Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

  • Start Here
  • Guides
    • Beginner?s Guide to Investing
    • Cryptocurrencies
    • Stocks
    • P2P Lending
    • Real Estate
    • Forex
    • CFD Trading
    • Start and Monetize a Blog
  • My Story
  • Blog
    • Cryptoassets
    • P2P Lending
    • Real estate
  • Consultancy
    • Consult with Jean
    • Consult a Lawyer on Taxation and Corporate Setups
  • Podcast
  • Search

How To Improve The Speed Performance of a WordPress Site

Last updated: March 17, 2020Leave a Comment

WordPress website speed optimisation

It is very important for your site visitors and for SEO to have your site load fast.

Here are a few things I do to make things fast on my site.

Fast hosting: Kinsta

Content Delivery Network: Cloudflare

I use the following performance-related plugins:

  • Perfmatters

Of course, it is also important to use quality plugins on your site. Quality is more important than quantity. Ignore people who just say that many plugins installed and activated slow down your site, it all depends on the quality of those plugins. Sometimes you install just 5-10 plugins and the plugin slows down immensely because of what those plugins actually do or how they are coded.

Manual optimizations worth mentioning

I like to set up cron via the server instead of WordPress cron. I also use Perfmatters’ script manager to selectively load scripts on every page of my site, instead of letting plugins load their scripts on every page indiscriminately.

Another optimisation that can be done where possible, is to avoid using third-party fonts like the Google Fonts, you can easily do away with them unless you have specific branding guidelines to follow. This will provide a further speed boost to your page.

Testing

I use the following tests to make sure everything is running smoothly:

  • GTMetrix
  • Pingdom
  • Webpagetest.org
  • Google Chrome’s Audit feature
  • Google Analytics’ Page Speed feature

Also make sure that you test both the desktop and mobile versions of your site, as they might be loading different content and thus merit the need to be tested separately.

Hope those speed and site optimisation tips help, let me know if you think I missed anything.

Filed under: Tech

Sleep – The Power of Sleep Cycles and Napping

Last updated: August 22, 2023Leave a Comment

Sleep is one of the most important things we need to take care of in order to live a healthy life and have enough energy to do all the activities we want to do on a daily basis.

When discussing sleep, the first thing we need to learn is that the idea that sleep is just one long state that we enter every night is a false one. Our sleep time is actually broken down into what are called sleep cycles.

Each sleep cycle is around 90 minutes long. There is some variation here between 70 and 110 minutes, but 90 minutes is a good figure to keep in mind as a start.

During the night, sleeping follows a predictable pattern, moving back and forth between two different types of sleep.

These two main types of sleep are referred to as non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. On an electroencephalogram (EEG), REM sleep, often called “active sleep,” is identifiable by its characteristic low-amplitude (small), high-frequency (fast) waves and alpha rhythm, as well as the eye movements for which it is named.

Many sleep experts think that these eye movements are in some way related to dreams. REM sleep comprises about 20 to 25 percent of total sleep in typical healthy adults. The average length of the first NREM-REM sleep cycle is between 70 and 100 minutes; the average length of the second and later cycles is about 90 to 120 minutes.

Together, non-REM and REM sleep stages form a complete sleep cycle.

Each sleep stage in any particular sleep cycle fulfills a distinct physiological and neurological function, each of which appears to be necessary for the health of the body and mind, to the extent that, if sleep is interrupted or if certain stages are missing for any reason, their physiological functions are not fully executed, and the person may feel tired or groggy even after an apparently sufficient sleep period, a phenomenon known as “sleep inertia”.

The reason for such a specific cycling pattern of NREM and REM sleep across the night is unknown. Some scientists speculate that specific sequences of NREM and REM sleep optimize both physical and mental recuperation as well as some aspects of memory consolidation that occurs during sleep, but this has not been confirmed.

Taking a closer look at NREM and REM, we find that there are four stages in all, three belonging to NREM and one stage of REM.

Stage 1

Stage 1 is the stage you enter when you start to nod off and your eyes close. This stage lasts between one and ten minutes. It is also known as “transitional sleep”, and during this stage, you can quickly return to being fully awake. Your eyes move slowly under the eyelids and muscle activity slows down.

