5 Fundamental Habits for Maximizing Athletic and Mental Performance
What you should be doing OUTSIDE the gym to optimize your mental and physical performance.
In a holistic approach to health and fitness, Strength Training is a crucial tool. But it’s just one piece of a complex puzzle.
Each human being is different in a profound number of ways.
We all have different genetics, training experience, nutrition needs, responses to stress, previous injuries, and diseases. So when it comes to health and nutrition, it would be impossible to say that there is a “one size fits all” solution.
However – there are fundamental truths and habits that every human must have as a baseline to maximize potential.
We call them, “The 5 Fundamental Habits for Maximizing Athletic and Mental Performance.” They are:
1.Sleep 8 hours per night
2.Drink ½ Your Body weight In Ounces of Water
3.Eat 8 Servings of Veggies a Day
4.Have Protein at Each Meal
5.Earn Your Carbohydrates
Habit 1: Sleep 8 Hours per Night
Sleep is our #1 habit for a reason. It is the miracle supplement. The right amount of sleep or lack of sleep has a profound impact on your performance.
To start, sleep improves blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity.
Insulin is a hormone that helps the body control the level of sugar, or glucose, in the blood. Insulin sensitivity refers to how sensitive the body's cells are in response to insulin (1).
Lack of sleep dramatically alters performance. We make a number of bad decisions when we're sleep deprived:
Food & Nutrition: When we’re tired, we choose convenience over nutritional value.
Nervous System Function: Poor nervous system function shows up in delayed reaction times and a decrease in potential for output.
Immune Function: Less sleep compromises immune function. This lowers recovery rates, making us more susceptible to illness.
Make sleep a priority in your life:
Though it won’t happen instantly, there are procedures you can start to improve your sleep quantity and quality
Block out time for sleep on your calendar. Schedule it out. Put a bedtime on your calendar and allow for 8 hours of rest.
No screens an hour before bed. The pineal gland produces melatonin. Melatonin helps us sleep. But the pineal gland cannot produce melatonin if it perceives light. When you use a screen, the pineal gland assumes it is light outside – and thus not time for bed.
Make your room cool and dark. And with minimal electronics. No electronics is best.
Go to bed clean and relaxed. Shower and do relaxing activities like reading, journaling, or meditating.
Habit 2: Drink ½ Your Bodyweight In Ounces of Water
Your body is a massive electric conductor. It uses water to transmit electrical signals. Proper hydration is important because water is the best medium to transfer these signals, and when we’re dehydrated, a number of bad things happen. Two important examples are:
Lowered Reaction Times: Dehydration decreases the nervous system’s performance. A less efficient nervous system means you are less efficient. So when the body lacks water, it slows the speed and timing of electrical signals.
Altered Blood Sugar: Dehydration alters blood sugar and makes you hungry. A lot of times when people are hungry, they are actually just thirsty. Regardless of your goals, like gaining muscle or losing weight, it is all about energy management. And running low on water is like an engine low on oil.
How to improve your hydration and nervous system function:
Start your day with water. Drink a huge glass right when you wake up. Have a water bottle with you at all times and keep it filled.
Filtered water and BPA free bottles make a difference. Why? BPA is a plastic that can alter detoxification pathways in the liver. If you want to efficiently metabolize energy, your liver needs to function properly.
Drink ½ your body weight in ounces of water each day. Do some simple math to figure out how much water you need to drink. If you are 200 lbs, you need 100 ounces of water a day.
Drink water early. Start hydrating earlier in the day so it doesn’t disrupt your sleep.
Habit 3: Eat 8 Servings of Veggies
What makes the vegetable food group so valuable?
It comes down to: fiber, micro-nutrient content, and water content.
Fiber: Fiber content helps with blood sugar regulation and subsequently insulin management. Fiber also slows down food entering the bloodstream from the digestive tract.
Micro-nutrient Content: This helps with satiety, or feeling full. When people are hungry, they might actually be nutrient deprived. Not calorie deprived.
Water Content: Vegetables hold a lot of water. They help with hydration and fullness from eating.
How to immediately improve your vegetable intake:
Start Early: Breakfast should include vegetables. This controls insulin levels from the start of the day.
Buy Organic: Organic is important. Pesticides are real and can impact your detoxification pathways.
No Juicing: Avoid cold pressing or juices. They’re high in sugar and low in fiber.
Cook with Grass-Fed Butter: This makes the micronutrients more bio-available. Bio-available means your body absorbs more of the nutrients. Plus – it tastes great.
Habit 4: Have Protein at Each Meal
When it comes to nutrition and strength training, there are a lot of different philosophies and opinions. But one constant is consistent protein. Let’s look at why.
Working out breaks down peptides and proteins.
We use amino acids for energy. Amino acids build peptides. Peptides build proteins. If you lack amino acids, you limit the body’s ability to build protein.
Animal proteins are the best proteins to replenish your body with. Why? They are the most complete proteins. They also have the least potential for autoimmunity. Autoimmunity is an organism’s system of immune responses against its own healthy cells and tissues.
Quick digesting proteins – like a whey protein shake post workout – help tremendously with recovery. Whey protein immediately gets into your system to help recover.
When shopping for protein, always go for quality.
Organic, free range, cage free, wild caught, grass fed/ grass finished meats are important.
Non-quality ingredients disrupt digestive pathways. This disruption limits the value of the nutrients and causes an immune response to food.
Timing is important, too. Start early with your proteins.
Starting early ensures amino acids circulate throughout the day. Starting early with your proteins helps the recovery process and enhances post-workout recovery.
Habit 5: Earn Your Carbohydrates
People tolerate carbohydrates differently. Some tolerate them well while others do not. How do you know if you tolerate carbohydrates well or not? It has to do with body fat.
If you store a lot of body fat, you do not tolerate carbohydrates well. If you do not store a lot of body fat, you do tolerate carbohydrates well.
Carbohydrates are important. Especially if you want to put on muscle. But you need to be strategic on how you use them. And what types of carbohydrates you use.
The staple of most people’s diets should be low glycemic carbs
These are slow-digesting carbs. A few examples are white rice, sweet potatoes, yams, yucca root, parsnip, Ezekiel bread, and steel cut oats. Crackers and chips are examples of high-glycemic carbs.
High-glycemic carbohydrates have value, too. Especially post workout. But if you have the choice, choose low glycemic carbs.
Save your carbs for post-workout and at the end of your day
Since carbohydrates release higher amounts of serotonin, timing your carbs this way will help with relaxation. Additionally, carbohydrates help with glycogen replenishment.
Glycogen is the storage form of carbohydrates in muscle. If the stores are not adequately filled, protein synthesis – building & repairing muscle – is limited or retarded.
Organic matters with carbohydrates
Organic means food is grown without pesticides.
Pesticides have negative impacts, especially on your detoxification pathways. You want to avoid anything that could do harm to your body.
To summarize, your health and mental/physical performance heavily rely on not only the work you put in the gym, but the habits you cultivate outside the gym. Improving on the 5 habits highlighted above will help you maximize your training performance and life performance.
Sources:
(1) https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323027.php