I don’t know who out there needs to hear this but, “You have to work harder on your recovery than you do on your training.” Don’t get me wrong, you have to work hard in your training, but if you’re not recovering from it then why bother? It will just leave you being a beat up heap of muscles. Why do I bring up recovery again? Because I think it is a very overlooked aspect of everyone’s training and should be incorporated in to training program in some way, shape or form. There are so many factors that affect how we recover and we need to do the best we can to take control of it to allow us to be at our best. That’s what we all want, isn’t it? Why is it the single most important part of any training program?
1. It helps decrease the risk of potential future injuries.
2. It helps our body to heal itself and be ready for the next challenge you throw at it.
3. It allows you to continue to perform at higher levels.
4. Without recovery we can’t make progress.
Remember, recovery is where the magic happens. When we are training, we are literally breaking our body down and tearing our muscles. Recovery is where we are able to allow ourselves to benefit from our training sessions. If you just keep pushing through, your body and mind will not adapt to the different stimuli and level up.
Here are a few suggestions and things to look at and consider to help your recovery process along. Now this may be a full training session dedicated to recovery, or it may just be done post workout, but it should be and needs to be done to keep yourself moving forward.
Your sleep patterns
Do you get enough sleep at night? Does it vary day to day? Do you have trouble getting to sleep? Sleep is extremely important for recovery because it is where our body has the ability to focus on doing just that. It is said that we should get 7-8 hours of sleep. For some, that may not be the case. But, if you can increase your amount of sleep by a few more minutes, you will be better off. Don’t look at where can you get another hour, start small and then work your way up.
Global Foam Rolling
There are different techniques to foam rolling. For this global technique, you want to roll your whole body, especially getting in there and working on those bigger muscle-heavy areas like you glutes, quads, hamstrings, your back and your chest. Apply long non-violent strokes to the muscle. You don’t want to be in a ton of pain while doing this. Don’t be afraid to spend time just using this method to get you feeling limber and loose. We don’t call it a poor man’s massage for nothing.
Low Impact to no impact cardio
I’m not talking about going for a run here. In a run, every step you take is sending impact through your body. I’m more so suggesting modalities like biking, the Ski Erg, rowing, swimming or simply just walking. Choose activities that keep the stress and pounding off your joints and body.
Ice Baths and Warm Baths
Refer to this earlier blog on my water journey, where I discuss the benefits of hot and cold contrast on the body.
Doing a dynamic warm up routine
By warming up properly, you are making sure your body is ready to do the job at hand. If the body is ready to perform its duties, then it will move through it seamlessly. Which, in turn, means the recovery process will be easier to get through. You can see examples of warm ups here.
Adding in a cool down to your workouts
By adding a cool down to your workouts it will help re-center you. Depending on how hard something is would then depend on what you would do for your cool down. Running a marathon vs going to do interval sprints, the cool down is different. But, we want to do this to help the body return to its homeostasis. This is said to help with injury prevention and helping you manage future muscle soreness, DOMS. (delayed onset muscle soreness)
Yoga
Yoga is the Yin to the Yang of training. It is a great tool to use for recovery as it lengthens our muscle while strength training shortens our muscles. Yoga helps to increase our flexibility, mobility and body awareness. Combining these will truly help you and your body be more resilient.
Although I gave you ideas on how to better recover so your body can continue to progress, the one key thing that goes along with this, is making sure your nutrition plan and way of eating is conducive to allowing your body to grow. Without the right nutrition, no matter what you do, your body will struggle to recover.
If you don’t dedicate some time to your own recovery process already, I hope this gives you some ideas on what to do so you can continue to hit it hard. Until next time, continue to live life one degree above the rest AND work on your recovery!
P.S. Be on the look out as we offer Yoga and Revitalize & Restore classes to help assist you in your recovery.