Stage 2

Next comes Stage 2 which is known as “light sleep”. It lasts about twenty minutes. This is where we spend most of our nights (about 45% of total sleep). During this second stage, your heart rate slows, your muscles contract and relax, and your body temperature decreases as you prepare to go into deep sleep.

Stage 3

The 3rd stage is also known as “deep sleep” – in this stage it’s difficult to awaken, and if you forcibly wake up, you do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes. In this deepest stage of sleep, your brain waves are extremely slow. Blood flow is directed away from your brain and towards your muscles, restoring physical energy.

REM sleep

REM sleep is where dreams occur and the time to get there is approximately 70 to 90 minutes after falling asleep. Your eyes move rapidly, your breathing shallows, and your heart rate and blood pressure increase. During this stage, your arm and leg muscles are paralyzed.

Optimizing Your Sleep

Age GroupRecommended Sleep Hours
newborn to 2 months old12 - 18 hours
3 months to 1 year old14 - 15 hours
1 to 3 years old12 - 14 hours
3 to 5 years old11 - 13 hours
5 to 12 years old10 - 11 hours
12 to 18 years old8.5 - 10 hours
Adults (18+)7.5 - 9 hours

You should calculate your sleep time based on what time you need to wake up using this calculator. You can also find out your ideal wake-up time based on the time you usually go to sleep.

It is essential to note that everything is calculated in cycles, rather than hours and minutes. So we need to get accustomed to think of sleep in cycles.

  • The average sleep cycle is 90 minutes long
  • A typical night of sleep includes 5 full sleep cycles
  • 90 x 5 = 450 minutes, or 7.5 hours

For example: You need to wake at 6 a.m. to get ready for work. Counting back 7.5 hours, your ideal bedtime is 10:30 p.m. That means lights out, in bed, and ready for sleep at that time.

In a week there are therefore 35 full sleep cycles that we should ideally be getting. Life can and will interfere with our sleep cycles, so we need to learn how to deal with it.

For example, say you went to a friend’s birthday party and arrived back home at 2 am, what do you do? First, you think about what time you need to wake up the next day, say 7 am for work. That leaves us with 5 hours in between. Given that every sleep cycle is 90 minutes, we can fit 3 sleep cycles.

Therefore you should go to sleep at 2.30 am. This is where many people make a mistake. Typically you will just get home, have a shower and slump into bed, only looking at the clock to make sure the alarm is set for 7 am. The problem is that if you go to sleep before 2.30 am in this case, at 7 am you will already be in your 4th sleep cycle.

You will, of course, interrupt that cycle because your alarm will ring, and you’ll wake up feeling very groggy. This is the counterintuitive part, by actually sleeping a bit less you will wake up feeling better. We must not forget that we missed two missed cycles, however. Ideally, we would recover them in the following days to make sure that we keep our total of 35 sleep cycles per week.

The goal is to wake naturally about 5-10 minutes ahead of your alarm. If you absolutely need to wake up at a specific time, I still recommend using an alarm clock, but you should find that you wake up at around that time naturally, or at least feel very refreshed and ready to go when the alarm sounds. For a more natural wake up I suggest using the Philips HF3520 clock.

Sleep Efficiency

Implementing the sleep cycles doesn’t work if our quality of sleep is bad. This could be due to a bad mattress for example, or even sleeping in bad positions.

That’s why we need to be looking at sleep efficiency.

There’s an easy, low-tech way to measure sleep efficiency that requires no sleep tracking devices or equipment. You need only a few basic pieces of information about your night of sleep:

  • The total amount of time you spend in bed sleeping—or trying to sleep—between bedtime and waking
  • How long it takes you to fall asleep
  • The amount of time you spent awake during the night

Let’s say you spent a total of 7 hours, or 420 minutes, in bed last night.
It took you 25 minutes to fall asleep.
You spent another 25 minutes awake throughout the night, a result of three separate periods of wakefulness.

Here’s how to calculate your sleep efficiency for this night:

  • Total sleep time: 420 minutes
  • Minus time to fall asleep: 25 minutes
  • Minus total time spent awake: 25 minutes
  • Actual time spent sleeping: 370 minutes (6 hours, 10 minutes)

Divide 370 minutes by 420 minutes = 88%. This number represents your sleep efficiency for that night.

