GET MORE series: Progress is Recovery
Takeaways
· Train hard, recover harder. If you have proper training plan you should have a proper recovery plan
· It’s specific to you! Like most things, you can’t just follow the label on the box and expect the results. You are you, understand you 1st.
· GET MORE by treating recovery as top priority.
Every level of Athlete needs to include recovery in their routine.
That feels like something that need to be said early on…
And not just given lip service along with try to eat clean.
Doing the recovery work – proper rest, sleep, mobility exercises, nutrition to match your exercise programming is important and this is the first part of a series of posts titled GET MORE. To help people maximise themselves effectively and with no health compromises
Let’s dive in to some of the areas that we need to aware of at all levels…
Many areas of Fitness over train and over work, the nature of fitness is such that you PUSH as hard and as long as possible. Once the bug gets you, you don’t stop, 5,6,7 days a week, sometimes twice a day…
But what makes this over training? Who’s to say this its too much.
The recovery system you have in place, that’s who!
There are a lot of correlations across many types of training but let’s use CrossFit as our whipping boy today.
(partly because this is how I personally train now and partly because a lot of the readers here do too!)
The CrossFit Athlete’s understanding of recovery and ability to control and even enhance recovery when required is a key part of Performance Progression (or GET MORE thinking!)
Without proper recovery, regular training will not be as beneficial, and in some cases, make the Athlete worse with potential outcomes such as adrenal fatigue, thyroid issues, liver issues and excessive inflammation. (1)
Recovery doesn’t start post workout, it’s life.
From the time you wake up in the morning recovery needs to be built in, the harder you push, the more recovery needs to be prioritised…
Areas of focus
Wake up time:
Presuming you had a decent night’s sleep (more later) and you didn’t get up at midnight to eat…
Your body is in a state of fasting. This isn’t the body eating muscles away as the old bodybuilder’s believe, it’s relying on existing stores for energy within various storage places within the body. Now don’t think Fat round your belly or hips, this isn’t as easily accessible as the energy reserves elsewhere, typically, in the Liver. Experts studying the Circadian rhythm suggest 1 hour to let the body wake and systems turn on properly before any calories should be consumed.
You will have also come out of the longest period of stillness and intensive recovery any of us gets. The body and mind need to be eased into full mobility and full function. You can jump straight out of bed to a 6am class, some heavy lifting and/or 25-minute MetCon, but if you want to GET MORE, you need to prepare and give your self Primed.
· Walk or gently move for 5-10 minutes
· Drink 400ml of water, if possible, add lemon and salt to warm water for liver support and adrenal function awakening, more suited to people looking to fire up asap.
· Any areas of tightness are most noticeable. Don’t attack them straight away, but make note for your mobility time later.
Nutrition:
The best nutrition plan is the one you can follow and improve on as you progress. Simplicity is a good rule too as you easily know your intake of calories, macronutrients and micronutrients categories covered.
“Rule 1” for an Athlete training hard has to be proper amounts of lean protein.
Then it’s simple, controlled amounts of “healthy fats” and carbohydrate quantity and timing around training volume and timing.
This needs to be in alignment with your body goal and performance goal. This, although not covered here is another area of in the GET MORE thinking, often incorrectly approached. Put simply, its common for Athletes that haven’t planned their progress in these areas over the coming months are trying to reach competing goals. Do more and eat less? Loss Fat and PB your squat 1RM? Programming needs to align here…
Anyways…
You need to eat enough good not to outweigh the bad - to do enough “good” inside you to recover for the next training session!
For example, many Athletes under eat for at least part of the year. Particularly carbohydrates. The body converts carbs to insulin, insulin is the most Anabolic (growth) fuel the body has. Want MORE? Carbs maybe your answer initially…
Bear in mind with this statement, carbs aren’t pizzas, pizzas are pizzas! Carbs are part of pizza but this a load of unhealthy trans fats also (part of reason cals per slice is so high!)
Depleted Glycogen levels are something I have struggle with, I train early in the morning, nutrition pre-workout is rushed, and I have been known to hit a wobbly patch. If you do too how do you improve and adjust? Either with improved nutrition in the evening prior including a measured amount of slow release carbs and some testing with pre-workout nutrition. For me a banana and a palm sized quantity of almonds will do 95% of the time, but if I’m nearing a level central fatigue, perhaps near the end of the particularly hard week (more later) then more is needed with time to digest the additional cals. (As well as rest, even skipping a session perhaps?!!),
Bear in mind, coffee, sleep, sugar, stress can also have a factor here. For me this was about testing and responding to the warning signs
Pre-workout:
As I mentioned, I train early in the morning so pre-workout routine over laps with breakfast and wake up. But it needs to be discussed as this a key time for recovery.
