Recently, I was told by my coaches that if I want to become a stronger, faster, better athlete than I need to create a regular sleeping schedule with a consistent 7-9 hours of sleep.This comes in the wake of him learning that I usually get 4 or 5 hours of sleep  a night and then I take long naps throughout the day. One of the coaches claimed that my body wouldn’t recover if I continued in that matter. I was completely baffled by this suggestion because I show no signs of being tired and when I played I felt fine. But, this could simply be another case of my intuition pointing me the wrong direction. A study was done by Tel Aviv University, shows that “full night of interrupted sleep is equivalent to no more than four hours of consecutive sleep, in terms of how you’ll likely feel and act the next day”.

Now that I know that a lack of consistent non-interrupted sleep can hurt my time  recovery from the day before. I try to get to bed at a reasonable time that allows a full night of rest. However, recently I have notice that I wake up in the middle the night. As you read above instructions during sleep is extremely bad for your overall health, so how do I get rid of this tendency. From this article I learned that it is actually a disorder called sleep-maintenance insomnia in which for many different reasons such as stress or stimulants. Some of suggestion to fixing this problem are to do things such as turning your bed to a sanctuary. This means that you stop doing active things while laying in your bed. As a result your brain will begin to situate lying in the bed with sleep which should not only help you stay asleep longer but also put you to sleep quicker.

Work Cited

Millian, Amanda. “Can I Break Up My Eight Hours of Sleep a Night?” Outside Online. N.p., 30 July 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

The Better Sleep Council. “Physical Performance & Sleep.” Physical Performance & Sleep. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

Komaroff, Anthony. “I Fall Asleep Easily, but Wake in the Middle of the Night. Do You Have Tips to Help Me Stay Asleep? – Ask Doctor K.” Ask Doctor K RSS. N.p., 22 July 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

For all the weight lifting enthusiast winter is among us and with that comes bulking season.The stretch of time were lifters try to pack on as much muscle as possible before cutting down to that summer bod. During this time people are going to be doing more lifting, less cardio, and increasing their calorie intake. The biggest macronutrient that people will try to increase is grams of protein in their diet. This is done by eating lean meats such as chicken, steak, fish and sometimes protein supplements.  If you look online you will see sources that say your protein intake while trying to gain muscle or bulk should be anywhere on the spectrum of 0.5 grams per pound of body weight to 1 gram per pound of weight. While they all for the most part agree that protein intake is different for each person and based on current weight the scales are completely different.

This made me question, is there a point where your body will stop using protein to promote muscle growth? So I began to look into protein absorption and just like the number of grams of protein per pound, there is a huge divide in the weightlifting community. For instance, Michael Matthews, suggest that the protein in your system will slow down the gastric emptying long enough for protein to be turn to amino acids to be absorbed. While Helen Kollias claims there is no mechanism that allows proteins to do such there we must limit or per meal protein intake. Kollias’ study show that if you were give someone whey vs normal protein pack food that you will see the same peak in enzymes in both people. This is because the added protein in the shake is never manages to get to your small intestine to be used as building blocks. So based on Helen Kollias research we should eat multiple small meals fill with protein in order to get the best results in the gym.

After reading numerous articles on the subject, I decided that for my personal protein intake I was going to need to just go by trial and error to figure out what was around a good amount of protein to get to promote muscle growth. I’ve been eating around 120 -150 grams of protein a day and seeing good signs of muscle growth.

I made the decision because one thing that stuck with me from Michael Matthews’s article was his comment on the diets of hunters and gathers. “How, then, did the human species survive the hunter-gatherer days, I wonder?” asked Matthews’s. They were very limited on their food supply so 5 small meals in one day was not a feasible task which would lead high intake of protein in one sitting.If their is a set time for protein to be absorbed there is no way early hunters could maintain the muscle needed for their daily lives.  

Work Cited

Matthews, Michael. “The Truth About Protein Absorption: How Often You Should Eat Protein to Build Muscle.” Muscle For Life The Truth About Protein Absorption How Often You Should Eat Protein to Build Muscle Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

Kollias, Helen. “Protein Supplements: Is Protein Absorption the Problem? | Precision Nutrition.” Precision Nutrition. N.p., 04 Dec. 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

After a 8 games of ultimate frisbee in a single weekend my first reaction is, “OMG I’m going to take a nice ice bath as soon as I get home.” The reason for this is because athletes have come to think that by emerging our bodies in ice water we will speed up recovery time thus getting rid of the our soreness. For those who are unaware of ice bath practices, it is when you fill a space usually your bathtub with cold water and ice enough to get the temperature between 54 and 60 degrees fahrenheit. You then submerge your body from the waist down (more of your body once you get use to the cold) for 10-15 minutes. Afterwards most people refreshed and better then they started, even though there hasn’t been a substantial evidence to back up the effects of ice bath and speeding up recovery.  

However, a recent study has found some evidence about the effects of ice baths.The findings shown that not only does a ice bath not speed up recovery but it greatly hinders the process.  I find this information to be extremely interesting, as a person that has been using ice baths as apart of my recovery routines after competitions or long practices I found that I personally feel alot better after ice baths then I did before. However, as stated by Dr. Mirkin “About all icing is good for is a placebo effect”.

The healing feeling that I am getting may simply be my intuition playing a trick on me due to my belief in ice bath practices.This is caused by numerous sources whether it be athletic blogs, Strength and Conditioning coaches or seeing professional athletes ice bathe as apart of their training, that point to the idea that it works.

So why do all of these health professionals recommend it to their athletes even though there are multiple studies saying this doesn’t help and a few saying it’s actually making matters worst? Its pretty simple, it’s because ice baths do in fact work depending on the circumstance. Athletes should do whatever they think makes them feel great so they are ready to go back on the field and compete the next day. Feeling great and being ready for competition is better than not using the ice bath method of recovery and starting a game off sluggish. However, if for training purposes slowing down your recovery time is not in your best interest.

Works Cited

“How Beneficial Is a Post-Workout Ice Bath?” Shape Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

“A Recovery Ice Bath Isn’t (Always) Such a Good Idea.” Outside Online. N.p., 30 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

Hello my name is Robert Jenkins and I am from Philadelphia, PA. I’m currently  a sophomore studying  Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Management here at Penn State.

The reason I’m taking this course to fulfill my GN requirement in way that isn’t the traditional chemistry or biology course. I  greatly appreciate the work that scientist around the world are doing but I don’t think it the right career for me because it would bore and frustrate  me for the next 50 – 60 years to walk in a lab setting.

The picture above demonstrate Rohre Titcomb playing Ultimate Frisbee which is a huge hobby of mine. Its a really fun sport to play and if people are interested in watching it played you should check out this video.