In sleep science, we consider 85% or higher a healthy sleep efficiency and a reasonable goal. Ninety percent is considered a very good sleep efficiency. If your number isn’t quite there yet, don’t be discouraged. With attention to your sleep—and a new bedtime—you’ll see this important number start to rise.

You can find iPhone and Android apps that measure your sleep and calculate your sleep efficiency. I use my Fitbit to take these measurements.

Napping

There are many studies that prove the effectiveness of a mid-day nap. Of course, we all know that many cultures (for example Spain) have the afternoon siesta deeply ingrained in them, and it looks like they are right in maintaining this old tradition. These cultures tend to have a split-day sleeping pattern of five to six hours and night and sixty to ninety minutes in the afternoon.

Napping also typically happens during the warmest period of the day and generally follows a large mid-day meal, which explains why afternoon sleepiness is so often associated with warm afternoon sun and heavy lunches.

Following a nap, having dissipated some of the accumulated sleep drive, many people report feeling better able to stay awake and alert in the late afternoon and evening. This increased alertness typically causes people to go to bed later and generally to sleep less at night than people who do not take naps.

Research at NASA demonstrated that pilots who had a 26-minute nap in the cockpit were more alert — by 54 percent — and had improved performance by 34 percent. Studies using advanced tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) also have found performance benefits for nappers. Studies have even suggested that napping may produce the same memory gains as a full night’s slumber, as shown on tasks that tested declarative memory, motor memory and spatial memory.

You don’t need to nap for hours, 25 minutes is actually the ideal time.

If you try it and feel groggy when waking up, try this variation. Take a cup of coffee before hitting the bed. The caffeine will kick into action in 25 minutes, just when you are waking up, and give you a boost.

In general, experts recommend sleeping between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. or between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m

You can use the table below (based on the Nap Wheel) to find out the best time to take a nap, based on your wake-up time.

Wake up timePerfect nap time
6:00 am1:30 pm
6:30 am 1:45 pm
7:00 am2:00 pm
7:30 am2:15 pm
8:00 am2:30 pm
8:30 am2:45 pm
9:00 am3:00 pm

Why Do We Sleep Anyway?

While the brain sleeps, it clears out harmful toxins, a process that may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, researchers say.

During sleep, the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain increases dramatically, washing away harmful waste proteins that build up between brain cells during waking hours, a study of mice found.

“It’s like a dishwasher,” says Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rochester and an author of the study in Science.

The results appear to offer the best explanation yet of why animals and people need sleep. If this proves to be true in humans as well, it could help explain a mysterious association between sleep disorders and brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

Read more about the study here.

Setting Up The Right Sleep Environment

You can read my article about designing your bedroom as a recovery room for more details, but here are some quick tips:

  • Buy the right mattress for your weight.
  • Keep the mattress and all linen and pillows clean.
  • Keep the room at a cool temperature with a good supply of air.
  • Take advantage of the morning sunlight, but make sure it’s dark when you go to sleep. You can buy the Philips clock and sunrise simulator if you don’t have the ideal conditions.
  • Remove all electronic devices from your bedroom, especially phones and tablets.
  • For blocking out light you can use an eye mask. Cheap and does the job.
  • As an alternative to Mack ear buds (my favorite for blocking noises) is to use a white noise track off Spotify. It helps your brain go to sleep, in the same way that airplane or car noise does.

Tips for a great start to the day

  • Drink two glasses of water as soon as you wake up. It’s best to have it with a few drops of lemon and Himalayan salt.
  • Establish a morning routine. I have found that going outside, meditation, stretching, and preparing a cup of matcha or coffee works best for me, together with having a hearty breakfast.
  • Prepare your work schedule the previous evening, and start with the most important task of the day (eating the frog).

I’d also add a bit of a longer note on exercise. Many people swear by morning exercise, while others absolutely can’t do it, and prefer an afternoon or evening session. I’ve experimented with this for a long time and have come to the conclusion that we all have our own best times for exercise.

People can be assigned to two broad groups: larks (people who go to bed early and rise early) and owls (people who go to bed late and rise late).

