There are a LOT of tools, tips, and tricks out there when it comes to recovery.
Many of these become trendy, or seem like a “must do” in order to have the best recovery, and although they may be helpful, we don’t want to skip the more foundational aspects of recovery - sleep, proper nutrition, and rest days.
Today we will delve into the significance of these three staples of recovery, so you can make sure you are always recovered, and ready to tackle the next workout.
Sleep: The Most Underrated Aspect of Recovery
While sleep is a time for your body to rest, it’s also the timeframe that your body repairs itself. While you sleep, growth hormone is released, which allows your muscle to repair and grow. Workouts are thought of as the time when you build muscle, but in reality, working out breaks down the muscle fibers, which are then repaired while we sleep.
Additionally, sleep helps regulate hormones that control appetite, making it easier to maintain a healthy weight. When you are underslept, so are your hormones, which can make your ability to monitor your hunger and satiety more difficult.
Tips for Quality Sleep:
- Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night
- Maintain a consistent sleep schedule, with waking up and going to bed around the same time each night, including weekends
- Create a comfortable sleep environment by keeping temperatures cool, sounds minimal, and keeping out excess light through things like blackout curtains or a sleep mask
- Avoid/Limit caffeine and screen time before bedtime to allow for circadian rhythms to follow a normal pattern
Solid Nutrition: Not Just Limiting Calories, But Fueling Growth & Recovery
Nutrition plays a fundamental role in supporting your body's recovery process. Eating enough protein is necessary for supporting muscle growth, while carbohydrates help to replenish glycogen stores that provide energy, and fats provide proper cellular function, as well as function to help produce some hormones in the body.
While remaining leaner may feel like the more desired physique for a healthy person, we don’t want to limit our caloric intake to the point where we are experiencing things like reduced performance in the gym, constant hunger, brain fog, and other negative effects. While in a dieting phase, we may experience some of these things, but on a regular basis for recovery, we want to minimize those things, and can do so by eating high quality foods, and enough of those foods.
Working on your nutrition doesn’t simply mean eating less, and in many cases, IT means eating more nutrient dense foods.
Tips for Solid Nutrition:
- Consume a balanced diet with lean protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats, and eat less nutrient dense foods in moderation
- Take in carbs pre-workout, as well as an intake of protein + carbs post workout for optimal recovery
- Pay attention to hunger and energy cues, and assess how they are impacted by the amount of food you’re consuming; adjust food amounts based on this (increasing food intake if energy is often low, workouts feel weak, etc and reassess)
The Importance of Rest Days
Although we promote getting in movement each day to combat sedentary time, it’s important to take true rest days from training. When you exercise intensely, your muscles need time to recover between sessions. A good rule of thumb is 48-72 hours of recovery for a worked muscle group. Rest days allow your body to repair and adapt to the physical stress you've placed on it (with that good sleep!).
We aren’t team #nodaysoff around here for a reason. Plus– you can achieve great results without being in the gym every single day. I’d even bet your results are better due to being able to go harder the days you are in the gym because of your rest days.
Less workouts that are more effective are better than more workouts that are less effective.
Rest Day Guidelines:
- Include at least one full rest day per week
- Active recovery, like gentle yoga or light walking, can be beneficial. Actually REST. Don’t run a 5k and call it active recovery!
- Utilize these days to monitor what’s going on in your body, lower stress in other areas of life, and enjoy some balance (Get more sleep, spend time with loved ones, grocery shop and meal prep, catch up on your favorite TV show)
What You Can Add in But May Not Need
There are tons of additional recovery tactics out there that look fun and flashy, and many offer additional benefits, but they aren’t necessary and mandatory for good recovery. Like many other aspects of health, without the foundation above, they are like stepping over dollars to chase pennies.
So nail the things above, and then add in what’s below based on what you have time for, can afford, and/or enjoy. (These have varying degrees of success, and you can do with that what you will):
- Ice baths
- Massage guns / massage therapy
- Cupping and dry needling
- Sauna
- Air compression boots
- Meditation + breathwork
- Foam rolling
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