, 93-96.

Thun, E., Bjorvatn, B., Flo, E., Harris, A., & Pallesen, S. (2015). Sleep, circadian rhythms, and athletic performance. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 23, 1-9.

Waterhouse, J., Fukuda, Y., & Morita, T. (2012). Daily rhythms of the sleep-wake cycle. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 31, 5-18.

Wright, Jr., K., Drake, A., Frey, D., Fleshner, M., Desouza, C., Gronfier, C., Czeisler, C. (2015). Influence of sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment on cortisol inflammatory markers, and cytokine balance. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 47, 24-34.

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Sleep and Sports Performance: Part 1

This is the 1st in a 2-part series on sleep and how it impacts performance.  References for both portions will be included at the bottom of both posts.

Sleep Dictates Physical and Mental Performance

Sleep could very well be the most powerful recovery tool available to athletes. As powerful of a “performance enhancer” as sleep can be, poor sleep can have equally profound negative consequences. In a review on recovery strategies centered around the central nervous system (e.g. your brain), Rattray, Argus, Martin, Northey, and Driller (2015) point out that sub-optimal sleep is associated with compromised motivation and immune function, symptoms of over-reaching (i.e. the precursor to over training), and reductions in brain glycogen (i.e. fuel for brain activity). Sleep deprivation is also associated with increased levels of the catabolic hormone cortisol, along with markers of systemic inflammation (Wright et al, 2015). Halson (2014) adds that reducing sleep to <6 hours per night for 4 nights leads to the aforementioned changes, but also changes in blood sugar regulation and appetite, and that a night of sleep deprivation can lead to decreases in power, strength, repeat sprint ability, endurance and perceived effort.

In fact, according to Czeisler (2011), sleep deprivation leads to performance decrements comparable to having a blood alcohol level of 0.10%.

Simply, with sub-optimal sleep all aspects of performance relevant to team sport athletes are compromised. As a consequence, there’s a constant internal battle between tapping into mental reserves to maintain a high level of performance and a progressively decreased motivation to do so.

Much of this research focuses on sleep deprivation (e.g. not sleeping at all for 24-48 hours), which may have some application to college athletes pulling all-nighters to prepare for exams. Given how rare these circumstances are, though, it’s important to note that consistent mild sleep deprivation (e.g. less than 6 hours/night for several nights per week) can have similar influences as total sleep deprivation. These physical and mental performance decrements can appear after only two nights of partial sleep deprivation (Halson, 2014).

Furthermore, going to bed 2-2.5 hours later than normal can negatively affect sport-specific skills, such as serving accuracy in tennis (Reyner & Horne, 2013), and presumably shooting accuracy in sports like soccer, hockey, and basketball. Importantly, partial sleep deprivation leads to more pronounced performance impairments in the evening of the following day, which is when most competitions are scheduled (Thun, Bjorvatn, Flo, Harris, & Pallesen, 2015).

Dissecting Sleep Patterns

Sleep is divided into two major categories: Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep, the latter of which is subdivided further into stages associated with increasing “depths” of sleep. REM and Deep Sleep have specific physiological advantages that warrant noting:

  • REM Sleep: Significant brain activity and dreaming, generally thought to improve memory and learning, including skill development
  • Deep Sleep (Slow Wave Sleep): Huge spike in growth hormone release and inhibitory effect on cortisol release that helps facilitate repair/growth of soft-tissue (e.g. muscle) and related to next-day wakefulness

While this is an oversimplification, you can think of REM sleep as mental recovery and deep sleep as physical recovery.

Sleep Monitoring

As is the approach I take with designing training programs, any specific sleep recommendations should be made with some sort of assessment/tracking information. There are dozens of options, but the overwhelming majority are all finding different ways to assess “actigraphy,” which uses body movement to make inferences about whether you’re awake or sleeping, and if sleeping, what stage of sleep you’re in.

While it’s not cheap, the device I like the best for this purpose is the Res Med S+. Not only does it provide a daily “Sleep Score” based on your total sleep, wake, REM, Light, and Deep sleep times, but it also ties in quick tips/education based on your specific scores to help you better address your limitation.

