Foam Rollers. Lacrosse balls. Massage guns. Heat. Ice. Stretch. Don’t stretch. Rest, but not too much rest. Got that?
The world of ‘recovery’ is a confusing and at times overwhelming area of health and wellness that can make it difficult to actually understand what you should be doing to ensure you’re balancing the natural push/pull of breaking your body down through working out and building it back up through your recovery regimen.
So let’s take a step back and understand what recovery actually means.
When you workout you (ideally) challenge yourself to the point where your body has to respond in some way to better prepare it for the next time you hit the gym. Too little (or too infrequent) and your body won’t receive the stimulus needed for it to improve. Too much (or too frequent) and you risk over training your body and finding yourself set back by injury. For example, after a heavy strengthening workout you’ll naturally break down muscle fibers (leaving you temporarily “weaker”) but your body will rebuild “stronger” than before. This recovery process requires time and nutrition. Without enough of either of these, your body will actually be less prepared for your next workout because it hasn’t properly recovered from your last bout. If you just keep squatting heavy back to back days, you’ll find out that you can’t keep up with the same workout because your body isn’t getting the chance to recover.
So how do we handle recovery?
Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it seems (we’ll get to the gizmos later)
First, let’s look at short term recovery.
Short term recovery (for the purposes of this blog) is referring to your weekly workout routine. It’s important to give muscles time (approximately 1-3 days depending on the intensity of your workout, the level of your conditioning, and how “used” you are to your current programming) to recover before hitting them again. The heavier you go the more time your body will need. The newer you are to working out the more time your body will need. If you’re starting a completely different type of programming than you are used to, you’re likely going to need a little more time as well.
So how do you know when you’re sufficiently “recovered?”
There are some cues your body will give you to let you know. Still sore from the last workout? Give yourself a rest, workout a different area of your body, or back off the intensity. Are you no longer sore but the weight you lifted a few days ago feels a lot heavier today? Your body is telling you it needs a bit more rest. Are you feeling fatigued and not as ready as you usually are? You likely need to check in with your body before progressing your workouts. This can be frustrating, but understand that your nutrition, your hormones, your mood, your sleep, all these things play into your recovery so if you haven’t been sleeping well or you’re more stressed than usual, you may find that it’s harder to squat the same weight you did last week….if that’s the case, pushing yourself to lift even heavier is probably not the right answer. Listen to your body, drop the weight to a difficult but tolerable challenge, get a good workout, eat a healthy meal, get some sleep and come back next time ready to push.
*Caveat* As your body adapts to consistent exercise, you may find that you may need less recovery than you used to. Seasoned athletes can handle practice 4-5x a week. Seasoned Crossfit athletes are sometimes hitting the gym 5x/week. High level athletes, however, typically also have trainers, mico and macro training cycles, monitored nutrition and sleep. So before you put yourself through that kind of gauntlet, make sure you’ve given your body the time, nutrition, and consistency it needs to have adapted to that level of training.
Long-term Recovery (for the purposes of this blog) refers to the rest breaks you’ll take every couple months to give your body a good chance to fully recover from the punishment you’ve been putting it through on a consistent basis. Think of this as your clean slate. As noted above, challenging the body forces it to adapt. Eventually, you’ll likely get to the point where your body is “plateauing” and you’re finding that making big gains isn’t coming as quickly as it used to. This is a cue that A) it’s probably time to change your programming and B) it’s likely time to take a week off (note: taking a week off doesn’t mean only binging Netflix and eating bonbons.) Active rest for a week could entail any of the following – your typical workout at about 50% intensity / volume, moderately challenging yoga, or even just engaging in some low-level recreational activities such as bike riding or walking.
As for the gizmos?
Do you need to spend 30 minutes after every workout hitting the foam roller, lacrosse ball and massage gun? Probably not. Sometimes in PT we may use these for specific issues revealed by an in-depth evaluation but foam rolling your whole body after you’re done squatting is likely overkill. Are you hurting yourself by using them? No. Do they feel good? Absolutely. If you feel like they help you perform better – go for it.
The big takeaway here is to push yourself consistently and gradually, listen to your body, eat well, sleep well, take rest days throughout the week and take a week off every 2-3 months.
*As always, everybody is different. This discussion on recovery talks about general rules of thumb broadly applicable to the general public. Some people require tweaks to this approach so If you have any questions, ask your friendly PT at FX Physical Therapy and we’ll make sure you’re on the right track.
