Sleep better

 

My wife tells me I have already written this column before.  Maybe more than once.  After 40 years of writing in this space, I hope I can be forgiven for repeating myself.  But if the message is still important, then it surely bears repeating.

Let me explain. One night last week, I lay in bed reading. That’s my regular routine. Like many folks, I used to finish my night by checking my phone for the latest messages/weather update/game scores before setting my alarm, signing off, and calling it a night.

But not long ago I had heard that the quality of our sleep was enhanced if we stayed off of our electronic devices at bedtime. Phones, computers, television…anything like that.

I’ve always been a reader (still am). Beside my recliner you will find several books and on a stand just an arm’s reach away, several more. I love books. I’ve tried to read on my Kindle (I do have one) but that’s just not for me.

Just like a real printed newspaper, I want to hold words in my hands, whether it is newsprint or a book. Not long ago, I gathered up all the John Grisham novels I have. Being a huge fan, I had collected hardback copies of his books. I believe I have most of them.

It was amazing not only how many I had, but also how prolific John Grisham is as a writer. I tend to collect those. I find an author and want to read everything they’ve published. James Lee Burke. Ken Follett. 

On this particular night, as I lay reading, I realized something—I have been sleeping under an old-fashioned, pieced quilt my entire life. As in, since I was a baby. Hand-stitched in somebody’s home.

For many years, it was made by my grandmother. I still have quilts she made. 

Anyway, it’s time to get around to the point of all this.  One of the most under-appreciated components of sports performance is sleep. You don’t have to take my word for it—the body of knowledge about sleep quality is huge and conclusive.

A good night’s sleep is absolutely essential to consistently high performance in our athletic endeavors.  It is a foregone conclusion that quality practice is necessary. Most athletes also know of the importance of regular strength training.

A few understand how important flexibility is and a few even realize how important the nutritional component of physical performance can be. Rare is the person that understands the value of sleep. 

There isn’t a formula for how much sleep is enough. Everyone is different.  It’s just sort of safe to say that you probably aren’t getting enough. There is a lot of evidence that you should go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time. That’s hard to do.

My advice is to shoot for 8 hours a night, don’t watch television (or any kind of electronic device) in bed, and avoid things like caffeine that can interfere with the quality of your sleep.

If you’re tired in the afternoon, it is likely either sleep or nutrition. Take care of the nutrition side and if you’re still sluggish in the afternoon, turn your attention to what you can do to have a better night’s sleep.

I Wish...

 

One of my grandchildren asked me recently “what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Huh-uh. Not answering that one. There would be too much implied endorsement for similar behavior out of him. Maybe it’s safer to tell him what I wish I had done.

I wish I had played other sports. I played football from the 3^rd grade on and loved basketball but I didn’t stick with the basketball. I wish I had. I didn’t go out for the track team until I was a high school senior and that was just to do the shot put.

There weren’t a lot of options in my hometown but I didn’t take advantage of all of what we did have.

I played a lot of tennis but I wish we had appealed to the high school to start a tennis team.  We had the makings of a team, despite not having any public courts.  Ronnie McNabb, Teddy Randolph, Tony Woody, Bill Miller…we could have been pretty good.

We didn’t have a public pool either but everybody could swim. I learned in a hotel pool in Kentucky when I was probably 4. Most of us spent a lot of time at the Springbrook pool in Lenoir City and several of us took lifesaving courses there or worked as lifeguards. Different era, I guess.

I wish I had worked harder at football. I was what we called “country strong.” That comes from bales of hay and shoveling grain and working hard. My school had a weight machine and free weights but I never really took advantage of them. I built a bench press out of wood and had a weight set for it but I’m pretty sure all I had was a total of 110 pounds. Not much to be gained from that.

My wife’s uncle, Jack Nichols, was one of the greatest football players to ever come out of my high school. Jack’s work ethic was legendary. He would take off and run to the next city, then turn around and run back. He would challenge anybody to a foot race. Even those that were 80 pounds lighter than him.

