Sleep is arguable the most important thing when it comes to overall health and wellness and if you want to perform at the highest level you'll need to prioritize your Z's.

Our body only works certain processes at certain times. We can't do everything all the time which is why we have periods of being awake and periods or being asleep.

If we're not prioritizing sleep or getting adequate amounts of it, we're missing out on the repair, growth and healing of our tissues, the release of growth hormone, the boosting of the immune system and the processing benefits when it comes to memory and skill.

For Crossfit athletes learning new skills, sleeping is when new motor functions are truly refined and processed. Studies show that those with a good night sleep can show improvement at that skill without additional practice.

In the gym and training hard is when people think they are making the most gains, when the gains only really happen after you fall asleep. Hard WOD's, heavy lifting all break the body down and in turn, cue the repair to make the tissue stronger. This repair process only happens when you're sleeping.

Think of sleep as a skill

We often expect sleep to take care of itself and that we'll sleep when we're tired or when we have time. From an evolutionary standpoint, we're wired to force ourselves to stay awake than we are at forcing ourselves to fall asleep.

It's impossible to go to bed thinking, "I'm going to get better sleep tonight" and make that happen. Using our bodies to cue sleep processes rather than the brain is key to optimizing sleep.

Prioritizing training over sleep, is like someone stepping over hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies. By devaluing sleep, we're leaving long term health, happiness and #gainz on the table.

Thanks to wearable tech we now have devices that can help us measure our sleep success and can help athletes prioritize sleep as the bottom, fundamental level of their fitness and recovery.

Resources

Blog | Thirdzy • Trying to Learn Something New? Sleep On It!

References

Klier, Kristina et al. “High sleep quality can increase the performance of CrossFit® athletes in highly technical- and cognitive-demanding categories.” BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation vol. 13,1 137. 28 Oct. 2021, doi:10.1186/s13102-021-00365-2

Vitale, Kenneth C et al. “Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations.” International journal of sports medicine vol. 40,8 (2019): 535-543. doi:10.1055/a-0905-3103

Dattilo, M et al. “Sleep and muscle recovery: endocrinological and molecular basis for a new and promising hypothesis.” Medicalhypotheses vol. 77,2 (2011): 220-2. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2011.04.017

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