Many wrestlers do not understand the importance of sleep. If you help them understand this graph it will make them think twice about staying out late.
Look how low the GH (growth hormone) spikes are during the day. Once you fall asleep they shoot up. Notice the HUGE spike at hour 7 of sleep. That is a big deal! Assuming that our wrestlers are drug free (which hopefully is the case), they cannot be as strong as possible without getting enough sleep. Any night you fail to sleep 7 hours you are missing out on a huge spike in Growth Hormone. This should be good motivation to put down the phone and remote control and to use your natural cycle of GH to gain an advantage.
I always hesitate to show certain athletes this chart because some will use it as an excuse to put in less time, practice or effort. I will preface this by saying that hard work must be a given at all times. That being said, if you want to get the most out of yourself you need to train smart as well. I was an Economics major and remember learning about Pareto Efficiency which led to the 80-20 rule. 20% of our input usually leads to about 80% of our output in most aspects (school, wrestling, business and life). In other words, 20% of our technique likely scores 80% of our total points. 20% of our weaknesses probably lead to 80% of our losses/points allowed. It is key to understand this. This doesn’t mean that the other 80% isn’t important. The focus, however, needs to be on the 20% of what works and the 20% of what holds us back. Again, make sure each wrestler is already a work horse before making them aware of this chart.