I wish I had that kind of drive back then. I did find it later but it would have been cool to have discovered it in when I was young.

I wish I had applied myself better in school. Oh, I did pretty well—straight A’s throughout my school years, but it didn’t take much effort to get A’s.  I did enter the Southeastern Science Fair one time but I was in way over my head. 

I was editor of the school newspaper and did some crazy things in that role. Keep in mind that it was the end of the 60’s and Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience was in my nightstand. I even got arrested (sort of) in college for protesting the damming of the Little Tennessee River. That’s another story.

Our journalism teacher in high school was a kind but naïve lady named Miss Mize. We would write, print, and distribute the school newspaper without letting her see it. That wasn’t real nice of us.

I broke my jaw one time. We had snuck into the pool at night but then we thought the police had arrived. In jumping off the top of the fence to escape, I hit my chin on my knee. Knowing what I know now, I definitely broke my jaw. I haven’t told anybody until today.

I wish I had started a business in high school. I mowed several yards and “hauled hay” for several farmers. Often, those farmers would depend on me to find a crew for them. If I had any business savvy at all, I would have charged a fee and had crews for each task.

I wish I hadn’t been so shy around girls. In junior high, I didn’t really have a girlfriend because I couldn’t talk to them. A steady girlfriend in high school helped with that but it was many years later when I had any confidence at all in talking to girls.

I wish. I wish. Yeah, buddy, I did some crazy stuff and made some mistakes that maybe I wish I hadn’t made, but it’s been a heck of a ride. Still is.

Yoga for everyone

 

I do yoga. Or “practice” yoga, if I use the proper nomenclature.  I take a class once or twice a week but incorporate a lot of the positions and moves into my daily exercise regimen. 

But let me address the elephant in the room. A lot of people object to the practice of yoga, misunderstanding the spiritual nature of yoga. If there is a spiritual side, it is connecting the mind and body. 

Yes, yoga is a part of the Hindu religion, but for millions of people around the world, yoga is simply a form of exercise. 

Amanda Hatcher is my yoga instructor.  She owns Yoga Mix on Sanderson Street. Until her retirement from teaching, I took yoga for several years from Amanda Myers and, before that, from Vanessa Ledbetter.

Yoga uses a variety of positions and postures to promote strength, flexibility, and control.  Movements are made slowly and deliberately. Yoga helps posture, balance, and body awareness. 

Breathing control is a big part of yoga practice, as is focus on controlling your body’s response to stress.  It has been shown to reduce blood pressure and control headaches.

I have to admit that there are very few men in the classes I take.  There might be one or two. Most of the people in the class are women in their 30’s and 40’s. Did I mention that I’m often not only the only man but also among the oldest in the class?

That’s OK because the true purpose of yoga practice is to improve physical health. And if you know anything about me at all, you know I’m focused on improving the physical health for both of us. 

I’m not sure why more older people don’t do yoga. It seems to me that it would be more important for older folks to do yoga than the younger folks. Maybe it’s the same reason older folks don’t hit the gym as often as young folks—it’s just outside their comfort zone. 

Maybe it’s just because they don’t understand it. But young and old, men and women, can all benefit from practicing yoga. We don’t realize what a profound connection that we have between our mind and our body, but a lot of physical ailments are when those two are disconnected.

Falls among older folks is one of the biggest health risks that they/we have.  About 27% of people that fall and break a hip will die within a year. There is no doubt that we lose what we know as “proprioception,” or joint sense, as we age and our joints degenerate. 

For that and other reasons, our balance also suffers, particularly as we age. It just makes good sense that we should do what we can to improve our balance. Yoga can do that. Maintaining core strength and flexibility also helps with that.

Athletes can also benefit from yoga.  I remember a championship football team around here several years ago that had several of its stars in a yoga class every Saturday morning.  Balance and body control are important in athletics. Yoga does that.

I’m not sure why there aren’t more men in yoga classes either. There’s nothing gender-specific about it. Gym shorts and t-shirts are fine. I once saw a guy in an airport in yoga pants but you won’t catch me in those and you definitely don’t need them to participate.