I think/hope everyone understands warming up, so let’s not dwell, just to say, if you don’t bother, don’t expect your results to be impressive over time.
In addition to standard warm ups, you woke up and noted the tight points, give yourself 5 minutes pre-workout just feeling out those areas of the body out before your training.
You probably have inflammation in these areas, mobilising them before training will help to take the tighten away. It’s important to note the inflammation is still present, but wit mobility you can hope to use the exercise to ease the area and start to increase rate of repair instead of holding tighten into strenuous training and risking injury.
I don’t use caffeine or pre-workout blends, but some do. For me, if I used it regularly, I would start to rely on it. That’s not where I want to be. But maybe for some there is a place for it, and that’s fine. I’d just notice what you’re actually putting in your body (this study is pretty interesting. Sugar or strong sweetness on the palate, prior to exercise reduces output, significantly!)
In short, you need to have eaten, in my opinion, for a strenuous workout. fasted training has its place, but not in intense, challenging training session.
Post workout:
Immediately post workout, and after any cool down/stretching I eat an apple, a good balance of fructose and natural glucose. Again, this comes down to sugar > insulin – getting it into the body asap to start recovery! (3)
I’ve personally found this to be really useful in turning up day after day, when the rest of the day’s activities could be fatiguing you in some way or another too.
Your biggest meal! Not a “cheat meal” of processes bs for cals.
Get a decent balance of protein, carbs and fats. Carbs need to be a mix of fruit/veg (fruit is better as fructose is proven to aid glucose delivery) and complex carbs (potatoes, pasta, rice etc.) You can use a fattier source of meat in this meal, steak, whole eggs etc. too the animal fats aid muscle growth.
Zn Mag was specifically formulated for accompaniment to this meal.
Vital minerals depletion from Sweat.
Collagen for the joint exertion recovery.
Vitamin D to aid the mineral regulation at the time of crucial importance and
Huperzine A to ensure brain function breakdown from strenuous exercise is not a factor.
You couldn’t expect that from the best post-workout meal, but it will all massively increase recovery rate and reduce any issues building over daily, intense workout schedules.
I’ve written previously on nutrition and I do consider this to be personal understanding and preference. Your knowledge on nutrition needs to be better than this post. You might do fine right now, it will only get worse if you don’t know and understand what you feed your body and mind on.*
Sleep:
IMO, The biggest oversight amongst Athletes at almost all levels. Aside from perhaps alcohol for many weekend warriors or overtraining for the obsessive.
Athletes that train hard, eat right, do mobility exercises, have recovery time during the day and supplement to suit their needs, then go to bed with 6 hours before their alarms goes off. No prep, no plan and either poor sleep or not enough.
Sleep should include, falling asleep within 20 minutes of bedtime, staying asleep and waking up naturally (or at least feeling good after wake up in a timely fashion). If it doesn’t, expect much less repair and so recovery and so performance…
If you’re a fan of the 80/20 rule, Think if sleep as the 80% or at least 70%.
Other ideas to be included in a recovery schedule:
· Green Smoothie*. This is my daily green Smoothie. I like it, it covers a lot of bases and I use as and when I’m feeling low or with a lunch for a great afternoon!
· Time for mobility work (I know, I’m sorry but this is the difference between 10 years training hard and 20+ for many!)
· Programming of training. I don’t pretend to be an expert here, and depending on what and how you train, you need to know how to program and plan your workouts to include deloading phases etc. (for those of us with Programming done for us, rest easy, it’s built in!!)
· Extra work… I personally love a Sauna, it does what I need to get back feeling great if I’m struggling. Some would swear by other treatments like massage, Cryo chambers etc. This falls into “extra work” for me because, for the masses of “dedicated & normal folk”, this isn’t necessarily feasible on a weekly basis. But if it is, then great! Use it to GET MORE!
Summary
Reading this you have probably noticed, a lot of this information, although backed up by scientific research and studies is still largely my preference. And if you follow various fitness gurus, trainers and pro athletes, they say similar stuff – “this is what works for me”. Think more of these then as the basics, advanced protocols can be adopted as you begin to understand what your body needs. But ultimately, AGAIN, you need to learn YOU to GET MORE!
*Green Smoothie recipe:
Makes a large mug, if I need more, I add oats. It’s not flash and there are better recipes but this repeatable, great tasting and noticeably effective…
Half frozen banana
6-8 frozen blueberries
1 scoop of Greens Stack
30g Protein powder (I use chocolate, isolate whey, havn’t found a brand I would recommend yet 😉)
1 tsp nut butter
200ml water
(sometimes 20g rolled oats)