JESSIE: Jeff. Jeff. Wake up. Wake up. JEFF: What the hell are you doing in my room? JESSIE: You've got a video you've got to shoot. JEFF: What are you talking about? Now? JESSIE: Yeah, now. Dude, you said you could always roll out of
bed and do these things. JEFF: I guess you're right. What's up, guys? What's up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com. You know, Jessie's right. I do think I could roll out of bed and do
these videos, but today we're going to actually talk about bed, and the positions you are
in bed, and what you're doing underneath the sheets. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm actually talking about what you're doing
with your own body underneath those sheets that is absolutely wrecking your body and
your workouts. What you do here is absolutely going to have
an impact on what you can even do in here. Now let's start right off the bat with before
you even get into bed. When you get in bed, guys, there's two things
that you want to do. Number one: you want to stretch your body
out. See, we always talk about the benefits of
static stretching, but done at the right time. We know that static stretching done right
before your workout can actually reduce your strength and your output. We also know that doing it right before your
workout can change the way that your body moves during your workout. So we don’t want to do that. But we don’t want to miss out on the opportunity
to make sure that we're staying loose, and we do that before we go to bed. Why? Because when we go to bed, that's when our
tissues start to heal themselves overnight, and they start to shorten overnight. So you want to make sure that right before
bed, your last opportunity to keep them as long as they're possibly going to be. The next thing you're going to want to do
is adjust the end of the bed. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the tightness of your sheets. This is something that we don’t even realize
we do. We keep the end of our bed tight so when we
put our feet in our ankles automatically go down. Now we're spending the next eight, nine, ten
hours with our ankles down in this plantar flexed position, which is going to lead to
tight calves. No doubt. You're spending that much time every, single
day. Well, what happens when you come back into
the gym and you try to squat? If you can't get adequate calf flexibility
here, you're not going to get down low enough – at least not without compensations in
your knees and hips. So one of the biggest things you can do is
try to keep your calves loose. That's by avoiding one of the biggest mistakes
we make every, single night by having those end of the bed sheets too tight. Next is the type of pillow you're using. Here, I want to caution you on going for the
one that feels the fluffiest, or the most comfortable, because what you're doing is,
you're artificially creating so much flexion in the back of your neck here, that you're
leading to two of the biggest problems we see in the gym. The first is called upper-cross syndrome,
which is when the shoulders start to round, our posture starts to adapt this way, and
it makes it really hard for us to press, or do anything up, overhead. At least with good posture. What's happening is, a big contributor to
that is a tight front of the neck. That happens by using a pillow too tight,
that pushes our head forward, as you can see here. Beyond that we know that we can lead ourselves
to cervical disc issues by having this constantly flexed position here, which is something you'd
never want to deal with. Opt for a flatter pillow that puts your head
here at a much better alignment, your neck is in a much more neutral position, and you
can even see the difference in the neck muscles. They actually have a chance here to relax
in this position. Kind of building on that same concept, and
how we screw up our shoulders when we sleep at night, is this next one. This is really popular. How many of you out there like to sleep with
one hand up, under your head? If you do you're causing some problems here
because internal shoulder rotation is probably the second most rampant thing going on in
our bodies. It's really, really hard to reverse. Why? Because we spend so much time, again, strengthening
the internal rotators in the gym, not strengthening the external rotators – which is a big problem
– but more importantly, spending eight, nine, ten hours at night like this, with our
hand under our head like this. Now, if you look closely, look at what's going
on here. My shoulder is in an internally rotated position
because I have my arm, and forearm resting on top of the pillow, which is now angles
upward, and it's up, under my head. Now if we insist on sleeping this way you
can actually do this, but in a different way. You want to put your arm under the pillow. You can see the dramatic difference. The internal rotation is now gone. You're getting into a flattened position here,
which is a better position for your shoulder. You're not going to adaptably shorten overnight
by doing this. Again, it still gives you the opportunity
if the habit of yours is to stay this way, you're going to be able to do that, just in
a better way for your shoulders. This next one is for you stomach sleepers. Once again, here you're going to jack up your
shoulders. But you're doing an even better job because
you're hitting them both at the same time. If you lay on your stomach, and you have your
hands under your head here, once again, you're in this internally rotated position of your
shoulders – which we know is not going to be good, especially for that prolonged period
of time – but beyond that, look what's happening down the spine a little bit more, in the low