It also has a few basic questions about caffeine and alcohol consumption, and perceived stress levels throughout the day so you can start to understand the relationships that these things have with your personal sleep patterns. The education piece is better than anything else I’ve come across and will help keep you engaged on improving your sleep duration/quality, which is essential to long-term success.

Res Med S+ Feedback

My only qualm with actigraphy measures is they’re easily influenced by other people/animals in the bed. If you have a significant other or overly human-like pet (see below) sleeping with you, they’ll likely influence your scores to a varying degree depending on their movement.

Sleeping with Pets

My sleep quality is directly linked to whether Ruxin sleeps upside on my head, or on Emily’s.

As an alternative to actigraphy-based measures, there’s an app called “Sleep Rate” that ties in with Bluetooth HR monitors like the Polar H7 and provides very similar information to the S+. This is what I use when I travel. The heart rate strap is a little invasive, but I like this data because it’s a direct reflection of my physiology, not an inference from the cumulative movement patterns of the bed. The app itself is free, and with a ~$50 cost for the Polar H7 that can be used with other free apps on your phone for training purposes, it’s a worthwhile investment.

To Be Continued…

Part 2 of this series will have tips on how to optimize your sleep quality, including how to “trick” your brain into thinking it’s tired and effective supplements you’ve never heard of.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

References:

Abbasi, B., Kimiagar, M., Sadeaghniiat, K., Shirazi, M., Hedayati, M, & Rashidkhani, B. (2012). The effect of magnesium supplementation on primary insomnia in elderly: A double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 17(12), 1161-1169.

Abeln, V., Kleinert, J., Struder, H., & Schneider, S. (2014). Brainwave entrainment for better sleep and post-sleep state of young elite soccer players – A pilot study. European Journal of Sport Science, 14(5), 393-402.

Czeisler, C. (2011). Impact of Sleepiness and Sleep Deficiency on Public Health – Utility of Biomarkers. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 7(5), S6-S8.

Gradisar, M., Wolfson, A., Harvey, A., Hale, L, Rosenberg, R. Czeisler, C. (2013). The Sleep and Technology Use of Americans: Findings from the National Sleep Foundation’s 2011 Sleep in America Poll. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 9(12), 1291-1299.

Halson, S. (2014). Sleep in Elite Athletes and Nutritional Interventions to Enhance Sleep. Sports Medicine, 44, S13-S23.

Mah, C., Mah, K., Kezirian, E., & Dement, W. (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34(7), 943-950.

Mah, C. (2008). Extended sleep and the effects on mood and athletic performance in collegiate swimmers. Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, June 9; Baltimore, MD.

Rattray, B., Argus, C, Martin, K., Northey, J., & Driller, M. (2015). Is it time to turn our attention toward central mechanisms for post-exertional recovery strategies and performance? Frontiers in Physiology, 6(79), 1-14.

Reyner, L, & Horne, J. (2013). Sleep restriction and serving accuracy in performance tennis players, and effects of caffeine. Physiology & Behavior, 120, 93-96.

Thun, E., Bjorvatn, B., Flo, E., Harris, A., & Pallesen, S. (2015). Sleep, circadian rhythms, and athletic performance. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 23, 1-9.

Waterhouse, J., Fukuda, Y., & Morita, T. (2012). Daily rhythms of the sleep-wake cycle. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 31, 5-18.

Wright, Jr., K., Drake, A., Frey, D., Fleshner, M., Desouza, C., Gronfier, C., Czeisler, C. (2015). Influence of sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment on cortisol inflammatory markers, and cytokine balance. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 47, 24-34.

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!

Get Ultimate Hockey Transformation Now!

Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Ultimate Hockey Transformation Pro Package-small

Get access to your game-changing program now >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation

“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Quickly Identify “Power Foods”

Today I have another sports nutrition tip from my friend Brian St. Pierre, who wrote the Nutrition Guide for my new program Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

I like this tip for one reason: It’s incredibly simple to implement.

Almost every question I get about nutrition sounds something like “Is ‘x’ good?”

If you just follow the three simple rules Brian outlines below, you’ll be eating “power foods” packed with nutrients the overwhelming majority of the time. Enjoy!

Tip #8 – Eat Mostly Minimally Processed Whole Food

One of the best things you can do for your health is to improve the quality of your food intake. If you’ve been following along with these tips, you’ve learned the value of getting appropriate amounts of proteins, veggies, carbs, and fats at meals.

