Often, college coaches appear to equate toughness with the ability to get out of bed in the morning. After all, the rationale for the infamous 6:00 A.M. workout is the toughness or character or discipline that it builds.
In college, I rowed on the UCLA Crew team. We were on the water at 5:30A.M. four days a week, and the water was a 20-minute drive from my residence. Our early practice time had practical implications: we rowed in the marina in Marina Del Rey, and after 7 or 8A.M., the water was choppy, the traffic increased and rowing was more difficult than in the calm, flat pre-sunrise water.
These 5:30A.M. workouts did not make me tough or more disciplined. They made me tired. I had a general lethargy through most of the day. I slept through classes or took naps in the library between classes. I was fatigued before our afternoon workout started.
We raced in the morning, generally between 8-10A.M. We often left for races before 6 A.M.; giving the morning workouts additional practicality. Most college basketball teams play mid to late-afternoon games on weekends and evening games during the week. The 6 A.M. workout offers no practical application.
Early morning workouts disrupt sleep patterns and your body’s natural rhythms, especially on college campuses where athletes are at the mercy of roommates and dormmates who are on radically different time schedules.
The Boston Celtics value sleep. According to Kelly Dwyer, the Celtics have hired a sleep doctor, Dr. Charles A. Czeisler of Harvard Medical School. His hiring comes two years after Doc Rivers began to seek his advice. On the advice of Dr. Czeisler, the Celtics eliminated morning shoot-arounds and moved practice later in the day. As Rivers explained:
Guys are fresher, I think, if we walk it over right before (the game). They pick it up and they actually have a better chance of remembering it, rather than at 10 a.m. A lot of this comes from the sleep deprivation guy, this is the main reason we’re doing it. Clearly, our practices this year have been noticeably better because they are later, they got more sleep, more rest.”
Beyond the morning shoot-around, the Celtics also “instituted the ’2 a.m. rule,’ which holds that if the players can’t get to their hotel rooms in the next city by that time, then they stay where they are for an extra night and get their eight hours.”
If 8 hours of sleep is important for performance, how many college athletes with 6 A.M. workouts are asleep by 9:30P.M.? If not, how does this affect their performance? Is building toughness worth the performance decrements? Is there a better way to instill toughness?
Having done the 5:30 A.M. workouts in college, and recently having been a personal trainer who had to awake early to train clients before they went to work, I do not believe in their efficacy. I do not believe that they build toughness or improve performance. Instead, they have an adverse effect on college students, especially in terms of academics where it is painfully difficult to stay awake in a boring lecture after a 5:30 A.M. class. I took a “jock” class one semester when I rowed, and the entire back of the classroom was filled with athletes sleeping. Our team took an entire row, alternated boy/girl/boy/girl, and slept on each other’s shoulders for the entire class in the hope of staying awake in our more difficult classes.
For us, at least, there was a reason. It was not punishment or to build toughness. It was practical. It reflected our race environment. For athletes without this early-morning competition environment or facility necessity, the early morning workouts are a mistake.
More teams should follow the Celtics and listen to the doctors and researchers who study sleep’s effect on performance. Why create unnecessary obstacles in the talent development process?
Here’s an info-graphic from Fast Company on sleep’s effect on performance:
Brian, is there any data to support doc rivers statement? Is this not just an anecdotal statement from a coach? I do see your point and think it’s valuable. College campuses, in particular, are not the optimal environment for the athlete and their performance.
Additionally, the book Spark by Dr. Ratey discusses the value of vigorous, early morning Physical Education programming for high school students. There is a lot fo data to support enhanced brain function after vigorous exercise. Thus, the benefit for early morning practices extends beyond the court. Players get their basketball finished earlier in the day, their minds are better prepared for learning in the classroom, and the afternoons left open for training, pre/rehab, and free time.
Some colleges would succeed with the early morning model better than others, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Belmont or Butler, for example would likely excel with this model better than schools who recruit less academically oriented players.
Your thoughts?
First, Doc Rivers uses Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, whose title is Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Senior Physician, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has over a dozen grants to study sleep and its effect on performance, health and occupational safety. “Dr. Czeisler has more than 30 years’ experience in the field of basic and applied research on the physiology of the human circadian timing system and its relationship to the sleep-wake cycle.”
Second, I have not read Spark. But, my friend is doing his dissertation on the effect of acute exercise on math performance in adolescents. However, the study is short-term exercise followed by a relatively short test. It also is not after a shortened-night sleep.
Let’s say you have a vigorous 6-8 A.M. workout. I understand how your alertness will be improved at 8:15. However, if you do not have class until 9A.M. or 10A.M., do the benefits last? Are you more alert because of a 2-hour vigorous practice or would you be more alert if you got a full 8 hours of sleep and walked briskly to class?
One effect that I have not seen is the effect of early morning workout on dehydration. I look back at college and feel like I was probably dehydrated for most of it. When you wake you, you’re naturally less hydrated after sleep. Then, you go straight to practice. Now, you’re almost certainly dehydrated by the end of the workout. How will that affect your schoolwork? Your performance in your training session? How long will the effects of dehydration last?
Finally, there are studies on sleep and performance beyond Doc’s anecdotes:
A study conducted on Stanford swimmers found “Getting extra sleep over an extended period of time improves athletic performance, mood and alertness.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609071106.htm
“Adolescents who don’t get enough sleep might be jeopardizing their athletic performance” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050511072041.htm
“Sleep deprivation slows glucose metabolism”:
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/conditioning/a/aa062800a.htm
“It can also affect your ability to make split-second decisions, according to a recent study in the journal SLEEP.”
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/alert/sleep-deprivation-can-slow-reaction-time
Another article based on research published in the Journal Sleep:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/03/MN421K50NQ.DTL
“What these findings suggest is that these athletes were operating at a sub-optimal level. They’d accumulated a sleep debt,” said Cheri Mah, a researcher at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and lead author of the study. “It’s not that they couldn’t function – they were doing fine – but that they might not have been at their full potential.”
Another article offering support against early morning practices:
http://www.bps-research-digest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/why-teens-should-have-their-music-and.html
The Boston Celtics, #Sleep and Performance http://t.co/C2PPEWi20W