Out of the Gym Habits that Affect In-the-Gym Performance: A Coach’s Perspective
Out of the Gym Habits that Affect In-the-Gym Performance: A Coach's Perspective
By Charlie Schreiber CSCS
As a coach and climber, I’ve found habits outside the gym have an impact on how I/my athletes show up in the training. The following are a list of key habits to consider, in order of importance, when the goal is to optimize performance and health.
Sleep
The importance of sleep cannot be emphasized enough. High-quality and an adequate number of hours of sleep are essential for every athlete that is interested in improving climbing performance. The compounding effect of getting inadequate sleep quality/duration can lead to periods of decreased performance and injury. I am going to share my top tips that I encourage my athletes to use to improve sleep and recover.
Consistency
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night! Your body will do the work for you and will begin to feel tired at the same time every night, which will help those of you that have trouble falling asleep.
Conditions
Sleeping in a pitch-black room (black out curtains are a must!)
Sleeping in a cold environment (I sleep in 67 degrees)
Invest in a noise canceller, white noise app, or a fan near your bed.
Pamper yourself with the best bed, sheets, and blanket/comforter you can afford!
The Approach
Don’t eat or drink too much before bed. You don’t want to be kept up by a full stomach or frequent trips to the bathroom.
Avoid alcohol and caffeine; these can dramatically disturb sleep.
Avoid Blue-Lights, Screens or anything that will over-stimulate you up to one hour before bed.
DO meditate, perform breathing exercises, or read a book to wind down!
Set-Backs Impacted by Drinking, Smoking, Overindulging
A setback is anything that will lead to my next session being worse than my previous one. Common examples of things that delay recovery or add damage to your body are drinking alcohol (more than a drink or two), smoking cigarettes/vapes/marijuana, or overindulging in food (especially junk food). While these may be fun, they make it harder for your body to recover, which is the opposite of what you want after a hard day of climbing/training.
If you are someone that does this often and justifies it by saying something like “Its ok, I will get back to where I was next session…. Or…. I just need to take it easy today or add on an extra rest day,” then you are missing the big picture. These days kill momentum. In training, having consistent good days of small gains is what it is all about. The goal of each day is to make you 1% better. These activities have the potential to set you back, making you 1% worse. One step backwards needs 2 steps forwards to get to where you would be if you didn’t make those poor decisions!
Planning
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Make sure to devote some time at the beginning of each month and each week to plan out your training sessions. Take the time to organize days when you can train with the people that push you and maximize your training sessions! Prioritize your training sessions and mark them in your calendar so that other less important social events don’t get planned and end up getting prioritized over your sessions. If it is in the calendar, it is going to happen.
You should also plan out your meals for each week, from your weekly dinners to your pre-session meals. Too many times I have heard from clients that they had to grab fast-food or a processed meal because they didn’t take the time to plan their meals.
You should have a list of “Necessities” that are included in your backpack that are crucial elements to your daily life. These can be healthy meals/snacks, water bottles, massage tools, supplements, etc.
Nutrition and Water Intake
I promise I will not go into a rant about all the reasons why you should be “hitting your macros,” drinking 64 ounces of water per day, avoiding refined sugars, etc. Instead, I am going to share some strategies which I have found to be helpful.
Electrolytes in your water, pre session. Adding electrolytes to your water and consuming it for 2-3 hours before your session will help increase muscle performance, avoid cramping and muscle tearing, increase energy and even promote faster recovery between attempts!
Avoid acidic foods/drinks; stay alkaline! Eating an alkaline diet will generally lead you down a more health-promoting path and will lead to faster recovery via decreased inflammation. Avoid refined carbs, fried foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, too much red meat, processed meats, and margarine, shortening and lard.
Protein shakes post workout shuttles protein to the muscles faster than a meal which needs more time to break down the food and get it to the muscles. Muscles have a critical window when they can absorb protein more effectively for about 30-minutes post-workout. Post workout carbs can also help get glycogen back into muscles after a hard workout, helping it heal and recover in time for the next session!
Aim for high-nutrition foods. The more vitamins and minerals you can pack into your diet, the more optimally the machine that is your body can run! Stop eating foods that offer little nutritional value and start reaching for the super foods!
Nature Exposure and Stress Release
Getting out into nature feels right for a reason! Studies have shown that stress levels reduce when we spend even a few minutes outside per day. Aside from a healthy dose of Vitamin D, up to 20 minutes of time in nature can reduce cortisol levels in the body. While cortisol is a necessary hormone in the body, intensely training athletes tend to have higher levels of cortisol which can impair cognitive functions and delay recovery by lowering immunity and inflammatory responses in the body.
Training and dealing with the stressors of work/school can put our minds and bodies under a lot of stress, so it is important to pack your life with activities that make you happy, laugh and help you find peace. Just like your body, your mind needs to recharge and recover to be able to push itself during training!
For more information:
Stay Alkaline: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/acidic-foods#high-acid-food-and-drink
Better Sleep: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/sleep_hygiene.html
Nature for Stress: https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/how-does-nature-impact-our-wellbeing#:~:text=Being%20in%20nature%2C%20or%20even,the%20production%20of%20stress%20hormones
From the Hidden Crux team:
This article mentions the personal decision to follow an alkaline diet.
If you, as an athlete, want to follow a specific diet plan, we recommend you meet with a Registered Dietitian and talk to your doctor. We support a well-balanced healthy relationship with food.
If you are interested in learning what the research says about alkaline diets here are some sources:
Everyday Health: What is the Alkaline Diet? Review, Research, Food List, and More
Applegate, C., Mueller, M., & Zuniga, K. E. (2017). Influence of dietary acid load on exercise performance. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism, 27(3), 213-219.
Passey, C. (2017). Reducing the dietary acid load: how a more alkaline diet benefits patients with chronic kidney disease. Journal of renal nutrition, 27(3), 151-160.
