RECOVERY!!!!!
Here’s to address any issues of recovery that we hear about. Featuring some of the famous lines of, “it’s too hard”, “I’m smoked by Thursday”, and “I’m always sore”. Our program is hard. We’re going to keep it that way. We’re not going to water it down. Deal with your recovery appropriately and decrease the time it takes you get back to normal. Remember, you don’t improve because you do longer duration workouts, you improve because you RECOVER!
Three things to ask yourself each week to see how well you’re recovered:
1. How do you look?
2. How do you Feel?
3. How do you Perform?
If the answer to all these things is good to great, good news is your recovery time is right on track. If the answer is “like shit”, time to look at a few things.
For more elaboration on recovery from Robb Wolf check out his article in the CrossFit Journal.
5 Reasons why you’re under recovered and what to do about it.
1. Your diet and nutritional needs do not support your activity level.
This is the number one cause of under recovery. All of you by now should have received and read over our nutrition email outlining Zone/Paleo nutrition. If for some reason you have not gotten this, misplaced it, or gave me a bad email address, email me and we will get this back over to you ASAP!
Your food should be clean (PALEO, check out the book by Dr. Cordain), and each meal should contain each of our 3 macronutrients:
-Protein
-Carbohydrates
-Fat
If you’re unsure of how much of each you should eat, ask us! We will give you a “Protein Prescription” to which your carbs and fat will be based off of. Remember, as students, you guys have a wealth of knowledge amongst the rest of the student base. Ask others what works for them based on their lifestyle and activity level. If you haven’t already done so, do yourself a favor and go mess with your diet EXPLICITLY for at least a month. Make tweaks on your diet based on how you feel, and then go from there. We’re here to help you!
2. You’re always sore and need to foam roll and stretch more often.
A trend we’ve noticed is that the majority of the students show up, quickly say hello, and run to grab a foam roller to go and roll out. From a coaching perspective, we like this. Foam rolling (aka. Self Myofascial Release) has even turned into a social event at the back of gym during busy hours where everyone riles in discomfort while discussing last weekend’s activities. We also cannot stress getting in early BEFORE your workout starts to get in this valuable Myofascial Release time!
Benefits of foam rolling (Self Myofascial Release):
-Corrects muscle imbalances.
-Increases your joint’s range of motion.
-Decreases muscle soreness and relieves joint stress.
-Increases neuromuscular efficiency.
-Maintains normal functional muscular length.
-It’s cheaper than getting a deep tissue massage!
Do this before you begin any movement in your warm-up, and you will have a better workout! Sure it hurts, but you feel a lot better when you start moving afterwards with all that blood flow now in the once sore areas. Do this AFTER your workout and you will speed up your recovery as well. After a workout your muscles and joints are warm and pliable. Dig in and you won’t be as sore the next day!
Those of you with pre-existing joint/flexibility issues MUST do this in order to prep your body for the workouts. This is the quickest and easiest way to gain the mobility needed to alleviate your day to day joint pain! So don’t show up 10 minutes late to class and assume that you will have ample time to roll out.
3. You’re not sleeping enough.
Seven to nine hours per night. Less won’t cut it.
Coach Kelly Starrett of San Francisco CrossFit addresses the sleep issue.
4. You need a day off.
Very, very few people can maintain our schedule for more than 3 days in a row before enough is enough, and a recovery day takes place. I only know of one student who was able to make huge improvements coming in 6 days/week, play hockey for 6 hours after each workout, and still show up each day ready to rock. He was 18 years old, and had EVERYTHING dialed in outside of the workouts to support his activity level.
Most of us cannot do it this way. Take a day off, and a day off means a
5. You need a recovery day/week.
Chances are if all the above are dialed in and in check, you may just need a recovery day/week. In fact it’s a good idea every 4 to 6 weeks and take a “recovery week”. During this time, scale back, and dial down the intensity of the workouts for yourself. This means scale back the loads/volume/movements under any combination.
For example, we often work with percentages of your max effort lifts. These are dialed in on a daily/weekly basis off of what we’re doing during that particular day and week. The lifts in our Strength/Skill bias
So the notion of every day is a max effort lift day and it’s too much, is now de-bunked. Dialing back the intensity of the workout of the day is also appropriate during these weeks. Drop the load down, do a different rep scheme with the movements, and/or scale the movements so that you can work better through them. Work with what you’re able to based upon your recovery, and dial it back up when appropriate.
Next up…….Potential…..
Snatch Grip Deadlift
4-4-4-4-4 (95% to 105% of ME Snatch)
-Work your "path of the bar" on the way up!
2 Power Snatches on the minute for 15 minutes
-Use 90% of your max effort Power Snatch.