back. You're causing a lot of tightness and the
peraspinal is right in your low back. And beyond that too, you're jamming your body
and your spine into extension for a long period of time, which is going to cause a lot of
problems. Especially if you have stenosis, or any other
condition – which is a narrowing of the spine. These are things you can avoid. You can keep this arm position if you'd like
to have them up, behind your head. But once again, you're going to want to flip
over and put them up, behind your head this way. We've gone from the internally rotated position,
to an externally rotated position, just by making that one change. If you fetal position sleepers – which I
have to admit, that's me – look what you're doing to your body. You're creating a situation where your hip
flexors are getting so tight, by literally being hugged up close to your body, on top
of that fact that you probably sat around a lot during the day at your desk, too. You are creating, probably, the worst of all
scenarios here. Adaptably shortened hip flexors can create
a whole mess of problems. Most notably, anterior pelvic tilt, which
leads to a whole mess of problems in the gym. I actually did a whole video on anterior pelvic
tilt that you're going to want to check out as well. The fact is guys, you don’t have to abandon
side sleeping. Here's the good news: if you want to sleep
this way you can sleep on your side, you just can't pull your knees up into your chest. You want to keep those hip flexors elongated,
but you also want to make sure that you're not causing a stress on the outer hip, by
letting the top hip sink down. So it's easy to fix. You just throw a pillow between your two knees,
and now you can see that everything is in alignment. Your hip is right there in alignment with
your pelvis, you no longer have that shortening and tightness in your hip flexors, and again,
even up to the top of the body here, you can see that we're still carrying through with
that arm under the pillow to make sure that the shoulders are in a good position. As an alternative you could look like a corpse
too, if you want. You can lay right, flat on your back, because
we know that here you're going to have none of the issues. Of course, remember to loosen up the sheets
at the end of the bed so you're not getting that pull down effect on the ankles, and you
want to make sure those hip flexors are nice, and elongated, and your arms are in whatever
position so as not to cause any of these internal rotation positions of your shoulder. If you can sleep this way, then this is the
best way to always sleep. But if you can't, you've got that option of
laying on your side. Just make sure you make that one modification
with the pillow. This next one actually starts before you go
to bed, but really the important part is what you do as soon as you wake up. That is: what are you doing about your hydration? Now we know a hydrated muscle is going to
have a better opportunity to heal, and to recover, and we want to make sure we're getting
hydrated before we go to bed. But how soon? If you're the type that drinks a full glass
of water right before you go to bed, you've pretty much just guaranteed yourself one,
or two trips to the bathroom. More importantly, one, or two times that you're
waking up, and disrupting your sleep. You don’t want to do that. So optimally, if you can get your last glass
of water about an hour, or so before you go to bed so you can have one, last time to go
before you hit your head on the pillow; that's ideal. But realize, if you're sleeping for eight,
nine, or ten hours you're going to be pretty damn dehydrated. So as soon as you wake up do what I do. I literally go and have a glass – it's about
16oz, somewhere between 12oz and 16oz – and I drink two glasses. I chug them down every, single morning. That's the first thing I do. I want to make sure I do this to jump start
my hydration because it's too damned easy to jump in the shower, do something else,
get distracted, and start behind the eight ball. You want to make sure that your hydration
is on point, right from the get go. Last, but not least, the most impactful advice
I could probably give you is this: get some damn sleep! If you want to perform well in the gym then
you've got to get some sleep. Not just because you're going to feel more
rested, but you've constantly got his battle between cortisol and testosterone going on
every, single day. If testosterone wins you're going to be in
a better position than you are right now. If cortisol wins – which it likely is, especially
if you're not getting enough sleep – then you're not going to like the results. Guys, cortisol will increase if you don’t
get enough sleep. It's been proven. There's a direct correlation between that,
and the more cortisol goes up, the more testosterone goes down. So do whatever it takes to make sure that
you get enough sleep, and now, hopefully you're armed with better sleeping positions to avoid
some of the adaptive shortening, and some of the mobility restrictions that can come
from not even realizing what you're doing once you close your eyes at the end of the
day. All right, guys. I hope you've found this video helpful. Make sure you leave your comments and thumbs
up below. If you haven't already, subscribe. You can do that by clicking over here. Of course, we have linked another one of our
latest videos up here for you to watch, too. If you're looking for a program that puts
the science back in strength, then head over to ATHLEANX.com, make sure you get any of
our programs. They're all based on science – real science
– putting it back in strength to make sure you get better results for your time in the
gym. All right, guys. I'll see you soon.
