If you're the kind who wakes up before sunrise to train for that big game, new research shows that you may be going about things in entirely the wrong way. If you really want to give your body an athletic boost (and avoid vampire attacks during training), then you should shine some light on the situation.
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It's not resisting arrest, it's cardio.
Researchers who wanted to investigate the effect of light on athletic performance exposed some test subjects to low light or bright light for 160 minutes. During the last 40 minutes of the exposure time, the students had to cycle as fast as they could while their pulse, oxygen consumption, and lactate value were monitored. The results revealed that the subjects who were exposed to bright light performed better than those who were exposed to dimmer light.
It turns out that the amount of light you're exposed to has all kinds of effects on your body that you don't notice; namely, it helps regulate your circadian rhythm -- your sleep cycle. No matter how many Red Bulls you slam down, it's the amount of light you're exposed to that tells your body it's time to wake up and start doing shit. When there's no light, it doesn't matter how many pushups you're tearing through -- as far as your body is concerned, it's time to go back to bed and put in a few more hours of shut-eye. This is why the best athletes spend 10 to 15 hours every day staring at the sun, and also why most blind people are terrible at basketball.
They are phenomenal marksmen, however.
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