This time preference affects all biological rhythms, including the ability to exercise and perform. In general, it seems the best athletic performance is achieved late afternoon/early evening when several exercise-related rhythms reach their circadian peak. This means exercising at this time has the best results for increasing fitness, increasing lean muscle, and reducing fat tissue.

That’s pretty much what current science tells us, and there still is a lot of debate around this topic. My take is that you should train whenever it feels best for you. Personally, first thing in the morning is absolutely the best time for me. I love going out in the morning and really taking in the day, so a morning swim or cycle feels really awesome.

It wouldn’t be the same later in the day. Moreover, I have more control over my training duration than I have on my work sessions. I might start something really interesting in my office and feel absolutely no desire to leave my desk and go to train, and that led to many missed training sessions and lots of guilt in the past.

The only exception to training in the morning is if I have a scheduled match or group exercise activity. Having that extra responsibility of being part of a group and having paid for an activity magically gives me the willpower to train at any time of the day including late evenings or afternoons. Therefore, I combine morning sessions of padel training, gym work, swimming or cycling with afternoon and evening padel, indoor cycling, yoga/pilates.

Knowing Your Chronotype

There are four recognized chronotypes, and knowing which one you are can help you optimize your day, including sleep, exercise times and working hours. I am a Lion, so here’s my ideal sleep time calculation:

Sleep duration: Usually 5 cycles x 90 min = 450 min + 20 min to fall asleep = 470 min

Sleep time: up at 6:00am – 470 min = 10:10 pm

By tracking my sleep using a Fitbit, I have found that I feel best the next day when I sleep at least 7h45min as marked in the sleep reports.

The Alternative View

For a contrarian view on sleep science, you can read this post. I think it’s always healthy to be wary of the hype around a particular topic, and inspect the incentives that drive sleep scientists in this case. Are they promoting a book, speaking tour, podcast, consultancy etc? While that doesn’t mean they are lying about anything, you know they are incentivized to find some issue with your sleep even when there might be more important issues affecting your well-being.

I have personally experimented with sleep quite a bit, and invariably I feel at my best if I sleep 7-9 hours. If I sleep on the lesser end of a scale, then I need a nap to refresh half way through the day.

Experimenting with sleep monitoring gadgets was fun, but ultimately once you get the basics right and you’re in tune with your body, you will instinctively know when you’re doing it right and when you need to make some adjustments.

Further Resources

  • Sleep by Nick Littlehales and his coaching services website.
  • Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker
  • Philips clock and sunrise simulator

Enjoy your sleep! Let me know whether you find this helpful and whether you have any other tips on sleep and rest routines.

Filed under: Health & Fitness

Where to Buy and Sell Websites – The Best Brokers and Marketplaces

Last updated: February 18, 20213 Comments

There comes a time when you need to sell your baby, I am referring to your website/s of course…

So in such a time, what do you do, where do you begin? Here are the sites I recommend you visit. This also applies to when you’ve got some cash on hand and want to make an investment in an existing website, rather than building something from scratch.

Make sure you read my beginner’s guide to buying and selling websites if you’re not familiar how the business works.

Investors Club

investors club

Investors Club is the newest platform of the bunch, but I really like the idea behind it. Basically, it’s a pay-to-join club where all members will be able to browse all the details of the properties available to buy. There is no need to apply and sign NDAs for every project, as happens with other platforms, since the buyers here are all serious and paying money to be in the club in the first place.

There is also the possibility of investing in websites and having the Investors Club team manage the project for you, making this an ideal platform for beginner investors as well.

QuietLightbrokerage

This broker specializes in sites valued at 60k to 5 million USD. They provide an excellent guide on calculating the value of your website.

[Read more…]

Filed under: Business

My Favorite Nutritional Supplements

Last updated: March 18, 20231 Comment

If you’re doing a lot of training or missing certain dietary requirements for some reason or another, you might want to turn to supplements.

When you’re training hard, you need to make sure that you are also taking care of your body’s nutritional needs. You want to make sure that you have enough energy to cover all your expenditure during training and competing, as well as taking in enough protein for muscles to repair themselves and grow if needed to adjust to higher demands.

Below are the products I use. Beware that there are many charlatans that profit off selling and recommending supplements, so do your research very properly, consult with a doctor regularly, and do bloodwork to monitor the effects. I like the content published by doctors Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, and I also rely on advice from my friend Andrew Farrugia.

