What You Need to Know About Reaching Your Fitness Goals – Part 2
Nova Health Club • June 7, 2018
Under Recovery (To Train Like an Athlete You Must Rest Like an Athlete).
In part 1 we learned that starting an exercise program is an excellent and sometimes best first step for anyone wanting to reach their health and fitness goals to take. But almost always we see that the high performing, lean and athletic bodies we strive for are not achieved through an exercise program alone. We are alive for 168 hours a week. If we exercise 3 hours a week then it is the other 165 hours outside of exercise that we must address. It is in these hours that the consistent behaviours we live by, thereby reflecting our lifestyle that determine whether or not we get the results expected from our exercise program.
Recovery - Sleep and Rest
We know that athletes follow the best training programs and work hard during their workouts. When an athlete does not get results it may not be due to the athlete not working hard enough or missing the right exercises, but rather from under recovery and failing to address those ‘lifestyle’ hours spent outside of the workouts. Therefore athletes must be very disciplined when it comes to recovery if they are to maintain their competitive edge and get the results they want...
And the same goes for the average person who is also wanting results from their workout routine. It does not matter that you are not a professional athlete. What matters is recognizing that you are the same biological being requiring the same training stimulus AND recovery in order for you to get results from your workouts. The unfortunate reality we see however is that the average person wants to train like an athlete without recovering like an athlete. We see people working out hard, but putting little effort to digest, recover and rest. Again, exercise is a great first step but if you have poor recovery habits, working out beyond your limits may contribute to the very problem you are trying to fix. This happens when we increase stress hormones, deplete essential energy reserves beyond the bodies ability to replenish them thereby resulting in fatigue, weight gain, injury or disease - we will talk about this more later.
It is important to realize that our society does not promote recovery and rest even though it is just as important as work. In the media you will rarely see recovery information, rather we glamorize new training programs, new fancy exercises and hard work as being the root of all success. We have ingrained in ourselves, our children and our students that to be successful in life we have to work hard, play hard and study hard. Going ‘hard’ and living by expressions like ‘I’ll sleep when I die’, ‘work hard get rewarded’ and ‘suck it up’ are glorified where ever we go. We begin to believe this as the truth and then compensate for our lack of rest with quick fix solutions and vices all the while praising each other that busier (less rest) is better.
For the average person working out and trying to get results through just exercise a typical day goes much like this: Starts with an alarm clock, working all day without a break, eating on the fly (or skipping a meal), getting home late, too tired to make a healthy dinner and ends with choosing to stay up later than we should surfing social media, watching TV or doing more computer work. Some will do their best to throw an intense workout into that mix as well. Summing up the day we see skipped recovery and digestion time, mental and/or physical fatigue, missed 7 to 8 hours of sleep; which perpetuates our under-recovered state. Whether we feel it or not, our bodies and minds are exhausted and continuing this type of lifestyle without respecting rest and recovery can pull us further from our goals and halt progress we trying to make with our new exercise training program.
If your mind and body is fatigued and under stress, a physically demanding training regimen can detract any benefits to be gained from such program. That is why it is so important to have the right program for you as an individual designed by a knowledgeable lifestyle training coach. The right program will consider your average day as seen above and act in a way to address your lack of recovery versus contribute to the existing fatigue and stress. It is unlikely to find this customized program on the internet amidst a sea of ‘high intensity fat burning’ programs marketed to look new but all containing the same thing - ‘work hard, burn calories = lose fat & feel great’ etc. A stress busting workout program that makes your feel great first and gets you healthier considering lack of recovery precedes a ‘work hard high caloric burn’ type workout.
Exercise is a stressor. With the proper rest and recovery, exercise and working out will be a positive stressor that adapts your body to become stronger and perform better. However, working out beyond our abilities without enough recovery, exercise will become a negative stressor on the body that leads to weight gain, injury, fatigue and/or contribute to impending morbidity.
Reaching your goals should be a lifelong journey and by taking consistent small steps to improve your rest and recovery you will get the most out of your training program and investment. Try to implement just one of the below action items to improve your rest and recovery:
-Spend time on joint mobility if your muscles are tight and or sore.
-Always finish your workout with a nutritious meal or smoothie.
-Listen to your body. Don’t skip workouts rather decrease intensity if tired or sore.
-Establish a circadian rhythm that provides 7-8hrs of sleep/night.
-Do not skip meals because you are too busy.
-Make sure your meals have the right amount of calories and macronutrients.
-Take a break from work/routine in nature practicing breathing and or meditation.
-Take a nap in the middle of the day.
-If on the screen a lot, every 20 min look away from the screen 20 feet for 20 seconds.
-Go for regular massage therapy.
In Part 3 of this series we will discuss stressors – those that make us stronger and healthier and those that lead to injury, illness and disease.
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