Work hard, rest hard.
I was able to go to Hawaii for a winter break, lucky me! Spending seven days in shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops was just what I needed. The sun felt so good on my winter-pale skin (yes, I wore sunscreen 😉). Although I exercised every day (hiking steep hills, trail running, some swimming, and bodyweight circuits in the backyard of our place), it was more or less a recovery week for me, equally for my mind as well as my body.
As soon as I returned home though I was reminded that recovery, although a very hot topic in the wellness community these days, is still very hard for many people, and it’s not just something pro athletes should remember to do. Whether we train to compete or just to stay fit, we need to learn how to balance our training with recovery. Periodization of training means manipulating the training variables (such as load, volume, and rest) to optimize performance and adaptation. If done correctly, periodization prevents overtraining, the state where the stress from training has become too high, the body cannot recover anymore, and our performance starts to deteriorate.
But stress comes in many shapes and forms, something many people have a hard time comprehending. It is not just physiological and chemical (muscle tears, dehydration, lactic acid, etc.) that occurs from exercise but also environmental (humidity and heat), psychological, and emotional (work stress, relationship stress, etc.). Your body doesn’t have separate departments to fill for different kinds of stress. Instead, it interprets all stress the same, regardless of the source so if your life is going 💯 miles per hour in all directions, something’s gonna give. The chances are you will get injured, sick, and burned out.
Rest is not just for babies
“I only have about 30 mins a day. I’m going to train hard so I can get the most out of it.” It might sound like a great plan, but you’re probably doing more harm than good. Maximum or near-max workouts such as HIIT are great for metabolic health and building cardio fitness but they’re also very taxing for your body. If you keep pushing hard day after day your body is going to get weaker because your body doesn’t have enough time to adapt, recover, and repair and you will definitely put yourself at risk of injury and overtraining which will slow your progress. Your fitness level, goals, and the length and type of your workouts (high-impact vs. low-impact) will determine how many HIIT sessions you should do a week. If you’re new to exercise and HIIT, stick with one workout per week and progress as you get fitter (you need to pay your dues, so to speak). To be on the safe side, give yourself at least 48 hours to recover between intense workouts. Remember, your body doesn’t get stronger when it works, it gets stronger when it rests. We all need downtime, not just babies (sorry Arnold 😄).
Sleep is the no. 1 recovery tool
It’s so important I’m going to repeat it once more: Sleep is the no. 1 recovery tool. Full stop. “But there are so many things I have to do every day I can’t sacrifice so many hours doing nothing!” I hear this all the time. Yet, I keep fighting back against this outdated mindset because there is actually a LOT happening while you sleep. Adequate sleep enhances muscle protein synthesis (training adaptation ⬆️), repairs muscle tears and damaged cells (muscle soreness ⬇️)️, restores energy, releases hormones and proteins, gets rid of toxic waste products, reorganizes and stores new information, etc. It’s the way the body reinstates homeostasis, the body’s state of balance. Not to sound like an alarmist, but without adequate sleep, your body will stop working optimally, and in time, just stop.
“But I don’t really need that much sleep. I feel fine after five to six hours.” You might honestly think you’re one in a million who can function without much sleep but trust me, you’re slowly sabotaging your body both mentally and physically. The rising stress and cortisol accumulation of the go-go lifestyle is a recipe for a not-so-healthy future. Sadly, this state of semi-wakefulness can go on for years before things start to fall apart, and then it might be too late to fix the damage that’s been done (Alzheimer’s, heart disease, obesity, etc.)
How do you know if you’ve not recovered?
The best part about sleep is that it’s readily available (unless you suffer from insomnia) and free for everyone. If you train and work hard you might want to explore additional ways to enhance your recovery such as sauna, massage, meditation, not to forget proper nutrition. Minimally processed foods are the best recovery fuel for your body as well as your brain. Think vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, and legumes, and some lean meat and eggs if you choose to eat animal products.
Those of us who are not training high volumes consistently will probably not succumb to the “textbook” overtraining syndrome. Still, most of us are pretty good at under-recovering from time to time which, you guessed it, is mostly a result of poor lifestyle choices (instead of going to bed early scrolling social media posts, instead of cooking a healthy dinner pick something at the drive-through, and so on). The symptoms of overtraining and under-recovering are very similar: chronically sore muscles, loss of motivation/mojo, feeling weaker in your workouts, poor sleep quality, irritability, elevated resting heart rate (RHR), and lowered heart rate variability (HRV). Most of these symptoms you can see and feel without any devices, you just need to listen to your body and believe what it’s telling you. Pushing hard on your training and at work is all good every so often to get optimum results, but you also have to become good at switching off the hustle regularly. Life is not a sprint but a marathon.
