More ways to encourage recovery and regeneration!
1. Corrective and low-intensity movement: Think yoga, Pilates, stretching.
2. Breathing: deep breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, cuing our bodies to rest and recover.
3. Massage, foam rolling, percussion: feels good and is good!
4. Epsom salt baths.
5. Fun.
I hope that yesterday I convinced everyone that recovery and regeneration are important. As we check in here in the middle of the year, we might notice that rest has not been as plentiful as we would have liked, or that we are more sore than would be ideal, or that we find ourselves catching every bug that goes around. Those are all good signs that moving recovery up the priority list might be an idea to consider.
The top three techniques for recovery are things we pretty much have to do anyway. The key is to do them to the right extent and to the right standard.
Number one is our sleep. I’ll be focusing in on this particular modality all week next week, but let’s start with one idea: get seven hours. (We can argue about why that’s not possible in the future, but for now, just try it.)
The second top technique for recovery is nutrition. I’ll spend the week after next unpacking this one in more detail, too, because there’s lots to think about, but for now, I just need to remind everyone (even me) that running on sugar and caffeine is not a sustainable practice. Eat a vegetable every once in a while, at least!
The third top technique is hydration. All liquids count toward our total hydration, but our best choice, most of the time, is water. Aim for half your body weight in ounces per day (e.g., if you weigh 3,000 pounds, you want to drink 1,500 ounces of water; I chose a ridiculous quantity because some of us fixate way too much on scale numbers.) (If you do, in fact, weight 3,000 pounds, please do not be offended. I am impressed that your walrus self has learned to read!) If that sounds like too much math, try to drink enough that you need to use the bathroom every hour or so.
Good news, right? We have to sleep and eat and drink just to keep existing. We’re already doing an adequate job because here we are, still breathing! And just a few little tweaks can make us feel even better.
Need help? I’m a wellness coach, you know. I can help you set achievable goals in every area of wellness.
Once we get back into our movement and/or exercise routines, we discover (or rediscover) that recovery and regeneration are important. There is a current in gym culture that I deeply object to and it is the “no pain, no gain” and related stuff. Yes, we sometimes have to get uncomfortable to make progress, but if we are in pain, something is actually wrong.
Further, without recovery, we don’t make gains. Our muscles get stronger not while we are working, but when we are done, when we rest and the microdamage we have caused repairs itself, only better.
Recovery and regeneration are not intuitive in our wider culture either. We hear a lot about hustling and we glamorize being so busy that we don’t have time to sleep or eat. Excuse me, but no.
Tired and sore people are usually not happy people. (I say usually because there are certainly times, like after a really intense workout, where we are happy because we’ve done more than we ever thought we could, or broke a personal record, or are bathing in endorphins.) When we chronically deprive ourselves of recovery and regeneration, we are depriving ourselves, not only of our best performance, but of our best existence. (This is the part where I insist that you are valuable and wonderful and need to be in the world even if you don’t do anything. You are not your performance, no matter what your boss or your family or ads tell you.)
So: How is recovery going for you? (Tomorrow I’m going to talk about things you might do to recover, in case you need ideas to reboot.)
We’re moving in multiple directions this week. We’ve got some lateral motion, some transverse motion, and our usual straight on. Plus some dedicated balance work. Three rounds.
woodchoppers | 30 |
renegade rows | 20 |
YTA | 10 |
| |
squat to leg lift/ticktock | 30 |
skullcrushers | 20 |
lateral raise | 10 |
| |
(lunge) punches | 30 |
1 leg db pass | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
Sometimes we need a little nudge to get moving. Here are some possible “rules” to help us out:
1. Microwave time is stretching time.
2. The pause between episodes is lap-around-the-house time. (Bonus points: change the laundry!)
3. Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator.
4. On the phone? Talk and walk.
If we’re already nailing the part where we move our bodies on the regular, it might be time to consider whether we’re getting enough exercise. All bodies need exercise; what that exercise consists of varies from body to body. What follows are some general principles that need to be applied with love and common sense.
There are three categories of exercise that most people need: cardio, strength training, and balance/flexibility work. The guideline for cardio is that we need to get our heart rate up for about 150 minutes per week, which works out to 30 minutes a day for five days. There is some math we can do to figure out what constitutes “up” (220 minus your age gives you your maximum heart rate. Your cardio range is from 65-85% of that number.), but I personally like the talk test better: if you can talk with some pauses for breath, you’re working hard enough; if you can sing, you’re not doing the job; if you can’t carry on a conversation, you’re doing too much. How you get your heart rate up is up to you. The possibilities are legion: walk, run, swim, bike, play soccer, chase the kids, do stairs, dance… Bottom line: five days, 30 minutes, briskly.
For strength training, we want to do one to three strength workouts per week. What we do depends on our goals. Talking to a trainer (hey, that’s me!) can help clarify what might be a good idea. No matter what the goals are, we want to use weights heavy enough that it’s hard for us to complete the final rep in a set. The number on the dumbbell should go up as we keep working, not every time, but every couple months at least.
Balance and flexibility are skills. I know a lot of us think of them as talents, but both things improve with practice. There are a couple of ways to go about that practice. There are always yoga and Pilates classes or individual sessions (yep, me again!). However, we can use those otherwise wasted minutes throughout our day to build in some practice time. We can stand on one foot while we brush our teeth. We can stretch while we wait for the microwave. We can do some single leg squats in line at the grocery store (bonus points for amusing our fellow shoppers).
If all that still seems complicated, talk to me. I’d be happy to help sort it out.
It may not be the official start of summer, but June is here. The beginning of a new season is a good time to check in with where we are with our wellness. How are those goals we might have made back in January? Or, more basically, how are we feeling? Over the month, I’ll be gently reminding us all about the different pillars of our wellness. This week, we’re talking about movement.
So here we go.
Today is one of those times when I might seem overly concerned with distinctions. Sorry/not sorry. Exercise and movement, while related, are not the same thing. I am absolutely in favor of both of them (I mean, that’s my job), but when we’re talking wellness, we are not necessarily talking about exercise.
Movement is anything we do that is more energetic than pushing buttons on the remote while we sit on the couch. It includes things like weeding the garden, trudging up and down the stairs to put away laundry, walking a dog who clocks negative miles per hour and sniffs every plant along the sidewalk, and the like.
Exercise is a little more focused. We have a purpose when we exercise, whether that is getting stronger, working our hearts and lungs, improving balance, or beating that other team at pickleball.
Like I said, both are good for us. Even those of us who do exercise regularly need to think a little about movement. I’m pretty sure everyone has heard the phrase that sitting is the new smoking. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s increasingly clear in the research that putting in a half hour at the gym and then sitting the rest of the day is not our best path. Humans need to wiggle.
So: are we all getting our wiggle on?
