Random Friday Thoughts: 11/28/08

About the Author: Eric Cressey

I’m writing this blog on Tuesday night, as I’m pretty sure that my mind will be a bit hazy after the insulin-induced coma that follows my Thanksgiving feast.

1. While I’ve had a week-long argument with my new website set-up, I have to say that one of the cool features I now have is a really detailed analytic panel to look at hits, referring sites, and the keywords people used in their searches to find my site.  Believe it or not, 6.8% of my readers can’t spell my last name correctly in a web search.  So, just to be clear, it’s “CRESSEY,” not “CRESSY.”  The extra “E” stands for excellence, in case anyone was wondering.  Stop laughing.

2. I work with two pro ballplayers who were drafted out of Harvard, and the other day, we got to talking about how I had finally gotten DVR on my TV (mostly for my girlfriend, to be honest).  They started talking about how it’d be nice to be able to fast-forward through the commercials, and I commented on how that parallels what I do with educational DVDs.  You see, I just push fast-forward and listen to things in about half the time it would take to hear the entire thing.  I still comprehend everything – kind of like this guy:

They were kind of floored that I could do that – although I’m really not sure why.  I’d be willing to bet that there were a lot of students at Harvard who are a lot more cyborg-ish than I am.

3. For the record, this strategy comes in handy when listening to presenters with Midwestern and Southern accents.  I employed it with great success when viewing the 2008 Indianapolis Performance Enhancement Seminar DVD Series, as that Robertson character is one……..sloooooooowwwww……talker.

Kidding aside, this was a fantastic seminar; I’d highly recommend you pick up a copy.  I actually reviewed it in detail in a previous blog entitled The Best Thing I’ve Seen All Year.

4. Eric Chessen has a new blog about Autism Fitness.  Definitely check it out at www.Autism-Health.com if that’s your cup of tea.  Eric’s at the head of his field in this regard.

5. I’m going to be writing a new article for T-Nation this weekend.  And, while I have some ideas on what I am going to write, I’m always open to suggestions.  If you have one, please post it as a comment on this blog and I’ll see what I can do.

6. HERE is an interesting new study I just read that talks about performance decrements with subtle sleep deprivation.  These results seem to suggest that if you’re going to miss hours of sleep, it is better to do so by going to bed later than it is to do so by rising earlier.  We always teach our athletes that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two after midnight, so these results would seemingly fly in the face of our recommendations. However, these recommendations assume no sleep deprivation.  In other words, I’d rather have an athlete sleep 11pm-7am than I would have him sleep 2am-10am.

Just a quick one this week in light of the holiday. Have a great weekend!

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