Results matching “Bird”

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

- Edgar Allen Poe

It's been almost a month now since I formally made the switch to biphasic sleeping, and in that time I've only tried one minor adjustment to the routine (which overall I'm very happy with): the timing of the nap. Formerly it started around 7-7:30pm, this week it started around 3pm. As before, the idea was still to make this a 90 minutes dose of shut-eye.

There are several reasons for this. Among them :

8 hours after rising

I read recently that the taking of an afternoon nap approximately 8 hours after rising was the optimal procedure. Somewhat skeptical, I decided to test it for a week (without making any other changes to my daily routine); moving the 19:30-21:00 nap to a 15:00 start. The result? Well, it was a long week.

Trying to sleep in the afternoon is - as anyone who's ever worked shifts will attest - an acquired taste. With the additional ambient light and sound, even getting to sleep proved a challenge. This was compounded by the fact that I wasn't all that tired by 3 in the afternoon.

Rather than sleeping deeply for most of the 90 minutes, I found myself getting 20 minute 'power naps' (more on those in a minute). Quite refreshing at the time, but not enough to live on in place of the 90 minute variety.

Pre-dinner

The timing of the nap placed it between the usual lunch and dinner times, leaving room for a small meal at 14:30 or so. I was curious to see the effects of this.

General skepticism

It has to be said that this is the reason for trying any number of things - biphasic sleeping included. Tweaking the nap time was no exception.

Benefits

Well, I'm finding it hard to think of any (for the mid afternoon timing that is - the notion of napping is already firmly in mind as a good one). As one part of a biphasic routine, the afternoon start time just didn't work for me.

Negatives

Aside for a new-found taste for 'power naps', there really wasn't much to suggest a permanent switch to an afternoon nap. The difficulty in getting to sleep, the brevity of sleep and the compounding sleep deficit all conspired to terminate this change after the week; quickly moving me back to a 19:30 start. Much better.

Another negative aspect of an afternoon nap - at least the 90 minute variety I was shooting for - is just the inconvenience. Even if you can shuffle your schedule around to allow a brief chunk of personal time, 90 minutes is quite a lot. I'm used to seeing work colleagues falling asleep at the keyboard (only to wake 20 minutes later and resume typing as if nothing happened - very amusing), but if they were out for 90 minutes I suspect it would feel odd.

Workouts

Switching to an afternoon nap affected workouts in one fundamental way - the new nap time overlapped my favourite time to hit the iron. This meant that I was usually awake and thinking about that day's schedule during the time when I should've been alseep. Conversely, workouts were now conducted during the former nap time.

Overall the situation was far from perfect.

Caffeine consumption

Taking a nap in the afternoon means that the only reasonable times to have a coffee are early morning, or shortly after the nap. As these reasonably rare caffeine sessions are traditionally in the early afternoon, this is just one more change.

Incidentally, the 'caffeine nap' is an acquired taste. It felt less effective than a 20 minute nap, minus the caffeine.

A word on the Power nap

As mentioned above, the one positive side-effect of this change was a renewed look at the benefits of power-napping. This is a 15-20 minute dose of rest which has been employed by many people - from the famous to several of my work colleagues - over the years. I tend to view it as a snack - very helpful at some times, but not a regular habit.

The reason it works is simple (although the underlying chemistry covers years of study) :

spending time awake gradually throws the body's sodium/potassium levels out. Sodium and potassium are involved in the transportation of chemicals into and out of your brain, and the less effective these are the more tired you feel. A bit of time in the Theta state (deep relaxation or meditation) resets these levels, leaving you feeling refreshed.

If you're looking for a little help in getting to sleep quickly enough for this to be viable, consider trying the Pzizz software (recently reviewed on The Daily Giz Wiz podcast - episode 177, Oct 24 2006) - random soothing sounds while you're asleep with an alarm at the end. Perfect. If you're anything like me, however, grabbing a 20 minute sleep isn't particularly difficult.

A few of this week's blog finds :

Dar Kush
Dar Kush is the online home of novelist and martial artist Steven Barnes. A mix of clubbells, kettlebells and politics. An interesting read.

Grab the feed

Strengthopedia
A recent comment from bdckr put me on to this one. Dale Harder is a former world-record holder, Highland Games participant and lover of the more unusual strength disciplines. His newsletter looks great, not to mention the photos scattered throughout his site. Pull up a chair and get comfortable.

Journey into Krav Maga
Here you'll find Firewalker's opinions on the Krav Maga fighting system - looks promising.

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Ultimate Health and Conditioning
As he says on the site:

This site is about functional strength, balance, agility, endurance, nutrition and general health. I’m not following a specific agenda. I’m not anti-supplement, or anti-weights, or anti-anything. I don’t give a shit how you get healthy and fit, just that you get there.

Superb stuff. Well worth checking out.