And those are really important tips. But once you have that down, its time to refine the sources of each of those groups. That’s where today’s tip comes in.

Minimally processed whole foods are foods that:

  1. You can hunt, fish, pluck, grow or ferment,
  2. Can be easily made from foods you could hunt or gather, and
  3. Have always been food.

This means foods like meats, fish and seafood, any and all fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and oils, whole grains, starchy tubers (like potatoes and sweet potatoes), and beans and legumes.

Hockey Nutrition: Meat and Vegetables

This has ALWAYS been food

That means that you should minimize the highly processed foods that are so rampant today – sodas, energy drinks, and sports drinks (except for during intense activity), crackers, cookies, pastries, cakes, and donuts, fast food, and other concoctions of the modern food industry.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should never eat these things. What would life be without some ice cream or the occasional root beer? But, it means that you consume foods like that in moderation – they should not make up a big part of what you eat.

And that you should eat mostly minimally processed whole foods. There are several compelling reasons for this.

Missing Nutrients

The first reason is because these highly processed foods are missing tons of beneficial nutrients that are inherent to whole foods. As part of their processing, they are stripped of things like protein, fiber, some vitamins and minerals, water, as well as phyto- and zoo-chemicals

Whole foods naturally contain all of these nutrients in abundance. This means that whole foods give you more of the things you need to help you look, feel, and perform your best. And those highly processed foods just fall short.

Hyper-rewarding and hyper-palatable

In addition, highly processed foods are actually specifically engineered by food companies to overpower your brain, causing you to eat more calories than you need and eventually gain body fat, feel crummy, and perform poorly.

This is the other main reason that eating mostly whole, minimally processed foods is so powerful. When you eat these whole foods your brain is able to signal to you that you have eaten enough.

However, when you eat highly processed foods, they tend to be what are called hyper-palatable and hyper-rewarding. In essence, what happens when you eat these foods is that your brain becomes over-excited, and it can’t “hear” the signals telling it how much food you have eaten. This delays the signal telling you that you’ve eaten enough, and don’t need any more food. In the end, you eat more calories than you need almost every time, which will eventually catch up to you.

Dairy Queen Blizzard

Guilty.

Plus, processed foods can even simulate an addiction in your brain, much like drugs. Causing you to seek out these foods and over-eat them. The only way to break this is to consciously try to eat mostly whole, minimally processed foods, which don’t cause these problems.

The bottom line is you should aim to eat 80-90% of your food from whole, minimally processed sources. It’s totally ok, and even a little helpful, to have some processed foods, just be reasonable about it.

-Brian St. Pierre, MS, RD, CSCS, CISSN, PN1

P.S. For more information on how to get a copy of Brian’s incredible hockey nutrition manual, click here: Ultimate Hockey Transformation

Brian is a Registered Dietitian and received his Bachelor’s in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Maine, where he also received his Master’s in Food Science and Human Nutrition. He is a Certified Sports Nutritionist as well as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

Brian worked for three years at Cressey Performance as the head Sports Nutritionist and as a Strength and Conditioning Coach, working with hundreds of athletes and recreational exercisers of all types. During this time, he also authored the High Performance Handbook Nutrition Guide, Show and Go Nutrition Guide, Ultimate Hockey Nutrition and dozens of articles for publication.

Nowadays, he works closely with Dr. John Berardi as a full-time coach and a nutrition educator at Precision Nutrition. In particular, working closely with our elite athletes and fitness professionals. As part of the Precision Nutrition mission, he helps to deliver life-changing, research-driven nutrition coaching for everyone.

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!

Get Ultimate Hockey Transformation Now!

Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Ultimate Hockey Transformation Pro Package-small

Get access to your game-changing program now >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation

“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
 – Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Short-Term Recovery Strategies Blunt Training Adaptation

Recovery strategies have become a popular topic, as athletes are always looking for a competitive edge. Trying to expedite the recovery process generally has one of two major aims:

  1. Alleviating the soreness/fatigue of training or competition to return back to a high level of performance
  2. Facilitate a faster healing process following injury

While there are many recovery modalities available, two of the more common ones are use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) and cold water immersion (CWI; e.g. cold tubs). NSAIDs and CWI are primarily used to decrease inflammation and pain.

