Better Results With Better Recovery

Hi there. I hope you had a great weekend. I just got back from Vegas last night. I have a feeling I am going to be paying for it this week though. I went to Vegas a few years back for the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s National Personal Trainer Conference. One of the presenters was Juan Carlos Santana, a very well known fitness professional, who works with many professional athletes. I will never forget something he said during his presentation. He asked how many from the audience went out the night before. Only a handful actually raised there hands. It is possible that some just didn’t want to admit it. His response was, “If you are going to do Vegas, then do Vegas.” Many people get so obsessed with fitness they forget to enjoy life. When I go on vacations or trips, I really don’t want to think about my fitness program. I may workout on a trip, but it isn’t the focus of my trip. I workout hard all year round and stick to a very healthy diet 80-90% of the time. I do this for many reasons, but one is so that during certain times of the year I can enjoy myself and not be upset if I gain a few pounds because I ate too much.

Whenever I do have a bad week or weekend I immediately forget about it. Luckily it can be easy to forget (or maybe just not remember) about a weekend in Vegas….. But seriously, there is nothing you can do about what damage you already caused. Instead, you forget about it and continue to move right on with your program. Before I left for this trip I wanted to plan what I would do for my fitness program when I returned. Most people would assume that since I didn’t have a great weekend that I would workout like crazy this week and not eat much to get back on track. This is the process that most people go through. They get really motivated for a week or two then drop off and quit their program because it was too hard to stick with. Instead I looked at my program before my trip. Really what I had been doing was training really hard the month or so before the trip. Instead of going right back to training really hard again I am using this week as a recovery week. This is something most people just do not do enough. If you have ever just felt run down and not seeing anymore improvement in your workouts you might be on your way to overtraining. A simple solution is trying a recovery week.

Now this doesn’t mean I am telling you to take a week off and you will see a dramatic increase in results. What I am saying is if you strategically plan for active rest weeks you will see much better results than going as hard as you can each week and never taking any breaks. Most people that are trying to lose weight or build muscle will kill themselves with their fitness program all year round. Most people think they are building muscle when they workout or seeing the pounds just drop off. The workout is just the stimulus for the results. We see real gains in between our workouts if you are getting enough recovery, sleep, and proper nutrition. That is the key to a successful program. Focus on what you do from one workout to the next.

Here is how you can set up recovery weeks to boost your performance and your results. Create a workout program that will be challenging for you and that will fit your goals. Track that workout or workouts for 6-8 weeks trying to improve each workout. Then after about two months or when you start to see a drop in improvement take 1 week of recovery. Then you can create an new program after you are fully recovered and repeat. You will see a dramatic improvement in your workouts after you have had a planned week off. It can be hard sometimes to do this, especially if you enjoy working out.

This doesn’t mean you don’t do anything though. Here are some guidelines you can follow for your week of recovery.
1. Try more recreational activities instead of structured workout. For example play racquetball or volleyball a few days a week to keep active but not overloading your body.
2. Focus on soft tissue work. This is a great week to treat yourself to massage. If you strength training there is a good chance you have caused soft tissue damage. Stretching will only help so much. A good deep tissue massage will do wonders for muscle repair and recovery.
3. Work to improve posture with corrective exercises. Just about every person I have ever trained had multiple muscle imbalances. For many of them they were making it worse with their old fitness routine. Muscle imbalances are causes by certain muscle being worked too much and other muscles not being worked enough. We usually do exercises that we enjoy doing. If we enjoy doing it then we are probably pretty good at it. Those muscles are already strong enough. If you know of an exercise you hate doing then you probably have a weakness there. When you determine that you have certain muscle imbalances you can perform exercises and stretches that will help correct them. You may need a professional to help you assess what imbalances you may have.
4. At least focus on stretching. Most people just flat out ignore flexibility and stretching. This should be a huge part of our programs but people just don’t do it enough. To make up for it devote everyday in your recovery week to stretching.

Check out this weeks Free Featured Workout to see the program I will be doing for my recovery week. Click here to try it out. Remember you must have a free account in order to view the workout.

Remember you plan in your recovery weeks. Don’t just decide one week you are not going to workout because you don’t feel like it. These are strategic manipulations to help improve your workouts and results.

Have a great workout!

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
My Workout Creator