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Golf Fitness Boot Camp
For those integrating golf and fitness, Brian's site BKS Golf is an excellent start. His blog, which follows the progress of the BKS Golf fitness bootcamps, is also a great read.

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Why not grab all the feeds as a single juicy opml file.

Tetris Weightlifting. For those days when you really don't feel like going to the gym.

Via Download Squad.

I noticed this exercise (well, the pull-up version) featured as the 'Exercise of the week' in the current EliteFTS newsletter. The first couple of reps was enough to ensure I was hooked.

Bands and chin-ups

On the rare occasions bands make their way onto the chin-up stage it's usual to have them helping out in some way. Whether looped around the bar or simply helping to offset your bodyweight, they're usually somewhere near the top of the rack/chinning bar.

Switching things around - affixing them to the rack's base or low pins - feels quite strange at first, as your path is suddenly controlled. I've never learnt to be an acrobat, but I imagine it's a similar feeling stepping into the training harness for the first time.

Where do you put the bands?

After a bit of experimentation I ended up with the combination shown in the picture at left. This involved two bands (Iron Woody blue bands in this case) which were looped around low pins in the rack. The other end of each band was looped over a weight belt, which held things in place nice and firmly. This provided around 12"-14" of motion; easily adjusted by moving the pins to a higher or lower setting.

Further thoughts

Surprisingly, this is reasonably fast to set up. It's certainly simpler than repeatedly donning a chin/dip belt, as there isn't much tension in the bands in the bottom position.

For the first session I kept things to the recent pattern of heavy triples; I'll adjust this once I see how things feel tomorrow.

A similar setup would probably work just as well for hanging leg and hanging knee raises. They're up next.

This is a very comprehensive look at the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet by Under the Bar's Kristoffer Lindqvist. If you've ever wondered just what this diet entails, or words of wisdom by someone who's used it on several occasions, look no further than this piece. Superb.

Champion 5,000m runner Craig Mottram has joined the starting list for the ultra-competitive Mark Webber Challenge.

Mottram, who gained a healthy dose of international fame in Helsinki last year, is definitely one to watch. The fun begins in just over a week - November 5.

The latest episode of The Fitcast features an interview with Dr John Berardi. Just a few of the subjects discussed :

• A recent study in Sweden on overfeeding. Participants were asked to maintain as sedentary a life as possible for a month, whilst consuming twice their body's required calories. Based on the findings from the pilot group alone, this is set to be a very interesting piece of research.
• A study on fish oil supplementation was discussed, as well as Dr Alan Logan's comprehensive book on the subject - The Brain Diet.
• Also on the bookshelf; Berardi's own work - Metabolism Advantage. Based on the synopsis given on the podcast, and the two bonus chapters available on the book's site, this is a great read.
• The Q&A covered the expected areas of protein consumption and maintaining a low bodyfat. Also noted were Berardi's thoughts on the Velocity Diet.

Oh, it's a long one (coming it at almost two hours). Sit back and enjoy the ride.

As summer approaches, things here at Straight to the Bar just keep getting hotter. If you've just joined us, take a look at these.

• Off season rugby training. Ashely Jones takes a look at rugby training from a couple of different angles - both in and out of the weight room.
• From the medical world a couple of interesting studies were published this week : notably on the memory of the immune system and the link between tendon-bone healing and smoking.
• Following the recent Front Squatting theme comes this video from Getstrength, showing off the current incarnation of the Front Squat Harness with an impressive 305kg front box squat.
• For a bit of physical culture nostalgia, take a peek at the Todd-McClean Physical Culture Collection. Warning: it's a big one.
• The rest collaboration continued with this week's brief look at the subject of Fuel and Rest. There's a little more to it than Eat -> Work out -> Sleep. Although that's a good start.

Mike Robertson mentioned on a recent episode of The Fitcast that his early articles on T-Nation - although full of excellent content - just weren't attracting a lot of attention. In order to combat that he started including the occasional image of a scantily clad female; a tactic which worked well.

If the article title and first image (the one at left) are anything to go by, Chad Waterbury shares this school of thought. At least - as with Mike Robertson's writing - this is an excellent read.

The article centres around a simple philosophy - that when it comes to training men and women, the same things work (irrespective of gender). This applies to strength training, fat loss or hypertrophy. Most of the time.

After establishing the many ways in which the two sexes are remarkably similar (at least when it comes to training), Chad goes on to provide the basis for a simple program designed to give the majority of women what they want - more Jessica Simpson than Ms Olympia. A great read.

This (subscription required, abstract) is a very interesting study, published in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). The short version? An international team of researchers headed by University of Wisconsin-Madison's Marulasiddappa Suresh took a major step forward in understanding how the immune system remembers events.

If you've ever wondered why people who've had chicken pox, the measles or a host of other illnesses rarely find themselves visiting the doctor with the same complaint, strap yourself in and read on.