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Practice changes

Bigger Ed said:
I assume this is by curfew. Is that correct? If so, how strictly is it enforced?
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They have sleep monitors for some guys that sign off to allow them to monitor it. But even then.... you're telling an 18-22 year old college kid lights out is every night at 8pm. It's tough sledding for some which is why it just doesn't work here for select recruits. That said, there are issues at every college that make things just not work there, our morning practices and workouts are one for us.
 

Funny this is a topic - morning versus afternoon practices. When my daughter was shopping for a college to play volleyball, she wanted to know when practices were, simply because she prefers afternoon practices. I think every school she visited had afternoon practices, although workouts/conditioning were early.
 
If you are having afternoon practices does that mean you are attending class in the morning? These guys have to practice football, go to class, watch film, work out and eat properly. And they have to get enough sleep. Time management can be a real challenge for 18-20 yr. olds. Even if you are practicing at 3:00 PM you still have to do your strength and conditioning and you have to go to class. It’s not like if they have practice at 3:00 they can sleep until noon.
 
Schedules are custom-made for these athletes. Many times, their major is determined by the athletics department.

We knew a young lady who went to Texas A&M on a full volleyball scholarship and when she got there, they told her that her major would be poultry science, gave to her her books, and that was the end of that.
 
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Brew City Husker said:
If you are having afternoon practices does that mean you are attending class in the morning? These guys have to practice football, go to class, watch film, work out and eat properly. And they have to get enough sleep. Time management can be a real challenge for 18-20 yr. olds. Even if you are practicing at 3:00 PM you still have to do your strength and conditioning and you have to go to class. It’s not like if they have practice at 3:00 they can sleep until noon.
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Practice in morning classes after that as opposed to practice in afternoon and classes in the morning.
 
WestTexasHusker said:
Schedules are custom-made for these athletes. Many times, their major is determined by the athletics department.

We knew a young lady who went to Texas A&M on a full volleyball scholarship and when she got there, they told her that her major would be poultry science, gave to her her books, and that was the end of that.
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This story is not fishy, it's fowl.
 




ShortSideOption said:
Lol who were this persons support system? Never once brought up in the recruitment process?

The only reason I believe you is because Mo Washington left the team once we told him his major was going to be agricultural sciences.
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I don’t know it as fact. Its just what the young lady told me and my wife.
 
ShortSideOption said:
They have sleep monitors for some guys that sign off to allow them to monitor it. But even then.... you're telling an 18-22 year old college kid lights out is every night at 8pm. It's tough sledding for some which is why it just doesn't work here for select recruits. That said, there are issues at every college that make things just not work there, our morning practices and workouts are one for us.
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I'd be curious to know if the staff is claiming any benefits to early morning workouts beyond the old school line of – 'if we get em out of bed early, they can't get in trouble the night before.' I'm HOPING that Duval and team are seeing some kind of correlation with practice/lifting and time of day.

That being said, the emerging science around sleep is pretty clear – most people need between 7-9 hours. and you've got to be diligent about it to achieve the benefits. But the bottom line is that sleep has a direct correlation (causality remains to be proven) with virtually every aspect of the brain and the cardiometabolic system. To paraphrase one expert – the less you sleep, the faster you die.

So unless there's some scientific basis for it, I'm suspicious that Frost may be going a little old school needlessly. Because as you pointed out, sleep is pretty easy to track these days, there's all sorts of ways to do it. But the kid has to be responsible enough to be "lights out" at 9PM in order to get enough sleep for 6AM practice. And to make it even more effective, that same kid either needs to put the screens away by 7PM, or put on his blue-blocking glasses for the last two hours of the day.

Most NBA and MLB teams are running their in-season schedule exactly counter to what Nebraska is doing these days. When the Lakers team plane lands at 2AM, they'll cancel the scheduled shoot-around – or they'll push it back to the afternoon.
 
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ShortSideOption said:
They have sleep monitors for some guys that sign off to allow them to monitor it. But even then.... you're telling an 18-22 year old college kid lights out is every night at 8pm. It's tough sledding for some which is why it just doesn't work here for select recruits. That said, there are issues at every college that make things just not work there, our morning practices and workouts are one for us.
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Let me put it this way, if you're LeBron Jame, Bryce Harper or Jordan Burroughs – and you're either getting paid tons of money and/or at the absolute top of your sport – being diligent about sleep is just part of elite training.

If you're wanting "balance" – yes, you want to play a sport, but you enjoy video games, making amateur rap videos and playing online games, maybe even drinking non-hydrating beverages – early morning practices are assessing a "sleep tax" that I'm not sure these guys are willing to pay.
 
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The_CornTorch said:
I'd be curious to know if the staff is claiming any benefits to early morning workouts beyond the old school line of – 'if we get em out of bed early, they can't get in trouble the night before.' I'm HOPING that Duval and team are seeing some kind of correlation with practice/lifting and time of day.

That being said, the emerging science around sleep is pretty clear – most people need between 7-9 hours. and you've got to be diligent about it to achieve the benefits. But the bottom line is that sleep has a direct correlation (causality remains to be proven) with virtually every aspect of the brain and the cardiometabolic system. To paraphrase one expert – the less you sleep, the faster you die.

So unless there's some scientific basis for it, I'm suspicious that Frost may be going a little old school needlessly. Because as you pointed out, sleep is pretty easy to track these days, there's all sorts of ways to do it. But the kid has to be responsible enough to be "lights out" at 9PM in order to get enough sleep for 6AM practice. And to make it even more effective, that same kid either needs to put the screens away by 7PM, or put on his blue-blocking glasses for the last two hours of the day.

Most NBA and MLB teams are running their in-season schedule exactly counter to what Nebraska is doing these days. When the Lakers team plane lands at 2AM, they'll cancel the scheduled shoot-around – or they'll push it back to the afternoon.
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The primary reason for morning practices is that is when testosterone is at its peak. They then "exponentially accelerate" that testosterone in their circuit workout starting with sets of back squats. That's the main reason.

The secondary reasons are kids having to go to bed earlier so getting in less trouble, football getting out of the way and first thing the kids are focused on so they can have the rest of the day for class, etc.

To your point, Penn State did morning practices because of the testosterone science but then changed back to afternoon practices because kids weren't getting enough sleep and that was paramount to them compared to higher testosterone on a tired athlete.
 
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For those curious about my Penn State references:

In past years, alarms went off early and workouts took place before any class started inside any lecture hall at University Park. Now, however, the team gathers in the afternoon for their workouts.

Why?

“We moved those to the afternoon, which is something I’ve never done before,” head coach James Franklin said last week.

“But with our conversations with sport science, we spend all our time talking to our players about the importance of nutrition, hydration and sleep, but then as coaches we get them up at 5:00 in the morning -- it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

www.pennlive.com

Why has Penn State football changed its offseason workout routine?

James Franklin explains.
www.pennlive.com www.pennlive.com

Long story short, you can find science and stats to support anything you are doing. Workouts in the morning are good. Workouts in the morning are bad. You gotta do what your team responds best to.
 

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