Put most simply, yoga can be a form of exercise with a wide range of health benefits. I don’t think it’s the only thing you should do, but it can be an important part of your overall health and wellbeing. 

The Sports Medicine Team

Athletic health care is pretty special in Blount County.  You won’t find the depth and breadth of services we have here in many places across the country.  You will find the quality of services found here in even fewer places.

Peggy Bratt is a familiar and beloved figure in our community’s athletic community. The Head Athletic Trainer at Alcoa High School, next week Peggy will be inducted into the Southeast Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame.

She is also Sports Medicine Director for Total Rehabilitation at Blount Memorial Hospital and sees patients and athletes at Total Rehabilitation’s Cherokee clinic.  Peggy is an important part of the incredible success Alcoa High has enjoyed.

Four months ago, Dr. Kyle Boden joined Knoxville Orthopedic Clinic-Maryville (formerly known as OrthoTennessee-Maryville and before that as Maryville Orthopedic Clinic).  Dr. Boden is a Knoxville native, graduating from Karns High School where he played quarterback on the football team.

He then went to Emory & Henry College where he also starred at quarterback. Medical school was at ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine and then orthopedic residency at the University of Kentucky, where he worked with the athletic teams.  He then did a sports medicine fellowship at Case Western University where his responsibilities included working with the Cleveland Browns of the NFL. 

Soon after arriving here, he became team physician at Alcoa High School, where he joined them on their path to a 10^th straight 3A state football championship.  He is also available to athletes of all ages and at all our schools.

Dr. Boden is a Sports Orthopedist.  That’s an orthopedic surgeon that has specialized in sports medicine. Not everything he does is surgery—most of what he does is take care of athletes with orthopedic injuries that don’t need surgery, but which need the services of an orthopedic specialist.  Very few communities our size have a Sports Orthopedist serving them.

Dr. Ben England arrived just four and a half years ago, but it seems like he has been here forever.  Dr. England is a graduate of William Blount High School, where he wrestled and played soccer.  After receiving an undergraduate degree in biochemistry at UT he then attended ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine.  After primary care residency and sports fellowship at UT, he returned to the tri-cities area where he served as the Head Team Physician at ETSU and as team physician for Elizabethton High School for the next ten years.

To our good fortune, he decided to come home, joining the staff of Blount Memorial Physicians Group and establishing his medical practice at East Tennessee Medical Group.  You can always find him on the sidelines of a high school football game on Friday night.  He also serves as a Team Physician for Maryville College.

What isn’t always apparent is that we are all part of a sports medicine team. Just like the athletes we serve, our team is only as strong as its members.  And our team is really strong. 

What most people don’t realize is just how extensive the athletic health care coverage is in our community.  Total Rehabilitation provides athletic trainers at Alcoa High, Apostolic Christian Academy, Clayton-Bradley Academy, Eagleton College & Career Academy, Greenback School, Heritage High, Maryville Christian School, Maryville High, Samuel Everett School of Innovation, Sequoyah High, and William Blount High. Total Rehabilitation athletic trainers can also be found at many middle school/junior high events, multi-school events, and community events like the Reindeer Run. Whew!!!

Total Rehabilitation at Cherokee opens their doors at 7 AM each weekday morning so that local athletes can see an athletic trainer.  This gets them seen in a timely fashion, which means that they get back on the playing field as soon as it is safe and appropriate

Dr. England and the physicians at Knoxville Orthopedic Clinic-Maryville (it’s going to take a while before that rolls off the tongue) also come in early each morning to see athletes that Total Rehabilitation athletic trainers send them.

All in all, it’s amazing what we have around here. Our community is truly blessed.  

Courage

                                 

Walt Disney said “all our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”

I’ve written about discipline, commitment, and hope. I want to close out this series by talking about courage.

Have you seen the movie Wicked yet?  My daughter-in-law tells me that there is a bit of foreshadowing about the Cowardly Lion in this one that will be explained in Chapter 2.

