Recovery Strategies: Take Care of Your Body Between Workouts

Making sure your body recovers from your workouts is just as important as the workouts themselves! Workouts stress your body. It’s good stress and it makes you stronger, but it still takes time for your muscles to heal after they get stressed. As your body recovers from that microscopic damage, it repairs and gets stronger. This is how you gain strength when you lift weights- your body adapts to the stress it gets! But it only does this if you give your body the time to recover. It’s important to have a toolbox of recovery strategies that work!

Note: When you search for workout recovery, you might get a lot of articles about what supplements to use. This article is not that. You don’t have to take supplements to gain strength or recover properly from workouts. If you decide to try supplements, be aware that every body is different and will react in different ways. Don’t feel like you need to continue taking something for recovery even if it doesn’t seem to help or make you feel better.

The reason I put such an emphasis on recovery strategies is because rest isn’t usually prioritized in most areas of our lives. In the fitness world, you can see this clearly in a lot of “inspirational” sayings such as “train harder” and “never skip a day.” Many people find rest very challenging. With many of my clients, I actually need to encourage them to slow down and take breaks. The idea of having to do more and work harder has been engrained in us. Prioritizing recovery is really about changing your mindset to allow for rest and know that it’s okay. Rest makes you stronger!

How Recovery Works

1. This is your baseline, where you are before exercising.

2. When you work out, you put physical stress on your body and dip below your baseline.

3. In between workouts, you recover, get back to baseline (resiliency), and ideally even go a little above baseline (adaptability). That means you’re getting stronger little by little and your body is adapting to the stress you’re putting on it!

4. Over time, as you give your body more stress and allow it to recover and adapt, you get stronger and your baseline goes up.

5. When more stress is added and your body isn’t given enough time to recover, you develop a stress deficit.

This stress accumulation can be from physical stress (overtraining or training while sick), mental stress (like a stressful work week), emotional stress (like a breakup), or social stress (like isolation during the pandemic). It’s important to recognize the impact that mental and emotional stress can have on your body. If you’re under a lot of stress for any reason, you may feel more fatigued or find you’re not able to work out as intensely as you normally do.

6. When you give your body the space to recover fully, you can get back to baseline. If you’re under a lot of mental, emotional, or social stress, it might mean that it takes you longer to fully recover than it would if you were doing workouts but felt fine otherwise.

We obviously can’t just “get rid” of most stress, although I wish we could! Recovering from a deficit and preventing yourself from developing one again is a practice in listening to your body’s cues and responding appropriately.

How do you recover?

The most common symptoms of a stress deficit are usually the same symptoms as overtraining. Overtraining usually looks like: trying to do more physically without letting your body recover, working out every day, or doing frequent workouts with a high intensity. In its beginning stages, it can feel like being a little more tired and not gaining strength like you used to. You might notice your strength plateauing, or staying the same over the course of many weeks. In a more extreme form, you’ll notice extreme fatigue, overuse injuries, pain and stiffness, getting sick more often, and difficulty concentrating. This is what we want to avoid!

Next I’m going to talk about two categories of recovery strategies – passive and active – and how you can use ideas from both categories to create your recovery plan.

Recovery Strategies: Passive

Passive recovery is simply… resting. It’s letting your body recover and repair by giving it the break it needs. Here are some passive recovery strategies that will help your muscles get stronger:

1. Have a blob day. Turn into a blob for the day! Seriously, do nothing movement-related. Our bodies need these types of days occasionally, especially if you’ve been feeling a bit of that stress deficit. This one is particularly challenging if you feel the need to always be productive or “hustle.” You might even feel guilty for taking a day to binge a tv show and stress about tomorrow’s to-do list. Like I said above- being able to rest without guilt takes a full mindset reset. What’s important to come back to is knowing that the rest is what helps your body regenerate and adapt. Rest needs to be a vital part of your life!

2. Stay hydrated. We all know water is important, but are you actually sure you’re giving your body enough of it? Everything in your body functions better when you’re hydrated, and muscle recovery is no exception.

3. Eat nutritious food. By giving your body the nutrients it needs, you’re supporting your body’s ability to recover faster in between workouts. Without thinking about changing the foods you currently eat, think about how you can add more nutritionally-dense foods to your meals/snacks. Adding more protein to your diet is also helpful because it’s the main component of your muscles.

4. Sleep. Getting enough sleep is one of the most important parts of recovery! The body produces things like growth factors and hormones while you sleep. The amount of sleep each person needs varies, but making sure you’re giving your body the best chance by waking up rested most days. Skipping out on sleep is one of the quickest ways to end up in a stress deficit.

