Rest & Recovery: The Most Undervalued Variable In Health
February 13, 2016 // Wellness
As a fitness professional, there’s nothing worse than watching a gym regular put so much emphasis on their workouts and diet, yet not achieve a single improvement or change in their physique. Too often I see people prioritizing the gym and micromanaging their food, yet stuck at the exact same weight and shape months later. Even as a trainer, I’ve seen certain clients exercise hard and follow my guidance with no movement on the scale. This phenomenon is known as Overtraining and can drastically effect motivation, trust, and stress. With a few tweaks and adjustments, you can protect yourself from falling into this dreaded cycle.
Overtraining is basically your body’s defensive response to an overwhelming amount of stress. It gets a little complicated because the same stuff (exercise and dieting) that promotes health and longevity can actually be the cause of the stalled weight loss. It’s a nasty cycle because once your body reaches a tipping point where it cannot recover fast enough against all the stresses, you will stop seeing physique improvements.
Weight loss? Not happening.
Leaner arms? Keep dreaming.
Even the most creative workouts and diets won’t do much when your body is in a state of overtraining.
“The difference between medicine and poison is the dosage”
Each time you workout, you place physical stress on your body. The harder the workout, the more stress placed upon the body. The same goes for dieting. Small dietary adjustments, such as stopping at 80% full, using less sugar, etc., are all great for the health, but extreme restrictions such as “I’m not eating any carbs” or “I’m going vegan” further exacerbates the stresses placed upon the body.
Stresses Include:
- Exercise
- Restrictive Dieting
- Frequent Workouts
- Anxiety
- Work Pressures
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Loud Environments (like NYC)
- Anger (and Negative Thoughts)
- Falling Asleep To The TV
- Waking To An Alert Sound
- The Morning Rush
When you’re under chronic stress, your body senses all the damage(s) and protects itself by storing food for energy and surpassing certain health hormones due to the heightened state of stress.
When you combine hard, regular workouts with extreme dietary restrictions, you’ll need amble quality rest and recovery to bring your body back to its normal state.
Rest and Recovery allows your body to repair the damages… literally. Inflammation, cellular damage, muscular damage, hydrogen build-up, and elevated cortisol are all natural reactions from exercise. Remember, the body’s ability to adapt to the stress is what makes exercise effective in the first place!
Recovery allows your body to initiate the natural processes of healing and rebuilding. The faster (and stronger) you repair and rebuild, the quicker you can make progress. Recovery requires time, and each person has a different rates of recovery, which is influenced on age, fitness level, genetic background, etc.
My model clients are a perfect example of balancing the workouts & dieting with the recovery. When we increase the frequency and intensity of their workouts, we increase their amount of food intake. We also increase their sleep schedule to 7+ hours a night.
Now, when we decrease the amount of food to look super lean for a campaign, we also decrease the intensity of the workouts. The sleep schedule is still kept at a minimum of 7+ hours a night to allow for ample recovery. Supplements also come into play when dietary restrictions are implemented. It becomes a juggling act to find the right balance to see the most results.
How Can You Tell If You’re In A State of Overtraining?
If you truly pay attention to your energy and breathing in the morning, you can read how your body is affected by the stresses, and adjust accordingly.
Low energy and shallow breath?
Elevated heart rate?
Noticeably anxious and irritable?
It’s likely you are overstressed and in desperate need of increased rest and recovery. You need to back off the workouts and take a few days to focus on your sleep.
Speaking of Sleep…
It blows my mind how many people have trouble sleeping. Sleeping has come natural to me since I was a baby. I can get to sleep within minutes (normally less than 5) and stay asleep regardless of most environments. I can function at 100% with 5 hours of sleep, and really become creative with 6-7 hours. I usually sneak in a 20-30 minute nap at least 3x a week.
Apparently I’m an anomaly. The more I inquire, it seems to be challenge for the average adult to get plentiful, high quality rest. I’ve seen a direct correlation between poor nightly routines and lackluster sleep.
You can experience immediate improvement with your sleep with these adjustments:
- Establish a strict cut-off time for technology
- Turn off the computer, phone, and television 30 minutes before you want to be asleep
- Listen to Headspace or follow the breathing cadence on Relax & Rest Guided Meditations
- Try waking up to a light alarm (one of my personal favorites)
- Avoid using the “snooze” button/option when waking up
When your quality of sleep improves, you should seem a drastic change in your performance in the gym and your results afterwards.
If you want a better understanding of the science of sleep, check out this article: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-sleep
I’ve seen many clients that were at an indefinite “plateau” initiate, and sustain, substantial weight loss once they rebalanced rest and recovery with their training.
So, if you’re feeling stuck and nothing is working, consider your rest and recovery. Your body will thank you.