Protein Shake

I take a daily protein shake to help cover my protein needs. This can be taken right after your training session or padel match. After such hard exercise, your muscles will have many micro tears that need to be repaired, and protein is what your body needs to be able to do so.

Optimum Nutrition is the number one brand for protein shakes. I’ve tried their Vanilla, Cookies & Cream and Double Chocolate flavors. Double Chocolate is my favorite, and Vanilla is also pretty decent if you want to keep it plain. I wasn’t a big fan of the Cookies & Cream flavor, although it’s bearable. Some flavors work well with milk and water, while others are only tasty if combined with milk. Double Chocolate tastes great either way.

I buy the 2.2kg tub which serves me for around 2.5 months.

Here in Spain, I buy my shakes from one of these two shops, depending on which one of them has the best pricing at that point in time:

  • Bulevip
  • MasMusculo

Amazon also carries most variations of this protein shake, but the other two shops tend to have better pricing and occasional freebies.

Fruit & Nuts

I know these are not really considered supplements, but it’s important to mention them as they are some of the major sources of fuel during intense activity like long padel matches. Bananas are my favorite food during matches together with dates.

Bananas and dates are excellent sources of fuel during long tennis and padel matches due to their high carbohydrate content, which provides the body with readily available energy. Bananas are rich in potassium, a crucial electrolyte that helps maintain proper muscle function and prevents cramps during intense physical activity. Dates, on the other hand, are packed with natural sugars like glucose and fructose that can be quickly absorbed by the body to replenish energy stores. Additionally, both fruits contain a good amount of fiber, which helps with digestion and promotes a feeling of fullness. Another fruit that works well in this context is the orange, which is high in vitamin C and natural sugars, providing an energy boost and supporting the immune system during strenuous exercise.

Nuts can also be a valuable source of energy during long tennis and padel matches. They are rich in healthy fats, protein, and essential nutrients, such as magnesium and vitamin E, which help maintain energy levels and support overall health. The healthy fats in nuts provide a more sustained energy source, ensuring that you have enough fuel to last throughout the match. Protein, on the other hand, aids in muscle recovery and repair, which is crucial during extended physical activities.

However, it’s essential to consider that nuts are calorie-dense and can take longer to digest than fruits. Eating them in small amounts or combining them with easily digestible carbohydrates, like fruits, can provide a balanced and steady source of energy without causing gastrointestinal discomfort. Some popular options include almonds, cashews, and walnuts, which can be easily carried and consumed during breaks in a match.

BCAAs

I’ve tried BCAAs in the past but the evidence on the benefits of supplementation is scarce, and while BCAAs themselves are important for us, we can get them from food sources and they are also included in some protein shakes. These days I just rely on my diet and protein shake to cover my BCAA needs. Here’s a table showing the BCAA content in various foods that I ingest regularly.

Food Serving size BCAA content
Ground beef, 90% lean 3.5 ounces (oz) (100 g) 4.5 g
Chicken breast 3.5 oz (100 g) 5.5 g
Whey protein powder 1 scoop (25 g) 5.9 g
Pea protein powder 1 scoop (25 g) 4.5 g
Canned tuna 3.5 oz (100 g) 4.6 g
Salmon 3.5 oz (100 g) 4 g
Ground turkey, 93% lean 3.5 oz (100 g) 3.2 g
Eggs 2 eggs 2.6 g
Parmesan cheese 1 oz (28 g) 2.2 g
Milk, 1% 8 oz (237 milliliters) 1.7 g
Greek yogurt 1 cup (227 g) 4.1 g

Omega 3

I take a dosage of Omega 3 fish oil daily as its effects have been widely studied and fairly conclusive.

It’s all about maintaining a good omega-3:omega-6-ratio.

I use AAVALABS Omega-3 supplement (2 pills for 1000 mg of premium EPA and 500 mg of DHA).

AAVALABS Omega-3 Fish Oil is a top-tier supplement produced by the Finland-based family-owned company, AAVALABS. The company is well-regarded for its commitment to providing pure, safe, and effective nutritional supplements. AAVALABS maintains strict manufacturing standards, ensuring the omega-3 fish oil is free from contaminants and sourced from wild-caught fish. The company’s dedication to transparency, third-party testing, and sustainability further bolsters its reputation.