Cold Water Immersion

When you use this can determine whether you restore performance or waste your training time

NSAIDs May Impair Injury Healing

As a result of the physical demands of sport, NSAID use is common not just post-injury, but also as a method to combat soreness. A 2008 review (Alaranta, Alaranta, & Helenius, 2008) noted NSAID use by 33% and 38% of the Canadian athletes competing at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics, respectively. Further, Mackey, Mikkelsen, Magnusson, and Kjaer (2012) noted that NSAID use generally exceeds the incidence of reported injury, meaning they’re being used for performance purposes in addition to injury recovery.

Given the prevalence of use and the high-stakes environment in which they’re used, it’s imperative to understand the impact NSAID use has on performance and adaptation. While NSAIDs are effective at decreasing an acute inflammatory response, there is little evidence that this facilitates an expedited healing response or return to function.

To the contrary, the inflammatory response may be necessary to facilitate optimal tissue repair.

Inhibiting this response may impair healing in muscle, bone, and ligaments (Alaranta et al, 2008), primarily through a decrease in satellite cell proliferation, and activity of the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2; Mackey, 2013). NSAID use also leads to an attenuation of protein synthesis following exercise. Through these mechanisms, it appears that NSAID use impairs muscular adaptation to resistance training. Indeed, Mackey (2013) summarized two animal studies, and found that a daily NSAID injection or COX-2-specific inhibitor intake decreased the hypertrophy response in the plantaris muscle by 50% and 75%, respectively.

Do NSAIDs decrease soreness?

Investigations into the analgesic (i.e. pain relief) effect of NSAIDs have led to conflicting reports. Mackey et al. (2013) reported that NSAIDs have shown a benefit in decreasing delayed-onset muscle soreness in some studies, but not in others.

They also note a decrease in function loss following muscle damage, but this may come at the expense of long-term healing.

Foster, Taylor, Chrismas, Watkins, and Mauger (2014) compared performance in 8 repetitions of the 30-second Wingate Test, interspersed with 2 minutes of rest, between a group that consumed 1.5g of acetaminophen and a control. The experimental group produced significantly greater mean power throughout the 8 sprints and had less of a drop-off compared to the controls. This was primarily the result of improved performance in the 6th-8th sprints, which the authors attributed to an attenuated pain response to a given workload.

Taken together, these findings suggest that the analgesic effect of NSAIDs could lead to short-term performance improvements in tasks where pain-related inhibition may limit exercise performance, but these improvements may come at the expense of positive adaptation.

Cold Water Immersion Expedites Recovery

Parallel arguments to the use of NSAIDs can be made by examining the effects of other anti-inflammatory methods on performance and adaptation. A recent review from White and Wells (2013) on the effects of CWI on recovery from exercise suggested that cold may facilitate recovery by:

  1. Reducing muscle temperature
  2. Slowing muscle metabolism and associated hypoxic stress
  3. Minimizing the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS)
  4. Limiting edema and further damage/soreness related to this local swelling
  5. Faster heart rate recovery and restoration of vagal (parasympathetic) tone

With a short turnaround time between competitions, these mechanisms could provide a useful strategy to minimize performance decrements. Takeda et al. (2014) demonstrated that 50-yard dash time increases (i.e. gets worse) following a simulated competition in college rugby players. Players that used CWI following the competition still had an increased 50-yard dash time 24 hours later, but the group that did not use CWI had an even slower time, suggesting that CWI may help minimize 24-hour performance decrements related to the repair of muscle.

CryoSource CryoSauna

Not as cold as it looks

Similarly, Elias et al. (2012) showed that CWI lead to significant reductions in soreness and perceived fatigue 24 and 48 hours following a testing session, compared to a passive recovery. This was accompanied by a faster restoration of repeat sprint ability, as the CWI group had an identical total sprint time 24 hours later, but the comparison groups were significantly slower.

While a more in-depth look at the research shows mixed reports of expedited performance recovery, in general CWI seems effective at minimizing recovery and restoring performance if the next testing/competition is within 24 hours.

…At the Expense of Adaptation

However, these short-term improvements may occur at the expense of long-term adaptation.

