April 28, 2014
How long have you been squatting, bench pressing or pulling the same amount of weight every time you step into the gym?
How long have you stepped on the scale and witnessed the same body fat each week?
How long have you always been able to do X number of pull-ups, no matter what (and maybe that's not even one)?
How long have you been running that four mile lunchtime loop in the exact same period of time, day after day?
How long have you been stuck at the same old splits for your 5K, your 10K, your half-marathon, your marathon, your triathlon, or your 500m swim?
If your answer to any of those questions is “a long time”, then you're probably battling the underrecovery monster.
See, recovery is your ability to meet or exceed performance in a particular activity.
I’ll say that again.
Recovery is your ability to meet or exceed performance in a particular activity.
This means that if you walk into your workout and you can’t achieve a marked improvement in how much you can lift or how fast you can move, you’re battling the underrecovery monster.
If you step on to the scale or look at yourself in the mirror and things simply aren't moving the way you want them too, it's probably not because you're not exercising hard enough. It's because you're battling the underrecovery monster.
And there are 5 ways the underrecovery monster could be destroying your fitness or fat loss gains: 1) your muscles; 2) your nerves; 3) your blood; 4) your bone and 5) your metabolism. Unless each of these are recovered properly, you are just going to be banging your head against the same brick wall day after day, month after month and year after year.
The infographic below will help you understand why recovery is so paramount, and Chapter 6 of my new book “Beyond Training” delves into both the nitty-gritty science and the practical tips to bounce back with lightning speed, including the truth about how many hours you really need to recover between things like runs or weight training sessions vs. swims or bike rides.
Click here to get the book now from Amazon or your favorite local bookstore.
What do you think? Do you think you recover properly? Leave your questions, comments and feedback below.
And of course, click here to get your copy of Beyond Training.
(AE) Aerobic exercise RE Resistance exercise studies have hypothesized that acute muscle signaling and gene expression, associated with myogenic or proteolytic activity, would be compromised after RE if preceded by aerobic exercise. As it turned out, concurrent exercise elicited greater mTOR and p70S6K phosphorylation compared with RE. Although these differences were modest, if anything, they indicate that translational capacity was reinforced rather than compromised by the AE + RE intervention. In parallel, myostatin was suppressed for longer time in AE + RE, with no obvious sign of exacerbated protein degradation. Thus, in contrast to the posted hypothesis, it seems that concurrent AE + RE may enhance skeletal muscle anabolic environment.
Yes, but did that study investigate the neuromuscular junction – or actual performance results?