Creatine

The positive effects of this supplement have been widely studied as well, so I’ve been using it since I’m doing weight training as well as part of my overall training regimen. It might be the best supplement to use in fact, since it has proven effects and little to no downsides. I use MyProtein’s Creatine Monohydrate pack. If you want something better you can get Creapure. Creapure® is the brand name for pure creatine monohydrate produced by AlzChem Trostberg GmbH in Germany. MyProtein sells both Creapure and Creatine Monohydrate, and Creapure costs around 3x as much.

When you workout and exercise, whether this be weight training or cardiovascular activity, your body requires energy to perform muscle contractions. Muscle contractions move your body parts. For example, when you perform a bicep curl you will contract your bicep muscle, and to do this requires energy.

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the chemical compound your body uses for energy. For a muscle to contract, it will break off a phosphate molecule from ATP, meaning ATP becomes ADP (adenosine diphosphate). To form more ATP your body will take a phosphate molecule from your body’s stores of creatine phosphate.

So as you have probably worked out, creatine is vitally important for muscle contraction. Therefore, supplementing with creatine can help your body to perform more muscle contractions, meaning more reps, and more reps can breakdown more muscle fibers. With the right nutrition and recovery, this can increase your potential for muscle growth.

According to studies, there are no negative effects of long-term supplementation with Creatine.

Our bodies produce creatine endogenously at around 1g per day. You can also obtain small amounts of creatine through food, especially red meat. At a max you’re looking at 1g per day in food, so at best you have a total 2g of creatine in your body per day without supplementation.

Supplementation increases muscle creatine content by around 20%. The biggest effects of creatine are seen in anaerobic short duration sports activity (less than 30 seconds) so you’ll see a difference while lifting weights, for example.

I target 3g per day usually at some point after training. You could also have a loading phase of 20-25g per day for 3-5 days following which you’d switch back to 3-5g per day. If you don’t load, you will start seeing the effects of creatine in a few weeks versus a few days with the loading phase.

Note that in around 20-30% of the population supplementation has no effects due to them having already high levels of creatine in their muscles and less type 2 fibers.

Here’s a good article if you want to read about creatine in further depth (in Spanish).

Some people recommend using 0.1 grams per kg of bodyweight, but it is not proven to be more effective than a more moderate amount. According to scientists at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, at 0.1 grams per kilogram of bodyweight, male athletes excreted 46% of the ingested creatine within 24 hours. For a 220 pound lifter, this means that if he consumes 10g of creatine, 46%, or 4.6g of creatine, is wasted. In another study performed at the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University, scientists confirmed that lower doses of creatine monohydrate (5g/day) are effective, and that results can even be achieved without a loading phase.

I therefore stick to 5g daily.

Caffeine

Probably the most commonly used supplement. Everyone knows the effects of caffeine as a stimulant. It helps you be more active and alert, but on the downside, it can also make you edgy.

I typically take 2-3 espressos throughout the day, and it doesn’t affect my sleep negatively. In fact I sometimes use it for power naps in the afternoon (take an espresso then sleep for 15-30 minutes).

I’ve also taken to making cold press coffee with an Aeropress, which is handy as there is always coffee ready for me in the fridge, and it also reduces my daily intake of coffee, from around 54g for 3 espressos to 38g for the cold press (500ml).

Vitamins

I’ve experimented with vitamins over the years but have never found any obvious results due to their intake. The scientific opinion these days seems to be that unless you have major nutritional deficits you should be able to obtain all the vitamins you need from your food and some daily exposure to sun (Vitamin D).

If you live in countries that are not blessed by daily sunshine, you might need to supplement Vitamin D. Check out this free full-text paper on vitamin D in health and disease.

Moreover, vitamin D may boost strength and athletic performance. 2000 IU/day is a conservative and safe dosage, but some go higher without negative implications. (>5000 IU).

On the other hand, we need to be very careful with sun exposure. In countries with outdoor courts, padel players can end up accumulating many hours in the sun and that’s proven to not be a healthy thing.