Roberts et al. (2015) demonstrated that an active recovery group experienced significantly larger increases in muscular hypertrophy and strength following a 12-week resistance-training program compared to the CWI group. Similarly, 5 weeks of resistance training led to significantly larger gains in 12-RM in the control leg compared to the leg that underwent CWI post-training. (Frohlich et al, 2014).

These decrements in training adaptation may result from blunting the post-exercise inflammatory response, which is essentially the signal for repair/restructuring, along with decreasing local blood flow, compromising protein synthesis.

Interestingly, Haddad, Laursen, Ahmaidi, and Buchheit (2010) showed that submerging the face in cold water for 5 minutes while breathing through a snorkel was effective at facilitating a faster shift back to a parasympathetic state compared to passive recovery. This may provide a cost-effective method of achieving the desired autonomic response of CWI while avoiding the local mechanical and metabolic effects that may interfere with the desired training adaptation.

Take Home

Strategies designed to blunt the inflammatory response and decrease soreness may lead to short-term improvements at the expense of long-term adaptations. It’s important to consider this when implementing them, as the goal of a given phase will dictate whether any given recovery strategy is appropriate. For example, the benefits of CWI may be very desirable in-season between games, but not during the off-season. At the pro level, CWI may be used after each game throughout a given week, whereas a college team could use CWI only after games on the weekend, but not after training/practices during the week. During times when training adaptation is the primary emphasis, cold water face immersion may offer an alternative recovery strategy to more common CWI methods.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

References:

Alaranta, A., Alaranta, H., & Helenius, I. (2008). Use of Prescription Drugs in Athletes. Sports Medicine, 38(6), 449-463.

Elias, G., Varley, M., Wyckelsma, V., McKenna, M, Minihan, C., & Aughey, R. (2012). Effects of Water Immersion on Posttraining Recovery in Australian Footballers. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 7, 357-366.

Foster, J., Taylor, L, Chrismas, B., Watkins, S., & Mauger, A. (2014). The influence of acetaminophen on repeated sprint cycling performance. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 114, 41-48.

Frohlich, M., Faude, O., Klein, M., Pieter, A., Emrich, E., & Meyer, T. (2014). Strength Training Adaptations After Cold-Water Immersion. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 28(9), 2628-2633.

Haddad, H., Laursen, P., Ahmaidi, S., & Buchheit, M. (2010). Influence of cold water face immersion on post-exercise parasympathetic reactivation. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 108, 599-606.

Mackey, A. (2013). Does an NSAID a day keep satellite cells at bay? Journal of Applied Physiology, 115, 900-908.

Mackey, A., Mikkelsen, U., Magnusson, S., & Kjaer, M. (2012). Rehabilitation of muscle after injury – the role of anti-inflammatory drugs. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 22, e8-e14.

Roberts, L., Raastad, T., Markworth, J., Figueiredo, V., Egner, I., Shield, A., … Peake, J. (2015). Post-exercise cold water immersion attenuates acute anabolic signaling and long-term adaptations in muscle to strength training. Journal of Physiology, 593(18), 4285-4301.

Takeda, M., Takashi, S., Tatsushi, H., Shintaku, H., Kato, H., Yamaguchi, Y., & Radak, Z. (2014). The Effects of Cold Water Immersion after Rugby Training on Muscle Power and Biochemical Markers. Journal of Sports Medicine, 13, 616-623.

Torres-Ronda, L, Ric, A., Llabres-Torres, I., de Las Heras, B., Schelling, X. (2015). Position-dependent cardiovascular response and time-motion analysis during training drills and friendly matches in elite male basketball players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, June 1 [Epub ahead of print]

White, G., & Wells, G. (2013). Cold-water immersion and other forms of cryotherapy: Physiological changes potentially affecting recovery from high-intensity exercise. Extreme Physiology & Medicine, 2: 26-36.

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Challenging Balance and Stability

Before we jump into today’s content, I just wanted to take a quick second to thank those of you that have contributed to the Endeavor Athletic IndieGogo Campaign. We’re very excited about both the performance and designs of our first line and appreciate your support!

We’re also running a Twitter contest to be entered to win a signed Johnny Gaudreau jersey. To enter, all you have to do is Tweet out this link: http://igg.me/at/EndeavorAthletic/ and use the hashtag #OneDayBetter. Each entry will be counted as a separate submission so the more you tweet out the link, the better your odds!

