Welcome to Wellness Wednesday where in-house nutrition coach, Coach Diana Leigh, answers YOUR questions about health.
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Let’s jump into it!
Q: What can I be doing to boost my recovery and reduce my soreness?
A: Recovery is so important when it comes to maximizing the benefits from your training. When you exercise, you’re putting stress on the body and creating little tears in the muscle. It’s not until after the workout when your body gets to work repairing those tears and building new muscle in preparation for the next exercise session.
To get optimal recovery, you’re going to need to focus on the following:
SLEEP
During sleep your body is doing the most of its daily repairs. Ideally you want to get between 7-8 hours of quality sleep on average. A great way to do this is to minimize caffeine consumption in the afternoon, reduce screen time in the evening or use blue light blocking glasses, have an evening routine that primes your body for sleep, and schedule yourself enough time to get a full night’s sleep.
STRETCHING
If you’re skipping the stretching portion at the end of class, you’re doing your body a disservice. Stretching not only improves your flexibility but also puts your body into a recovery state to begin its work repairing your muscles. Stretching also prevents the new muscle tissue from being too tight, which can help minimize your post workout soreness. I’d recommend a minimum of 10 minutes daily plus any additional time on off days.
STRESS
There always needs to be a balance between stress and recovery. Exercise IS stress, even if it’s a good stress. Add it to the mix of daily stressors we encounter, and we can find ourselves taking on a whole lot of stress at once. Be sure you’re managing your stress with actual recovery protocols such as meditation, journaling, walks, talking it out, breathing exercises, etc. The more you can minimize the overall effect of stress on the body, the better you’ll feel!
NUTRITION
You didn’t think we’d talk about recovery without touching upon how we fuel ourselves did you? Nutrition is such an integral part to your overall results in the gym from muscle building to performance improving to recovery fueling. For your muscles, it’s important to consume protein – make sure you’re incorporating at least a serving at each meal to ensure you’re giving your body enough. Carbs are our fuel source, so if you’re hitting the gym hard you need to re-stock by eating high quality carbs pre and post workout. Being at a deficit (aka dieting) can also put stress on the body, so be sure to not be at too much of a deficit or cycle off of it every few months.
Take a look at these four points and ask yourself:
- What am I doing well?
- Where do I need more work?
From there, you’ll have an idea on where you need to focus your efforts to improve your recovery!
Coach Diana Leigh is a Precision Nutrition certified coach who uses habit-based coaching to help her clients get stronger and feel amazing in their bodies without the restriction and overwhelm of dieting. For more helpful tips, follow her on Instagram @coachdianaleigh.
Want to work with Coach Diana Leigh? Fill out her application here.