The Cowardly Lion was always my favorite Wizard of Oz character. I can still mimic “I’m the king of the for-est…” For some reason, I guess I could relate to him. I also remember that, in the end, the Wizard gave him a medal for bravery but told him that he had it in him already.  That the medal just verified that.

So, what is Courage?

Courage is being afraid, but moving forward anyway.  Those friends and acquaintances that I’ve had that have been in war tell me that they were always afraid.

The horrors of war were real. Knowing that you could die at any moment, well, if it doesn’t scare you, then you must be too dumb to be afraid. From the trench warfare of World War I to the jungles of Vietnam, young men demonstrated courage beyond anything most of us can imagine. It’s terrible to think about having to worry about IED’s in a middle eastern desert.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but it is what keeps you moving against odds that might seem overwhelming. Underdogs in a sporting event?  Courage.  Give up or give it all you’ve got.

Courage might mean that at your lowest point, when the game seems lost, you keep going…keep fighting. Courage means take one more step.

I think a lot of times, that’s the best definition of courage—that you just go one more step. Keep going. Keep fighting.

Down 5-0 in a tennis match?  Win the next point. And then the one after that. Strike out? Get back up to bat and try again. Miss a shot? Take another.

I used to work with the kickers on the football team at Maryville High School. I never really tried to coach them about how to kick, but I always tried to help them with the mental side of the game.  If one of them ever missed a kick, I would find them immediately on the sidelines and tell them that the last one didn’t count.  Only the next one counted.

We have to do that. We have to put our failures behind us and move on.  How else do we get out of bed in the morning? How else do we take the field or the court again?

I find no glory in failures, but I do find lessons to be learned. Failure hurts. Or it should. But we should learn from our mistakes.  We should learn how NOT to do something. The only true failure is when you don’t take the lesson away from the failure.

Failure builds resilience and character. How we behave when we fail reveals who we truly are. What we do next reveals who we are to become. We should not fear failure.

When I was the boss, I wanted my managers to risk making mistakes. I wanted them to feel empowered to make decisions, even at the risk of being wrong. The same thing is true for our children. If we won’t allow them to make mistakes, how will they learn?

A quote that was on my wall as a teenager and is still imprinted on my heart today is as follows:  “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”

And from Kipling’s poem If—“…If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Have courage. Persevere. Take just one more step. Then another.

 

Commitment

 

I want to continue with a New Years theme for this month. I talked about discipline last week, and got a lot of feedback on that one.

This week, let’s look at commitment. We’re in the new year now, and, as predicted, gym memberships are up.  But as I wrote about last week, too often those gym memberships do not seem to translate to longevity.

I’m a big fan of gyms—all gyms. I don’t care for the push for long term gym memberships.  My opinion has always been that if you don’t want to be there, if you aren’t going to use that gym membership, then you should be allowed to move on. Back when I owned a gym, that’s the way we did it.

Still, I understand that a prepaid membership can be incentive to make use of that membership. I get that. But that just doesn’t seem to be the case.  I guess once that membership is paid, it’s easier to ignore.

But there is one irrefutable truth:  If you want to pursue good health, you must be COMMITTED to that pursuit.

The discipline thing that I wrote about last week is a necessary ingredient. I mentioned getting up at 4:30 in the morning to hit the gym or get some exercise. It takes DISCIPLINE to do that.  Week after week. Month after month. Year after year.

I’ve told this story before—but it’s been a while. My dad had his first heart attack when I was 5 years old. What that means is that my family lived the life of a heart patient family from as far back as I can remember.

My dad took Coumadin until the day he died and did everything his doctor told him.  The science is much better now (SO much better) but it was what we knew. Some of it still works. No fried foods. Lean meats. Low sodium.

What we know now that we didn’t know then is that there are good fats and bad fats, and that we need those good fats.  We thought eggs were completely off limits. We now know that eggs in moderation are a good thing. We thought all red meat was bad. We now know that lean red meet can be important. 

