Entrepreneurs and business folk have been known to work long days and nights to get it done. Putting countless hours into their ventures, it is not unusual for these like-minded people to sometimes lack a few hours of one key ingredient: sleep.
Before taking the entrepreneurial route and founding his gym, Grant Brothers Boxing, with his brother in 2006– Otis Grant had a long-spanning career in the professional world of boxing.
In 1987, Grant won silver at the Pan American Games, an international multi-sport event, after which he went pro and became a two-time middleweight championship holder with the North American Boxing Federation. With a lengthy career as a professional boxer and now rigorous life as a boxing gym owner, Grant knows all about the importance of recovery and how it helps give you the winning edge.
Recovery and getting a great night’s sleep are both optimal in re-setting the body and preparing it for a new day of training and fighting. If you are getting the right kind of sleep then you are already a step ahead in the game. Proper sleep gives you an advantage because it allows you to be more alert.
That alertness is what keeps your head in the game and focused, whether you’re in the ring or outside of it.
Sleep is our body’s most powerful tool, especially in our busy worlds. With our constant connection to our phones, screens, daily activities, work, and everything else – sleep is our single most important weapon in keeping ourselves in the game.
A night of restful sleep gives our body the opportunity to restore and heal and it gives time to our organs and our brain to relax and reset for a new day.
In today’s day, it’s easy to feel like being up most hours of the day is the same is using all of those hours productively when in fact, a lot of us lack the proper sleep necessary to make us more successful.
Settling into a relaxing nightly routine and taking note of your body’s circadian rhythm is a great way to develop better sleeping habits. Exercising as boxers do may benefit the body’s release of stress and caloric intake but without recovery… you won’t reap all of the benefits.
About a third of the North American population experience sleep deprivation. Compared to just a generation ago, we are sleeping less than six hours a night!
Shaving just two hours off our sleep patterns, a third of the North American population now experiences insomnia. Our bodies need sleep to repair our cells and to integrate and retain information into our brains. Sleep is so important to the way we think and process during our day-to-day.
Everything that we learn and all that we are exposed to processes in our memory during REM sleep.
Without these key hours, it’s near impossible to maintain our health and productivity. Slowly integrating a proper sleep pattern in our lives can reap extreme benefits to our health and overall wellbeing.
Why sleep and recovery are so important to Otis Grant and his boxing business
Today, you can find this former member of the Canadian national team and middleweight champion of the world at his gym, Grant Brothers Boxing. Grant currently trains, manages, and promotes young professional fighters, community members, and amateur boxers all day long.
The average boxer in training can easily rack up four to six hours of exercise in a day’s work. Between morning road work, sparring at the gym, then a session of strength and condition training, a boxer in training can be working out up to three times a day when he’s in camp mode. After a while, such long hours of training take a physical toll on the body for both the boxer and the trainer.
When going through these rigorous sessions’ day in and day out, your body starts to break down and it requires the proper rest and recovery to re-boot itself.
In addition to proper nutrition and hydration, recovery is key when it comes to boxing. Boxers are constantly needing to maintain their contract weight for their fights and each aspect of their regime needs to be in order if everything is to work in synchronicity.
An improper diet or eating schedule can lead to a more difficult time falling asleep and less restful nights. Lack of sleep can lead to brain fatigue and general lethargy, which leads to poorer decision making in the kitchen, and so on. When one aspect is off-kilter, the whole system risks falling apart.
These are a couple of examples as to why sleep and recovery are so important to both Grant and his boxing business.
Finding the proper mattress is a key factor in getting your optimal eight hours a night. The right mattress can mean the difference between tossing and turning constantly throughout the night to finding a sleeping position that allows for deep sleep and proper REM sleep.
Not all sleep is created equal and being able to sleep soundly each and every night means being able to wake up in the morning feeling rested and willing to tackle a day’s work.
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