Paul finished his workout in record time, crushing the metcon and feeling awesome about his performance. He sat on the floor for a few minutes, high-fived some fellow people in his 5:30am CrossFit group class and began to pack up his gear. No stretching, no recovery drink. Out the door he went.
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Short on time, he headed home to shower and get to work. Sitting at work a couple hours later, he decided to have a small snack as he was feeling just a little hungry. This is the first real thing he’d eaten today.
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After sitting behind his desk all day, Paul met some friends for drinks after work and munched on a few chips that are at the table.
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Fast forward a few hours later, and Paul is crawling into bed at 11pm with his alarm set for 5am the next morning – ready to do it all over again.
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From a training and long-term health standpoint, what’s wrong with the above scenario?
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The answer is that Paul is not recovering properly and he’s not taking advantage of his awesome training session that morning because he’s not doing the “little things” the rest of his day.
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He’s put more emphasis on his one hour of gym time than the other 23 hours in the day. This is a common thing and it’s trending the wrong direction in the fitness world.
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People are training hard and recovering very poorly sometimes.
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For RESULTS to actually happen, we have to recover from our training. Our bodies have to adapt to the stimulus that we are imposing on it in the gym.
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So how do we best do that? How do we recover?
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A. Food – Eating a diet of whole, real foods throughout the day, in appropriate amounts that support exercise and the training we’re doing. Eating these foods at the right times and having a plan that is dialed in for YOU. (if you are stuck in this area, consider hiring a nutrition coach).
B. Sleep – Sleep is the time when your body repairs itself. Both REM and non-REM sleep cycles help the body heal and build new tissue. We need this time! 8-9 hours of sleep each night should be the norm. People who regularly get 5-6 are operating at submaximal capacity throughout their days and might not even know it because they’re so used to it.
C. Down – Regulating the autonomic nervous system, aka Para-Sympathetic mode – doing relaxing things for the body and mind. Stretching and yoga, meditation, journaling, hot tea, going for a light walk; all these things help shift us into a calm, relaxed mode that is conducive to recovering.
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Train. Train. Train. That one hour is glorified. How much can we get in? The more the better, right? (wrong)
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Training is sexy. Throwing around weights and going fast is applauded. What’s not sexy and not talked about enough are the things we need to be doing the other 23 hours when we’re NOT in the gym.
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Nutrition, sleep and other recovery modalities are the more important pieces of the equation with training that get you the results you want.
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Are you optimizing them all?
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If you’re not sure, the best thing to do is keep a log for a week. Write down your food and eating times; your sleep and wake times; create a T-chart with all your stressful activities on one side and relaxing activities on the other. Which side is more heavily weighted?
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Creating this awareness could be eye-opening and the first step toward more recovery in your life. More recovery equals better training sessions and the synergistic effect gives you awesome progress.
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Still struggling?
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Shoot us a message and let’s sit down for a “No-Sweat Intro” where we talk about you and your goals. We’ll dive in to what you’re currently doing, where you want to be and what you need to get there.
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Here’s to more recovery and greater progress in the months ahead!
