Recovery and Lifestyle are AS important as Training
It’s 2019 and if you, like I do listen to people like Jordan Peterson the Clinical Psychologist etc, you’ll know that our lifestyles are quite stressful.
There’s tonnes of data and information now around how our current lifestyles are just mad compared to how we used to live.
Most people are quite stressed.
I’m 36 now, painful to admit, however its true. I have 2 businesses, a daughter who lives 100 miles away and life is a million miles an hour.
I start most days at 0520 & finish at 9pm. If I don’t start at those times, I wake up stupid early anyway due to routine and inability to sleep brilliantly. I kid myself that I function fine on 6 hours sleep. I don’t really. I perform better if I sleep properly for 7 hours. This hasn’t happened for as long as I can remember.
I don’t have young children, I am my own boss and I create my own stressors.
My commute is a 15 minute walk, or a 4 minute drive if its cold and wet.
Most of my life is pretty awesome, I get to go Mountain Biking when I am off work and I get to spend my alternate weekends with my daughter and our friends.
I mostly have a good gauge on how to manage my training and rest periods.
Some days I mess it up though.
For example, I completed a 59 mile sportive (Road Cycle) 3 weekends ago. It was a 60 hour work week, however I felt fine.
The ride was fast for a 98kg dude, 17.8mph average – I was happy with that.
The following week, I barely trained as I felt absolutely knackered. A good choice.
How Does This Relate To Fitness/Strength/Improving/Progressing
The Fitness & Fatigue Model shows the relationship between our bodies ability to improve within the modes of fitness we engage in, when given appropriate rest.
This is a Scientific Model used to help program athletes training program – mitigating fatigue as best as possible.
They do this using a method called “Periodization”.
You factor in planned rest periods and periods where you focus on specific aspects of training, ensuring you get adequate rest and recovery in between.
As you can see in the fitness fatigue model, you need to rest well enough, however, no matter how much you rest – you will get fatigued and your fitness will drop.
I used to Coach a lot of Bodybuilders back in the day, who are very extreme in nature when it comes to training – they often like to slog themselves silly in the gym for months on end, ending up with knackered joints or complete loss of interest in training at best.
We’ve coached Marathon Runners, Elite Level Athletes and more – the premise is still the same.
To progress, you must understand your body requires adequate recovery.
What does adequate recovery mean?
Main factors that affect recovery are:
- Training load/frequency/volume
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Stress
- Fatigue
If these aren’t managed well, then progression will eventually halt and you’ll suffer burnout or exhaustion, this can lead to stress related illnesses, feeling run down and demotivated etc.
When it comes to progression, this can mean progression in training and fitness, such as:
Strength
Aerobic & Anaerobic Fitness (CV)
Fat Loss
Muscle Gain
Performance
Now of course, many people who read this blog will think I am talking about Athletes, however, I am absolutely NOT talking about Athletes, I am talking about ALL of the people who DMF: Evolve train.
These include:
IT Specialists, Stay at Home Mums (who are always stressed off their box to be honest as kids are stressful!), Nurses, Midwives, Floorers, Carpenters, Electricians, Project Managers, Engineers & any other person who goes to work, has a life and isn’t a professional athlete.
Why are you writing this post?
To gain muscle tissue/strength a few criteria have to be met to achieve it.
- Progressively get stronger over time – this is called progressive overload, best achieved with a progressive and structured resistance based training plan
- Consistent & Adequate Daily Protein intake – the evidence points to 0.67g /lb of your bodyweight in daily protein intake, we prefer a slightly higher approach to promote satiety also as well as performance of 0.8g/lb – 1g/lb – this MUST be daily
- Adequate recovery – learning when to back off is absolutely paramount
- Consistency, consistency, consistency
Gaining strength, is actually something you can do quite quickly.
However, if the above criteria aren’t met – then you’ll hit a plateau at some point and you won’t progress further.
Muscular Hypertrophy (gaining muscle) requires patience, lots of it.
It also requires the most important aspect in all things fitness and nutrition – CONSISTENCY
There are NO professional Athletes at DMF: Evolve – so we don’t train people like them.
Professional Athletes have far more time to rest than any single person at DMF, hence why they are professional.
Any Professional Coach will tell you, that not a single member of the public, no matter how talented or fit they are with a full time job and commitments that we have in todays world – could compete with a Professional Athlete, when all other things are equal.
We simply don’t know how to recover that well.
Do you know how to recover?
Training is great – it SHOULD make you feel good.
However, if you’re not progressing and your training is structured and progressive, you’re definitely either:
Not eating consistently to your needs
Sleeping well enough
Taking enough rest
Managing your training load/volume well
Let me know your thoughts 🙂
