This is a fascinating topic to me, and I think about it and related
topics constantly.
Being a part-time powerlifter and heavy weight lifter, oftentimes a
little extra oompf is all that is needed to get over a plateau. I
often think about contesting in a similar matter (at least SOAB). That
extra oompf can take the form of a slight adjustment in strategy,
diet, pre-conditioning, supplements, etc.
As others have stated, staying hydrated is key. Not drinking/eating
drinks/foods that leach things out of your body is also good (salty
food, sodas, etc.).
It used to be that over the counter (OTC) supplements used in sports
were garbage - you paid a LOT of money for things that had little to
no activity in the body. Today, things are much different. Today, many
supplements do what they say they do and in a big way. Over the past
few years, hard core steroidal and hormonal drugs have been marketed
as supplements, pushing the bodybuilding sport into all sorts of new
directions. All of a sudden, teenagers had access to hard core drugs
from their local nutrition store for less than the cost of dinner,
without the fear of getting arrested.
The same is true of stimulants. It used to be that caffeine and
ephedrine were the two big stimulants of choice. Today, there are many
synthetic supplements that fall into the stimulant category that are
functionally equivalent to the likes of amphetamines. On top of that,
less scrupulous manufacturers will sometimes "spike" their OTC
supplements with Rx drugs, knowingly or not, but the end result is
that their stuff works MUCH better than similar OTC offerings. The
other problem is that whats on the label may not be whats in the
bottle.
So, where does that end up with contesting? I think I'm finding that
as I get older, its harder and harder to stay in the chair for 48
hours straight. The last few CQWW's I've done I've found that I MUST
sleep at least 1-2 hours a night or else Sunday morning is a bust.
Sleep deprivation is a terrible experience, and different for everyone
- for me, I'll do just about anything to avoid it. That includes
throwing away 2 hours a night to sleep during the best contest in the
world, that only happens 2x a year! That means a potential score hit
of a few hundred QSOs at the slow period, but I think thats better
than being a zombie on Sunday morning, or worse.
So, while you may be "awake" because of a given supplement, you may
not be functional. IMHO, contesting is like any other sport,
conditioning is key, practicing regularly is necessary in order to do
well, and knowing your body and mind is also key in order to know your
limits, and that you know far you can push your limits. Because of my
work, I travel a LOT, and because of that, I have learned how to adapt
my body, diet, and lifestyle to make that travel (and my state of
mind/body afterwards) to a place that is better than it was a few
years ago. I'm not an "expert" yet, but much better than I was a few
years ago.
As I've said before, myself and a group of what I would term "elite"
contesters have a discussion list on this topic and other related
topics to increasing our human performance during radio contests.
Hearing what other successful people do has been really helpful to me
in learning how to change my plans and thoughts to make my own
performance better. And that's how I view our hobby, we are all in it
together to make ourselves and our hobby better. Sure, we're
competitive, but at the end of the day (contest) I love sitting down
with competitors and talking about how it went for them, what we did
well, what we didn't do well, and how things looked from our
perspective. Every contest I go away with a bit more understanding of
my own capabilities, and I would suggest that all of us, no matter how
good we are, can improve in many areas.
Lastly, IMHO again, probably THE most helpful thing I have done in my
radio career is record every contest I can, and then listen to those
recordings often to again hone what I did well and not so well. This
is huge, and I would challenge the rest of the contest community to do
the same, I think there is untapped potential to learn from others
here that are willing to share their own recordings (and logs, LCRs,
etc.).
See you in the pileups,
Jeff N6GQ, YN2AA, 4K9Z, etc., etc.
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Alfredo Velez WP3C via CQ-Contest
<cq-contest@contesting.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> That drink for the contests to be kept awake. I here drink energy drink or
> coffee. And you? 73'
>
>
> Alfredo Vélez WP3C
> Skype: wp3c.pr
> e-mail: mailto:wp3c@aol.com
> Web: http://wp3c.comule.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest@contesting.com
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