The Reward is in the Recovery

WORKOUTS ARE BENEFICIAL, BUT YOU DON’T ACTUALLY BENEFIT UNTIL YOUR BODY RECOVERS.

How are you feeling today? On any given day, our physical state is impacted by a number of variables, and those will affect how ready and able we are to take on stress and strain.  Stress and strain can come from many sources; some are obvious but many we don’t even think about:

• Exercise

• Emotional stress

• Mental stress

• Toxin exposure (fumes, pollution, chemicals in cleaning and beauty products, etc)

• Environmental stressors (excess noise, allergens, etc)

• Lack of adequate sleep

• Poor Diet

• Travel

….to name a few of the biggies.

Depending on the day, your body may be coping with the strain associated with more or less of these, and we all need recovery practices to help our bodies restore, rebuild and stay healthy.

What are recovery practices?  

Recovery practices help restore your body from the stresses we face on a daily basis.  Using exercise as an example, when you lift weights, you are temporarily weakening your body.  It’s true, resistance training actually damages your muscles. Your gains from exercise are only realized when your body recovers, allowing your muscles to repair and come back stronger than before. And what’s more, recovery strategies support your health in every way.  

The most important elements of an effective recovery routine include: 

1) 😴 Sleep. This is the number one, numero uno! highest priority.  Sleep is where the magic happens.  Your muscles repair, your brain cleans itself, and skills learned the previous day are cemented to memory.  Sleep will be the focus of an upcoming coaching email, so for a deeper dive, stay tuned, but for now remember this: sleep is the most important thing you can do for your overall health!  Shoot for 8 hours a night.

2) 💧Hydration and nutrition.  Drink half your weight in ounces of pure water daily.  Other clear liquids can help you stay hydrated, but nothing is better than water.  To help your body recover from stress and strain, eat foods that help fight inflammation, and consume a healthy amount of protein each day.  Foods that help fight inflammation include leafy greens, nuts (except peanuts), seeds, ginger, turmeric and fatty fish.  Foods that hinder recovery include refined sugar, processed foods, refined oils such as canola and vegetable oil and alcohol.  

3) 🧘‍♀️Manage stress.  Stress from every source adds up to result in cumulative strain on the body.  Over time, excess stress may result in a poor immune system, hormone dysfunction, weight gain, sleep problems and more. Techniques for managing stress such as meditation, breath work, mindfulness, and restorative exercise (a mellow walk in nature, gentle yoga), help your body recover from and be better at managing inevitable periods of heightened stress.

4) 💆🏻‍♀️ Miscellaneous physical recovery strategies may include: Foam rolling, breath work, meditation, cold therapy/cryotherapy, sauna, mobility and stretching exercises, massage, cupping, and more.

Build recovery strategies into your everyday routine by developing good sleep habits, staying hydrated, eating well and managing stress in healthy sustainable ways.

In addition, be cognizant of your overall stress and strain load- both physical and mental/emotional as it inevitably goes up and down.  We are not designed to “go hard” all the time, in the gym or in life. I certainly encourage you to push yourself physically, but not to the max every day.  After a particularly hard workout, your fitness plan for the following day or two should include more gentle, restorative activities.  And if you’re experiencing a period of heightened emotional stress, or intense mental challenges, those may not be the best times for frequent “all out” workouts. Stress load on your body is cumulative.  Be kind to yourself; you may be surprised at how much better your start to perform when you dedicate more focus to restoration.

Signs you’re not recovering enough?

• Upon waking in the morning you’re still tired

• You get frequent colds

• You are sore all the time

• Workout of similar level of difficulty start feeling harder and harder

• Sleep quality has gone downhill (difficulty falling asleep/staying asleep)

• Your resting heart rate goes up and heart rate variability goes down. This is measurable with a heart rate variability monitor (I am obsessed with mine by Whoop), and is a sign your sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive.

Wearable technology like the Whoop band offers great insight on when your body is ready to push and when you need more rest. It’s not always correlated just to the number of hours you sleep! I’ve often been surprised.

Suggestions for focusing on recovery:  

➡️ Take stock of your current stress load (considering days when you do hard workouts, as well as what’s going on in your personal and professional world, sleep quality, and diet - a high sugar/processed diet adds stress to your body).  

➡️ Examine your current recovery practices.  Are your practices matched to your stressors? Meaning, are you currently practicing habits that correspond appropriately with your level of stress?  As a specific example, after a tough personal training session, do you plan for the next day to include restorative movement and some stretching? 

➡️ Commit to a recovery activity or two that you are not already doing. It could be as simple as drinking an extra glass of water, taking a 5 minute meditation break, or swapping the tough interval workout you had planned for a gentle yoga class.  

Our bodies are designed to withstand intense stress but not ALL the time. Take care of your beautiful, amazing self. 💖