Because of science and cardiac research, we know so much more. There just wasn’t much science behind it back then. I used to be on the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association and the sermon we preached back then is what we thought was good medicine. Unfortunately, a lot of what we knew has proven to be wrong. High carb intake is bad. We didn’t know that.

The biggest change in cardiac science is that we now understand how profound exercise is to cardiac health. Some have argued that it is more important than the nutritional aspect.

Let me repeat that—exercise is absolutely essential to good cardiac health. You might live to be a hundred but if you don’t exercise, you are the exception.

I don’t care what you do. Just move! Sure, for bone health you need weightbearing activities. And to stay active, you need to do some strength training.

What you don’t want to do is to follow the latest trends—don’t let anybody tell you that they have the “secret” to good health. They don’t. If you just move, you will be healthier.

If you think I’m self-righteous about all that, I assure you I’m not. Living with a heart patient (my dad), made me scared to death of heart disease. I have never allowed myself to be out of shape or to eat a lot of junk, not because I’m smarter or more dedicated than anybody else, but because of fear.

Do you want to be active and healthy when you’re old? Then do today what you need to do to be THAT person one day. It starts today, regardless of how old you are. Active children become active and healthy adults.

Are you truly committed to being healthy? Then I’ll see you out there.

Unrivaled

 

They were from rival schools and, truth be known, they probably didn’t like each other very much.

Jon Young went to William Blount High School where he played quarterback.  He was actually the last William Blount quarterback to beat Maryville High. He would want me to tell you that.

Nick Black attended Maryville High School where he was All-State in both football and track.  He went on to play football at Clemson University. He never lost to William Blount.  He would want me to tell you that.

Jon is now Instructional Supervisor for Blount County Schools.  Prior to that, he had served as a Principal, Assistant Principal, Teacher, and Football Coach.

Nick is now a local lawyer and member of the Maryville City School Board. He hopes to be a judge someday.

Jon and Nick played against each other in high school, with Nick’s MHS team coming out on top 65-7 his senior year. Jon remembers that loss vividly.  He didn’t really care for the Rebels. And Nick didn’t care much for the Govs either.

Such are high school rivalries.  Oh…Nick is my son. And I was there for that game.

Jump ahead several years and Jon is the freshman football coach at Heritage High School. I happened to be talking to Nick about Jon during that time. “This kid Jon Young is a heck of a coach and a really super young man.”

He was impressive, even as young as he was. You could tell then that he was a good one. Calm. Inspirational. The kind of coach you want your kid to play for.

I’m not going to throw Nick under the bus here—I’ll just say that he still had a little of that high school rivalry thing in him and doubted my appraisal.

Jump ahead a few more years and they both ended up on the football coaching staff at Maryville High School under George Quarles. And that’s where the magic started.

Coaches spend a lot of time together. Jon and Nick shared a desk in the coaching office. And they became great friends—a friendship that has lasted to this day.  As Maryville’s Athletic Trainer, I got to watch the friendship develop. It was a treat for this old dad.

Oh, they still tease each other, and I know my son—he probably brings up that game his senior year from time to time. But you can tell when they’re around each other that they really like each other.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Kids grow up in this community.  They might play little league or pee-wee football or Parks & Rec basketball together. They might attend sleepovers with their friends. They could attend the same birthday parties, have the same friends.

Then they go to different schools and end up on rival teams. Where is it written that they have to dislike each other?

I’ve always admired the Alcoa/Maryville rivalry.  Kids have friends from the other school, maybe even date someone from the other school. That doesn’t lessen the rivalry—I think it adds to it. You definitely want to win that game, regardless of how many friends you have on the other team.

That wasn’t true where I grew up. Loudon and Lenoir City hated each other. Still do. I went to Loudon and we didn’t even like Halloween, since it featured orange and black (Lenoir City’s colors). There were always fights and various shenanigans.

It doesn’t have to be that way. (I even like some people from Lenoir City now.)

So here’s the good news: Jon’s dad Ricky and I got to sit back and watch these two young men grow up, have really great families, make a difference in the community that they grew up in, and become steadfast friends.

How cool is that!