Sleep

YOUTH SPORTS CREATINE? The question for this post is from the father of a 16-year-old athlete who said: “My son plays two sports (baseball and football) and one of his coaches said that he should consider taking creatine to increase size, strength and athletic performance. 1) What is it? 2) Does it work? 3) Is it...

Should Athletes Play Two Sports at the Same Time? By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E With the summer travel and high school baseball and softball seasons coming to an end, the focus turns to football and/or fall baseball for boys and softball and/or volleyball for girls. A popular question among athletes and parents of...

Sleep, Recovery and Performance in Youth Sports By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E, FACSM Recently a 14U coach said “My team seems to play better in tournaments when we play later in the day than when we have the first game in the morning. Players seem to be in a haze during early games.  Are there sleep guidelines...

Getting the Most Out of Sleep By Mike Lidge, MS, RSCC The importance of sleep cannot be understated in terms of recovery. Sleep plays a critical role in not only recovery and on-field performance, but in all aspects of daily living. With new technology and recovery tools continuing to surface in recent years, it is...

Sleep is part of everyone’s daily routine, some more than others, but is often how we spend one-third of our existence on this planet. It’s been reported through the years that sleep is closely related to physical and mental health, cognitive processes and metabolic functions (Samuels, 2008). For the athlete...

THERE ARE NO ROLLOVER MINUTES IN SLEEP By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E Lack of sleep leads to a condition called “sleep debt”, which is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep, whether it is partial (less than 8 hours a night) or total (amount of sleep over weeks). Sleep does not work like your phone...

Is a Lack of Sleep Hurting Your Performance? By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E, FACSM The amount of sleep that you get can have a large impact on your performance. Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory at Stanford University has been following the sleep patterns and performance of...

Understanding that fatigue is the major cause of human error and that it takes the body’s biological clock one day to adjust for each time zone traveled, I developed this reference sheet to help professional baseball players and staff transition faster to and from road trips from the Eastern to Western (3-hour...

Power Naps Improve Alertness and Performance By Gene Coleman, Ed. D., RSCC*E Dr. Charles Czeisler, Director of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and “Sleep Coach” to the Boston Celtics, says that daytime power napping is an extremely important tool to help athletes improve performance and recover from sleep...

By Rob Biertempfel, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, May 8, 2011 When it comes to sleeping, Pirates right-hander Ross Ohlendorf is a night owl. That can be great when he pitches in a late game on the West Coast but not so much when he starts an afternoon game at PNC Park. “I tend to not want to go to bed early, and I...