5. Hot or cold treatments. Both are popularly touted as workout recovery strategies that help with circulation and muscle recovery. The heat of a sauna or steam room has shown to help promote more muscle repair. Both cold and hot can reduce inflammation and potentially soreness after a workout. As the popularly of ice baths has increased, many studies have been done to determine its effectiveness- and what it really comes down to is if YOU feel better doing it. The results of these studies have been mixed- try both and see what works best for your body.

6. Spend time outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

Spending time in the sun can help regulate your sleep cycle (see above- a very good thing) as well as provide Vitamin D for your body, which helps your muscles recover faster and your bones stay stronger.

7. Myofascial release. This one lives in the weird world between active and passive recovery. You’re moving your muscles, but you’re still generally relaxed, so I put it here! Myofascial release includes foam rolling, getting a massage, or using a massage gun. Massage can be a hugely beneficial strategy for recovering after a workout and feeling less sore. If you’re going to try foam rolling or using a massage gun, it’s helpful to do some basic research about muscles and techniques for these strategies so you can do them effectively.

Put it into action: Plan your next rest day. Which of these passive recovery strategies will you use? What will you not do during your rest day?

Recovery Strategies: Active

Active recovery keeps you moving when you’re not actually in the gym working out. Going to the gym a couple times a week and then sitting the rest of the time isn’t enough to truly impact the way your body moves. More and more, studies show that more movement is the key to helping your muscles recover between workouts and get stronger. You may have even noticed this yourself- have you ever been really sore, then moved some and felt less sore? That’s the magic of active recovery!

1. Low-intensity activity. There are SO many options here. The goal is to keep moving, but do something that is gentler than a workout. Go for a walk, do a yoga session, do some cleaning around the house, participate in a hobby that doesn’t involve intense movement, etc. The options are endless! This can be an amazing time to explore a new hobby or intentionally schedule time for things you enjoy. For example, my favorite active recovery is going for a hike on a nice day. Light physical activity gets your blood moving, which sends important nutrients and oxygen to your muscles.

2. A mobility session. Mobility training is the practice of making more space in your joints to promote better movement. Usually gentler than a full workout, a mobility session can help you focus in on smaller muscles and important joints. Doing mobility exercises for different parts of your body can help bring awareness to how those joints move as well as make it easier for your body to perform exercises during your next workout.

3. Deload weeks. Strength training programs generally work in cycles. They may increase or decrease in intensity throughout the cycle, but it’s good to end a cycle with something called a deload week. These weeks are periods of lighter training that give your body a break before the next cycle starts. The more intensely you’re training, the more important it is to schedule a deload week every 2-4 months.

4. In between workout sets. You can even use active recovery during your workouts. Instead of sitting down between sets, walk around or do mobility exercises as you prepare for your next set.

Put it into action: Pair your workOUTS with work-INS

To motivate yourself to do active recovery, I recommend planning work-ins into your schedule. On days when you’re not working out, plan an active recovery session instead. Using one of the strategies above, plan a work-in session some time this week. Treat them as you would a workout- an important part of building strength.

A Note on Soreness

Soreness is not a good indicator of how successful your workout was. Some soreness is fine and probably expected, especially if you’re new to exercising. Being extremely sore and not being able to move well for days is an indicator that your workout was too much and you need to scale back next time. Taking a break because you’re too sore to move isn’t true recovery! This ties in with training too hard- your body can’t sustain that intensity over time. Even professional athletes vary their training depending on the season so they can be fresh and ready when they need to perform.

A Note on Injuries

Passive recovery is usually the go-to for injuries, but it is possible to add active recovery as a strategy for healing. For some injuries, adding gentle movement can help the healing process. It’s always situational and necessitates a conversation with your coach and your doctor to figure out which treatment plan is best for you. In general, use the active and passive recovery strategies above when you’re not injured.

A Workout Plan Isn’t Forever

Your workout plan can’t stay the same forever. Your life will change, and sometimes your life will be more stressful than other times. You might find that for a while your body can easily sustain doing five workouts a week, and other periods you might find yourself exhausted by doing three workouts a week. The combination of workouts and recovery strategies will change as things change in your life, and it’s okay to let that happen! Like I said at the beginning of the article, effective recovery is all about listening to what your body needs and adjusting your workout schedule to match that. Needing more recovery during certain seasons or years isn’t a bad thing. Experiment and see how you feel with different workout and recovery schedules to start figuring out what workouts best for you right now.

Movement happens on a scale- low-intensity to high-intensity. The goal of a well-rounded workout plan is to balance your more intense workouts with less intense movement and rest. When these all work together, you’ll notice yourself feeling better and better as you get stronger.

Helping my clients use these recovery strategies is something I prioritize in my strength coaching! I help you find that balance between training at rest. If you’re interested in learning more about how my coaching can help you get stronger, check out the Train with Me page or schedule a Coffee Chat to discuss your options!