5 Principles To Improve Recovery

5 Principles To Improve Recovery

Recovery

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Do you feel that you are constantly training, yet not seeing the results that you should be
getting? Your training effort may be suffering and your body may be over stressed because you
are under recovered. Most likely you don’t even realize you are capable of more because that
has been your norm for so long. I get it. I have been there and it also took someone else to point
it out and help me fix it.

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As a young athlete my greatest attribute was my willingness to work hard and like everything else in my life I took this to the extreme. Everyday was a training day, rest and recovery was what I did when I was sleeping. My days off from the gym consisted of a long “easy” run, some ab work, and then I’d probably go surf for a few hours as well. It wasn’t until I had a coach ask me about my rest days because he noticed that my attitude and performance would suffer towards the end of each week. When he asked how often I take a rest and what I do I probably gave him a strange look because I was under the impression that I needed to outwork everyone to be the best. I said that on Sunday’s I take it easy and explained what my version of a rest day looked like. I’m sure he shook his head and laughed but then asked that I take Sunday’s to do nothing for a few weeks and he guaranteed that I’d see an improvement not just in my training but in my performance. I fought him for a bit on this asking what about this and can I do that, eventually I agreed.

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Instantly I noticed a difference. I was able to go as hard in my sessions come Friday and Saturday as I would in my sessions early in the week. My Sleep started to improve, mentally I was sharp, and my motivation stayed high all week. This coach and I still joke about the initial exchange but it was a game changer for me and really opened my eyes to the importance recovery plays in performance. I realized that always training is not as valuable as making every session count. That working hard and outworking others goes beyond physical training. That it is just as important to exercise the same work ethic and discipline for recovery that you do for all of the other training aspects.

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This insight into recovery took place 12 years ago and since then I have done a lot of research and experimenting with it on myself and others. The guiding principle I have learned and use when looking at recovery is that the intent of your rest or recovery days is to maximize your ability to hit the intended stimulus on your next block of training days.While there are a lot of variables when talking recovery and the specific protocols are very individualized the top 5 principles everyone should implement are:
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1. Sleep

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Do whatever you need to do to get a minimum of 8+ hours of sleep. When you are sleeping is when your body is physically repairing the damage you have done through training. If you can, take a nap in the middle of your day. Especially if you are hitting multiple training sessions in one day. This will give you that boost to be able to hit that second training session hard.
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2. Nutrition

Yup just like everything else, what you consume or don’t consume will drastically impact your recovery. To have a positive impact on your recovery it is important to make sure that you are not just getting enough calories but getting them from quality food sources. Even if you are trying to lose weight you still need to be eating plenty of good quality food. If you try to cut your
calories too much you will not only suffer with your training but you will most likely put yourself into starvation mode and your body will do everything it can to survive, which means your metabolism will slow way down. This is not good for weight loss and will wreak havoc on your recovery.

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3. Maximize Blood Flow

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There are hundreds of protocols and devices to help improve blood flow and it’s not really important which one you use, it’s just important that you find one or a few that you are able to do
consistently. Your blood is what delivers nutrients to the different parts of your body and the nutrients are what promotes healing. So whether you like to do contrast showers, use some type of fancy device, or simply go for a walk the goal is to get the blood moving. This helps with recovery and will decrease swelling which will help you feel fresh and ready to go for your next training session.

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4. Minimize Stress

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Do whatever you can to remove stress from your life. Stress will drag you down and almost make your ability to recover non-existent. From negatively impacting your sleep and nutrition, to
depleting your discipline and will-power. Stress will push your nervous system into a constant sympathetic or “fight or flight” state; this means the only thing your body is concerned with is surviving. This means there will be no recovery happening. By removing stress you will allow your body to move into a parasympathetic or relaxed state which will maximize your ability to recover.

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5. Tune In To Your Body

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The human body is an incredible thing and your body will tell you exactly what you need if you are paying attention. Listen to this. If you aren’t feeling it and you are lacking motivation to go
train, explore this. Ask yourself questions and answer them honestly. Your ego has no place in your training, especially when it comes to your recovery. So learn to pay attention to what it is that your body is telling you and listen.

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