If you missed last week’s post, you can read about it here: Support Endeavor Athletic

Challenging Balance and Stability

Last week I gave my annual pre-season presentation to the Flyers junior team I work with. The goal of the meeting is to outline expectations, explain our philosophy and provide information about off-ice habits (e.g. sleep, nutrition, etc.).

Flyers Logo

This immediately preceded our season opening weekend, where the team went 2-0 with 5-2 and 7-2 wins. There’s still a long season ahead of us, but they’re currently on pace for a 44-0 season. Just sayin.

In talking about our assessment process, how they should interpret their results, and how it all ties in with our programming, the concept of stabilization feedback/strategies came up.

Understanding this idea is important, as it can help explain why someone has difficulties with balance (or joint stabilization in general) and what needs to be done to address it.

Simply, your body relies on a combination of feedback from 3 systems for feedback about where it is in space:

  1. Proprioception
  2. Vestibular
  3. Visual

Proprioception

The proprioceptive system includes joint, ligament, and muscle/tendon receptors that provide feedback about position, length, and load. As an oversimplified example, if you close your eyes, hold your hands straight out in front of you, and then move them apart, it’s your proprioceptive system that is providing you feedback about where your arms are.

Vestibular System

The vestibular system, involves three semicircular tubes positioned in different directions in your inner ear. Each tube has fluid in it that shifts when your head is moved in different planes of motion (e.g. flexion/extension, side bending, or rotation). This combination of fluid movement provides feedback about where “level” is, just as the bubble in a level tells you whether the picture you’re hanging on the wall is even.

Level

Not quite this simple, but similar idea.

Challenges to this system are one of the more difficult concussion-related complications to address.

Visual System

The visual system also plays a HUGE role in balance and stability. This is easily demonstrated with the Single Leg Stance test that we use with a lot of our assessments. To perform the assessment:

  1. Stand up tall with your eyes open
  2. Lift one leg so your knee is in front of your hip
  3. Hold that position for as long as you can up to 20 seconds
  4. Document your time for each leg

Most of our athletes and general population clients nail this, and can go 20s without any issues. The next step, though, is much more challenging.

Now after you lift your leg, get your balance and feel stable, close your eyes and see how long you last on each leg. With the visual system removed, the other two stability feedback mechanisms are relied upon more heavily and things tend to fall apart.

Single-Leg Stance

Not as easy as it looks

This is important because it highlights an over-reliance on the visual system as a stability driver. This wouldn’t be an issue, except in sports (as in life), you can’t visually fixate on one spot to ensure stability; your eyes have to constantly track, analyze, and respond to the rapidly changing environment around you.

That said, you see people using variations of this strategy A LOT, notably when they stare at the ground while they walk or fix their gaze on a single point while they lift or jog. The tendency to visually fixate is inevitably worsening as a result of the amount of time we spend staring at computers and phones. The visual system is extremely adaptable; if we teach it stare at a fixed object within a foot of our face, it will become very good at that.

Training Implications

Training better stabilization strategies can be addressed with a lot of different methods, but these are a few of the ones we use are:

  1. Exercises in half kneeling positions to teach proper pelvic stabilization in a single-leg stance pattern, progressing to more challenging positions (e.g. split stance or single-leg stance positions)
  2. When proficient with eyes open, incorporate some of the above with eyes closed
  3. Use single-leg exercises to expose and re-pattern bad stabilization and movement strategies
  4. Encourage athletes to look forward and “around” as they locomote (e.g. don’t look down when you walk, run, etc.)
  5. While performing certain submaximal lifts, move the eyes with the head (e.g. don’t stare at the same point throughout the lift)

In addition to these strategies, I also recommend looking up from your computer or cell phone frequently and trying to focus your eyes on something far away from you. This way your eyes are constantly visually fixated on something right in front of them, but maintain some flexibility in being able to focus on objects near and far, and transitioning between the two.

Wrap Up

Balance and stabilization are dependent upon an interplay of your proprioceptive, vestibular, and visual systems. Many people over-rely on their visual system, which can compromise effective movement patterns when visual input is removed or challenged by another stimulus (tracking movement in a sport setting). Try the eyes closed single-leg stance test described above, and if you struggle, incorporate the training strategies from this article into your routine.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

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