You’re working hard in the gym (and life!), and your body needs some extra love so it can come back fighting. Recovery is the VERY important part of the health puzzle – other than nutrition and training – that is SO often overlooked. This will limit progressing towards your goals, so now its the time to make this a priority.
Prioritise sleep – If you don’t get enough sleep, your body produces more ghrelin, a hormone that boosts appetite. Your body also decreases the production of leptin, the hormone that tells you you’re full. Add this together and you have a combo that might see you struggling to hit your macros and reaching your goals!
Quality, balanced food – Your body needs carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores and to assist with muscle repair and recovery. We need protein to limit muscle soreness, feel satiated (less hungry!), and repair damaged muscle. We also need a dose of nutrient-dense fats to help vitamin absorption from other foods, and assist in important hormone production. Your personalised macros all come together to adequately replenish your bod so you are ready for the coming days training.
Active recovery – On your rest days some gentle movement and stretching will help your muscles recover. This is especially important if you’re sore and a little fatigued. Even a few minutes of movement the day after a tough workout is enough to promote circulation and help reduce stiffness and soreness.
Foam rolling – This can help relieve muscle tightness, soreness, reduce inflammation, and increase your joint range of motion. Doing some rolling can be an effective tool to add to your warm-up or cooldown, before and after exercise.
Sauna – There are so many great benefits to adding a sauna into your recovery, one of the most awesome is its ability to reduce mortality by cardiovascular events, strokes and more. They can decrease cortisol (your stress hormone), which can mean improved mood (YAY!). Overall you can even use the sauna as a way to mimic short-duration active recovery which helps promote blood flow and reduce soreness and fatigue.
Doing two or more of these things each week will greatly improve your recovery and keep you on track to better performance!
Tip: Schedule in recovery sessions each week to really ramp up your results and hit your goals.
There’s some awesome recovery tips in the members area of our app too. xo
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