Skin cancer is a real thing and we need to protect our skin against it. I use an SPF 30 sunscreen by ISDIN (a good brand here in Spain) and apply it 30 minutes before I play. Typically one application will last for 2 hours, which conveniently is just about the time that a match lasts on average. If you sweat a lot like me it is also a good idea to reapply sunscreen in between sets to make sure that you are still protected. Make sure to apply cream over all exposed areas of the body including often forgotten areas like the back of the neck and the tops of the ears. Bald guys need to be especially careful with their heads when playing in the sun, and here the best option is to use a hat and possibly even glasses to protect the eyes from harmful UV.

Remember that while some sunshine is healthy, we are talking about only around 15 minutes of sun exposure to get all the vitamin D needed for the day. So a full match in the sun is definitely too much exposure unless adequate protection is used. The sunscreen I use is specially formulated to be water and sweat resistant and designed for use in sports. One final option is to cover yourself using long sleeved t shirts and longer shorts, although I’m not a big fan of that and prefer to use sunscreen.

I do regular bloodwork to make sure that all my vitamin levels are good. A good doctor will easily identify any issues there and suggest which supplements to take, if any.

Supplements like vitamin B12, iron, magnesium, zinc, folate etc can easily be tested and there is no real need in supplementing if your levels are adequate (worth extra vigilance if following a restrictive diet e.g. veganism).

As a general rule, using a multivitamin is not a good idea.

While multivitamins may appear to be an easy panacea, their execution tends to be poor. Focusing too heavily on the “multi” aspect, most tend to have below-optimal dosages of vitamins, tending to focus more on having a plethora of vitamins/minerals present. Some vitamins are simply not really needed at all (vitamin C for example). It is likely more prudent to get a few specific vitamins and minerals in isolation.

An easy method to cover yourself is to eat LOTS of vegetables with each meal or snack. Order an extra side salad when you eat out, make extra vegetables when you cook and have vegetables (and fruit) easily available to snack on.

It’s also important to customize your supplementation plan according to your needs. One thing I’ve done is to download the raw data from my 23andme profile, then run it through Rhonda Patrick’s Genetic Reports system to get a custom report on what things I need to look out for due to my DNA markers. For example, I discovered that taking a fish oil supplement is particularly beneficial to people with a particular gene that I have.

What supplements have worked for you? I’m curious to know, just leave a comment below.

If you want to learn more about supplementation, the best resource I’ve found is Examine.com and you can also check the analysis done on Labdoor and Consumerlab.

You should also get regular bloodwork done and discuss the results with your nutritionist for further fine-tuning. I find this website really good for digging deeper into specific bloodwork results and helping you understand such results.

Filed under: General

How to Improve Padel Footwork and Agility

Last updated: February 15, 20234 Comments

If you want to improve your footwork and agility, you need to concentrate on stability, resistance, speed and mind body co-ordination.

These videos will show you a plethora of exercises that will get you there. Although they are made for tennis players, they apply perfectly well to padel players too, as padel is very similar to tennis as a sport.

Agility ladders are one of my favorite exercises for improving agility, together with using a jump rope.

Speed ladder drills are about quality and form rather than producing overload. The drills are not meant to leave you fatigued or breathless in the way that shuttle runs might, for example.

It is better to perform these drills at the start of a session after the warm up. Your muscles should be fresh to ensure good quality of movement. And because they will not leave you exhausted you can perform resistance or endurance training afterwards.

When performing agility ladder drills, keep in mind the following:

  • Push off from the balls of your feet (not the toes)
  • Pump your hands from shoulder height to hips (men) and from chest height to hips (women)
  • Keep your elbows at 90 degrees at all times
  • Keep your arms, shoulders and hands relaxed
  • Try to keep your head still as much as possible

If you’ve ever watched boxing matches you’ll have observed that boxers have fantastic agility and footwork. That’s why we have a lot to learn from these athletes. Check out this video for some fantastic tips that can be applied to padel. When you think of it, moving in a padel ring and moving in one half of a padel court are not that different.

What other exercises and techniques do you use to improve your footwork and agility in padel?

Filed under: Padel

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • …
  • 95
  • Next Page »

Latest Padel Match

Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete

Follow @jeangalea

  • My Padel Experience
  • Affiliate Disclaimer
  • Cookies
  • Contact

Copyright © 2006 - 2025 · Hosted at Kinsta · Built on the Genesis Framework