In one of those video clips that exist in thousands on Instagram, I found these days with coach Ademir Paulino, from the running consultancy that bears his name, talking about the importance of sleep.
Ademir, who the column has also mentioned here, when taking up a position at the African sports brand Enda, even used the expression “sleep doping” to allude to the advantage that an athlete would have over the competition by simply observing a strict and judicious night’s rest routine.
I couldn’t help but think about the now little-remembered Nuno Cobra, the physical educator of, among others, Ayrton Senna, the man responsible for turning the sainted driver’s “small heart” into a “[sistema] abundant cardiovascular disease”. The quotes are from Nuno himself, spoken to this reporter in 2017.
In his 2000 best-seller, “A Semente da Vitória”, which has reached an impressive number of reprints – the copy that I took from the Mario de Andrade library the Saturday before last belongs to the 92nd edition –, the man without mincing words records the importance of sleep, considering it “item number one” of what became known as the “Nuno Cobra Method”.
If it were necessary to violate the method, which also prescribes careful eating and physical activity, sleep would certainly be the last straw.
“It is the most important thing, the starting point, the basis on which all physical activity will be based – and the point of arrival, as it will be through good hours of sleep that the transformations made by movement will operate”, writes the author.
Talking about the topic today is rain in the wet, it sounds like a platitude, as there is a consensus that it is during rest that muscle fibers recompose and expand, finally giving some meaning to the physical activity of being awake. But, some time ago, according to Nuno, the topic generated controversy. This was the “big clash”, he reports, with his peers over three decades, at least until the end of the 1980s.
The image of Nuno as Senna’s beadle, supervising his pupil’s nocturnal activities, reminiscent of Lima Duarte in the role of a caricatured Palmeiras coach in the first film “Boleiros”, by Ugo Giorgetti, is not unreasonable.
“When we finished training, I would give my message (…) Look, you trained so well today… If you go to sleep late, you’ll waste all the effort you made.”
After all, he continues in the book, “sleep is capable of healing. It is capable of putting the organism in absolute balance.” Maintaining a good sleep routine, as doctor Drauzio Varella also explains here, can even prevent dementia.
Even for the sake of survival, it’s difficult for any trainer to tell you in all words that it’s better to skip your morning training than to deprive yourself of hours of restful sleep, but as I don’t own “Cref”, I’ll leave the reckless recommendation here.
If you have to deprive yourself of something, deprive yourself of headphones, which will greatly benefit your ability to concentrate and relax, making running something similar to a yoga session. Two wonders in one.
Yoga sessions, as we know, do without music, podcasts and the stubborn CBN vignette.
If headphones are essential to give pleasure or even some meaning to running, it may be worth reviewing your decision to choose it as your main physical activity.
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