In many conversations with clients/athletes it has become clear that once they’re done with the training session, they are done thinking about training in general. They may be motivated to eat something “healthy” to stay consistent with the day, but that really is the extent of it. As a performance coach, it would be reckless and lazy if recovery weren’t addressed with the population I am working with. As such, here are some of the tools that I use generally.
Breathing
For most of my adult client groups, I will use different breathing strategies towards the beginning of the workout. This will allow them to leave the workday at work and not bring it into the gym. For the general population you can start to program different tempos for breathing, but that may be a little overkill for someone who doesn’t know how to engage their respiratory diaphragm in the first place. Belly breathing is quite simply done by lying down on your back, placing one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly, then trying to fill only the hand on your belly without letting the hand on your chest rise. This is a little bit of isolation type movement, but it is pretty effective at getting people out of their overly sympathetic tone from work or life. If someone is having trouble doing this, their is a pretty cool trick that I learned in PT school that is called the “sniff” test. Simply ask the individual to sniff as if they were sniffing like a dog. You will get raised eyebrows and questions, but once they get what it does it becomes rhetoric. You can progress the belly breathing series by rolling over and doing “crocodile” breathing or play around with tempos to get different reactions.
Breathing can and should also be done at the end of a training session. Recovery happens in a parasympathetic state. All this means is that if you’re stressed, high-strung, ready to go postal, you will not recover very well. If after a training session we sprinkle in some breathing techniques, it should help to facilitate that relaxed, parasympathetic tone.
Nutrition
This is such a basic tool that everyone can use, and yet, most don’t or at least don’t do it well. There are a number of supplements on the shelf that come with a varying amount of integrity attached to each brand. These are just as the name implies: supplements. This means if you’re not getting enough in your diet then use it. You can usually find out what the recommended daily intake (RDI) is for each micro/macro nutrient by simply going on the internet machine and searching.
That being said, depending on who you are you can time your nutrition appropriately with the right content to get the result you want. For recovery purposes, usually getting in some protein after a workout is a pretty simple start. If you dive into different resources, they will tell you that you need a certain amount of grams of protein per kilogram of body mass every certain amount of hours, but let’s get real. Just eat some protein or take some sort of protein supplement to aid the recovery process along. You can also add in any other micronutrient source that you may require (vitamins, minerals, creatine, etc.). It also can’t be stressed enough, eat veggies! If you refuse to eat veggies then you refuse to reach your goals. Kind of a blunt truth, but it is the truth. When asked I usually recommend the more colorful types of vegetables.
Based on some of the above reading, we know that the real recovery happens when in that relaxed state. So nutritionally, how can you influence relaxation? Simple. There are a number of different things that can be done to aid the recovery process. My favorite is to have some sort of chamomile based tea at the end of the day. This helps to relax the system and also has been shown to bring individuals to a deeper sleep which is the ultimate relaxation. Melatonin also helps to achieve that deeper sleep in individuals, and can be purchased at virtually any health store.
Water may be one of the most paramount nutritional ideas to recovery out there. When you’re dehydrated you run the risk of increased inflammation, decreased blood volume (carries all those important nutrients), increased cramping, decreased affect (mood), decreased nerve conduction velocity, decreased short term memory, etc. These are all pretty important for the athlete or the professional adult.
Sleep
This is probably the number 1 recovery tool and the easiest/cheapest. There are so many mechanisms at work when you sleep. As mentioned previously, this is the ultimate relaxation tool, again, where we recover. Hormonally, we see a surge in anabolic hormones (the ones that make you recover). Interestingly too, there are some mechanisms at play that weren’t all that known previously. The fluid that encases the spinal cord and brain, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), normally is produced and recycled at a constant rate, however, when you’re sleeping the process actually speeds up helping to clear the system of toxic metabolites. What does this mean? Well the nervous system (brain and spinal cord being mega players) is what sends messages to the muscles to move. When those metabolites build up they create a toxic environment for the system and can create a whole host of issues. The resulting inflammation has been correlated with many chronic diseases which ironically are also usually stress related too. The magic number of sleep hours appears to be about 8. That means eight hours of sleep, not 8 hours lying in bed, so watching the television while in bed doesn’t count. Also, there is some new research coming out saying that obesity is associated with greater than 10 hours of sleep per night. I don’t even understand how you can have that amount of time to sleep and am completely envious of whomever has that kind of time.
Environment
There are also some pretty cool tricks that you can do to influence your environment to aid in the recovery process. Different scents and oils can be used to get a better night sleep or even just relax. Lavender oil appears to have the ability to do this and if you don’t want to invest in essential oils you can simply buy the airwick with lavender oil.
Also, as mentioned above, watching T.V. in bed doesn’t count as sleep. How can we eliminate this potential distraction? Remove the television from the bedroom if possible. Seems like a simple answer, but when you confront people on this it is amazing how much resistance you run in to. Television, tablets, computers, and especially smart phones display via blue light. Blue light stimulates the wake cycle in the old noggin and has negative consequences for sleep quality. If it is a must to use these things before going to bed, invest in some cool orange safety glasses at your local hardware store. This is a neato trick that I learned at a conference a year ago from a pretty smart individual.
Take a nice warm shower roughly 10 minutes before bed. This has also had a very positive influence on achieving deeper sleep in individuals. If you are one of the sick and twisted individuals who enjoy cold showers, disregard this information.
Some recent research also correlates cleanliness with getting better sleep. Having a clean environment, specifically your bedroom, you have less to think about. Because you have less to think about, you fall asleep quicker which enables you to get a longer, deeper sleep.
Wrap up
These are just a few options that you can use or pass along, but they’re extremely cheap and efficient. Most people just need to fulfill one or a few of these steps to see almost immediate results. Feel free to comment anything else that is simple and works well.