What you do outside of training controls the results you get (or don't). Make sure you pay special attention to these three things.
One of the biggest mistakes that trainees make is not paying attention to recovery.
Recovering from your workouts is an important part of a sustainable fitness plan.
When you work out, you send a signal to your body (grow muscle, make you stronger, etc.). How your body actually responds depends on if you eat the right things and recover.
(Thank Greg Nuckols at Stronger By Science for that wonderful analogy)
When you think of recovery, it's not just about taking days off from the gym or time between sets. Recovery is a multifactorial problem.
Things that affect your recovery include:
The good news is that a majority of those things are somewhat under your control. Get more results in the gym by paying attention to what you do outside of it.
The most important part of recovery is sleep.
For those who like to take naps, this is welcome news. Attaining adequate sleep helps you lose fat, grow muscle and regulate your hormones. You should work to develop your own sleep routine alongside your fitness routine.
Keep a few key things in mind when you start experimenting:
Nutrition plays a very large role in how you recover. Try to eat a balanced diet of whole, unprocessed foods. This helps ensure you’re getting everything your body needs to function well.
The most important thing is to stay consistent. Eating well occasionally isn't going to get you what you're looking for.
If you need some inspiration, try reading How to Plan Your Meals for the Week.
Exercise is a stress to your body. If you’re already under a lot of stress, you won’t be able to push yourself as hard in the gym.
You might have already noticed this on your own. An exercise that normally feels easy to you might move slower than normal. With the same weight, you come closer to failure with fewer reps.
Pay attention to how you’re feeling throughout the day.
Sometimes, you need to be more kind to yourself and take 5-7 minutes to pause. Other times you might be stressing over a seemingly big decision.
My favorite recent trick to gain perspective comes from Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work.
When I feel overwhelmed and need perspective on a problem I use the 10/10/10 test.
To make a hard decision I ask myself how I will feel at three points in time:
Attaining distance from situations helps refocus.
If you need 5 minutes, this technique is less effective. It's more for bigger decisions. Try to take a few minutes every day to focus on your breathing or unplug.
For an extended overview of Decisive and how to overcome the four challenges of decision making, check this out.
I'll caution you not to get wrapped up in this. If your training is improving, you're likely doing fine.
If you want to take things a step further, there are ways to track your recovery on an ongoing basis.
The easiest way for you to keep track of your recovery is to track your resting heart rate upon waking. If this rises over weeks of training, you're likely reaching an overtrained state.
You could use this information to help you decide how much training you can tolerate right now.
Other things that help paint a picture of your recovery status:
In no particular order;
If you could use some help incorporating strategies into your training, I can help! Let’s create a plan to build strength, get sustainable results (and look like you know what you’re doing).
We’ll start with the basics of strength training and you’ll walk out with (a starter amount of) confidence.
