Recovery! A word most of us think we know very well and do it to our best....hmmmm I could beg to differ. Recovery is a thing we plan to do well and we talk about doing well but we actually don't do it very well at all.
Recovery has a huge part in our performance and how our bodies are after a big week of training. If we recover properly this will help prevent injury and overall exhaustion.
For years of me doing Crossfit in particular I will admit I didn't look after my body very well at all and my recovery time was bare to nothing. Once I figured this out my performance went up, my amount of niggles disappeared and my overall mindset was epic! I felt fresh at the start of each new training week.
Now recovery has a lot of aspects to it, it can include stretching, mobilising, rest days, active recovery days, nutrition, hydration, supplement intake, sleep and meditation. Once I added these into my weekly training schedules things really improved.
Lets talks about rest days to start with.. These are probably one of the most important aspects to helping to ensure you are recovering. Having a planned rest day is vital, I have mine on a Sunday as it fits in perfect with my weekly schedule. I also have an active recovery day on a Thursday, this includes a low intensity run and swim or bike. Since adding these two days in my body has been thanking me for it and been rewarding me for it with my performance. So recovery and active recovery days are key.
Now nutrition and hydration is another vital aspect to helping with recovery. You need to be fuelling your body correctly to your personal needs. I won't go too much into nutrition in this blog as I will be diving into this topic and my story and journey behind it in another blog, so watch out for this one in the near future. But on that note it is so important to make sure you are filling your body with the right foods and nutrients and the right amount too, a lot of the time we actually do not eat enough. Hydration is key! You need to be making sure you are keeping that water intake up throughout the day. A trick I have to making sure I drink enough is ensuring I have my water bottle with me 24/7. Keeping hydrated also helps to keep the mind clear and fresh.
Sleep, mobilising/stretching and mediation are other important aspects to help with recovery. Sleep, if you are getting enough sleep then this means the body should feel fresh and awake, you shouldn't be feeling fatigued and this then means you will be ready to conquer the day and your training to the best of the ability. I know these are lots of road blocks that take away our hours of sleep.... the main one being just life in general, we as humans tend to live super busy lives these days and our sleep is generally what takes a back burner first. During the week life is crazy and it may not be as easy to prioritise but on the weekends we can make it a priority. When we sleep thats when our body is recovering and getting our body ready for the next day. once again everyone is different so some people may do well off 6-7 hours sleep, while others may need 8-10 hours. Getting enough sleep is vital.
Mobilising/stretching and meditation is the last aspect I will talk about today. I will be honest this is something that took me ages to realise just how important it is.. I now make time for these in my weekly training schedule and once I started adding these in I felt a difference straight away.
At the end of the day if we look after our body our body will look after us, it's that simple.
I challenge you to make sure you are doing some of these things at least and then eventually be doing all of them. You need to make this a priority if you want to keep doing what you are doing not just in training but in your daily lives.
Have an epic Monday guys !
Chat soon,
Krista :) xx
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