Hydration

Fatigue can come in 5 forms.

Hydration is one of the 5 possible causes for performance ending fatigue. I.e. you can’t physically go on with your activity.

• You can fail from lack of energy supplies – that is handled by proper nutrition for your body type and genetics
• You can fail from a lack of nervous system resources – this is handled by eating the right kinds of nutrients (especially fats) and the resting and timing your training correctly
• You can fail from an over-increase of body temperature – this is Singapore, get used to it!
• You can fail from a lack of muscular endurance – this is easily improved within a few weeks
• You can fail from lack of hydration – this is totally within your control!

Of all these, hydration is the easiest to fix! So it would be a waste not to take care of it since all it takes is water.

How much and how often?

We all know that you should drink till your urine is clear. That’s a great starting point. In addition, any time you feel thirsty, then its too late, your performance is already suffering. I’d like to take it a step further.

Drink so much that you are constantly going to the bathroom till 2 hours before the test starts. I don’t think there is exact research to substantiate this, but, in my experience with hundreds of athletes and hundreds of competitions, hydrating to this point has never hurt and it has made cramping a very very rare occurrence.

No special drinks, just water. Once you hit 2 hours before the test starts, just sip occasionally. This prevents frequent toilet trips at the test venue.

Research shows that even a 1-2% of bodyweight water loss (600g for a 60kg man) can lead to a 10% decrease in strength and power output. So please drink!

Mental Preparation

When you prepare for the IPPT,  not only are you spending weeks or months on physical preparation, you are also conditioning yourself for success. Every time you lift more weight, perfect your starting stance, improve your jump distance, you are conditioning yourself for success.

Not only physically, but also mentally. This conditioning helps you with positive thoughts during the test day. I am a big fan of positive thinking, but positive thinking only works when its built on a foundation of positive actions, and strong preparation beforehand.

If we skip 50% of our training sessions to watch the latest episode of CSI or Desperate Housewives or whatever Korean drama our wife is watching, then all the positive thinking in the world won’t work because our preparation stinks!

By the time test day comes, you should know exactly what you are going to eat, how long before the test you will stop eating and drinking, what your starting stance looks like, how many steps your are going to take in the shuttle run before turning. Stuff like that. That kind of preparation makes positive thinking effective.

Here is where the training and practice come together. By this time you should be prepared for the test and confident of consistently achieving the results you got during training.

Like I always tell my personal training clients who participate in competitive sports:

“Many people like winning, in fact many people have the will to win…”

“But not many people have the will to prepare to win!”

• The will to prepare to win, includes eating right. You really are what you eat. Imagine each molecule of that oily fried noodle becoming part of you. Yuck!
• The will to prepare to win includes training smart and consistently. Which means at least some measure of physical discomfort when compared to surfing the internet or watching TV!
• The will to prepare to win includes knowing for sure, exactly what to do and how you will perform so you can do your best on test day, and that’s what this chapter is about.

The underlying question is “what did you do today that will make you perform better when the test day comes”.

Sleep

Singapore is a chronically under-slept nation. I recall a local documentary I saw in TV where a reporter was going around on the street asking Singaporeans how many hours of sleep they had each night. The average was about 5 or 6 hours per night. Many respondents said that they slept at 1 or 2 in the morning and woke up at 7 to rush off to work.

Internet surfing, TV watching and yes even work are some of the reason given for the poor sleeping habits.

You might survive on this kind of sleep regimen. And us men all know that this is what happens during our time in national service. But remember, we now have to ask ourselves…we might survive but is it ideal?

Lack of sleep is a problem for people looking to maximize performance. A scary thought is that before the invention of the light bulb, people averaged 12 hours of sleep per night. We are not even close in today’s hectic world. Many of us don’t even get the required 7 or 8 hours. Sleep debt is bad and here are some of the disadvantages.

Obesity And Sleep

There is a direct relationship between obesity and lack of sleep. Studies show that the people who slept less also had higher body mass indexes (BMI). Sure BMI isn’t a perfect system of determining health, but it is a good indicator of obesity for the average non-athletic population.

Poor Carbohydrate Metabolism And Sleep

Because of the way lack of sleep affects hormonal function, the stress hormone cortisol is more active and this causes more fat storage. Imagine, the body stores fat for survival, just as if you were lost in the jungle. More fat would mean you live longer. Lack of sleep is a stressful state for the body and will result in a similar reaction – fat storage.

The hormone insulin is also released more when we don’t sleep enough. This hormone is released to store carbohydrates that we eat. As fat. Yes more training and exercise can reduce the effect but sufficient sleep is a good way to stop the body from releasing lots of insulin to store fat.

Slows Recovery

We only benefit from training when recover. How much stronger do you get after doing sprints? Or lifting weights? The answer is of course…not stronger at all! In fact at the end of a training session you are drained and weaker. It is recovery that builds the physical capability that you want. Sleep is critical for recovery processes to function well.

Practical Steps To Improved Sleep

Decide to sleep more. Yes, make a way, just like you make a way to spend time training, eating, brushing your teeth and washing your underwear! Even if it’s not every day, get a few “long sleep” nights in each week. Maybe 9 hours or more. Also, take naps if you can. Yeah, it’s tough. Be creative!

Stop surfing the net and watching TV after 10pm. Get ready to relax and slow down into sleep.

Caffeine is a stimulant that the body does not adapt well to. It puts your hormonal system into overdrive and is what athletes call “borrowed energy” you have to pay it back somehow. Cut down on the caffeine by taking de-caf or green tea instead.

Have a bedtime routine. For me it’s light snack of nuts and protein powder, small cup of warm drink, main light off, bedside light on, read for 30min, pee for the final time! And off to bed. No you don’t need to do the same thing but you do need a routine. Remember consistent routines give consistent results.

I have heard some people do well with softly playing nature sounds kinds of CD’s. Give it a try if it works for you.

Adjust your sleep to your needs. I don’t know how sleep deprived you are but you can start off going to sleep 8 hours before you need to wake up. If you do this for 1 week and still feel terrible, add 30 mins to this time and try again for another week. Sleep is like a bank account, you can’t just take stuff out. You do need to intentionally put stuff in also!

Take care of your sleep environment. If your environment is full of bad and disturbing noises, get earplugs. Noise makes each hour of sleep less “powerful”. There was even a study that shows that loud daytime noises hurt night time sleep! Earplugs again are the solution.

Light needs to go also. If your room cannot be fully darkened (the way it was in the caveman days) get one of those sleep masks that we get on airlines. Use it.

Electronic emissions. Turn off your hand phone, wifi modem, and any other emitting device. I don’t think there are any studies on this yet. But I’m pretty sure that besides the comforting feeling that you won’t be getting noisy phone calls, these electronic waves are not great for sleep.

Don’t use alcohol. It works in the short run for people who usually don’t drink. But in the long run, your body adapts to it and it makes you have drowsiness during the day and actually reduces the quality of sleep. Uh it’s also high in useless calories and makes your hormonal state less conducive to muscle growth and recovery.

Don’t drink too much before sleeping. Each person is different but experiment with how much you can handle without waking up to use the toilet. Peeing requires you wake up. That disturbs sleep. Enough said.

On the day before the test get lots of sleep. But if you know how valuable sleep is, you should have been getting that sleep and those sleep habits long before that.

That is it for part 1 of how to prepare for the test day. Sleep is so important that I spend much of my initial personal training consultations on sleeping better. If the above tips are not enough, drop by my Singapore personal trainer webpage and ask for a health consultation where I will solve any sleeping issues you might have. Can’t fall asleep? Wake up feeling tired? Wake up constantly in the middle of the night etc…