What, Exactly, Is Recovery?

I tend to overtrain. I’m not sure why, but once I start moving, in the gym or elsewhere, I usually experience a new flush of energy that tells me to keep going until I feel tired. (This feeling probably also has something to do with the anti-inflammatory and endorphin effects of exercise, which loosen joints and promote energy.) In the midst of this extra push, I’m not really sure what is “too much,” but the recovery time I need over the next day (or days) sometimes leads me to believe that I should have scaled things back a bit.

Recovery is the time when my body not only heals from the slight “damage” that exercise causes it, it’s also the time when it strengthens those parts as well, improving them. It is the process of hormesis that I wrote about in another article on this topic. Hormesis is a great gift that the universe bestows on us, and the fundamental reason that movement and strengthening exercises are the keys to later-life health and function.

So, in our discussion of the “5 Aspects of Physical Training,” recovery and hormesis need to be inserted into each aspect as the vital enhancement, the magic if you will, of why I advocate the 5 types of training in the first place: each type of training, followed by the appropriate recovery period, will make you stronger and healthier.

Probably the greatest miracle that we all have within us is our ability to heal. We are born with it in abundance. When we cut ourselves, we don’t need to do anything to start the healing process. It works on its own, for free. The same thing happens when you catch a cold. In the vast majority of cases, our bodies will heal themselves. The healing that is the basis of the recovery process relies on this continuous, lower-level healing that we experience all the time in the form of body maintenance and immune function, which we take for granted and hardly notice. Low levels of induced stress, in the form of exercise and other hormetic activities, provoke a healing reaction to recover and strengthen the affected tissues and body parts. (It is only when our own internal healing can’t handle the severity of an injury or disease that we call for medical help.)

What I Do

In a previous recovery article, I mentioned that I am not a fan of “hacks” to accelerate recovery. Ice baths, supplements, electric stimulation, and other methods may work for some, but I tend to stay away from these techniques. I am a fan, however, of time-honored methods that humans have been doing for millennia. These include gentle movement, yoga stretching, restorative yoga poses (especially inversions), meditation, and breathing exercises—everything from yoga Pranayama (a type of yoga with breathwork to connect your mind and body) to the Wim Hof Method (featuring breathing exercises and cold therapy) to the “low and slow” method of recovery advocated by researcher Thomas McKeown in his book The Oxygen Advantage. Two additional, essential ways to recover are good sleep and rest. Eating nourishing food is also a pleasant way to recover. A “recovery day” for me is hardly a day of doing nothing, it is simply one focused on healing instead of focused on stimulating the healing process.

Usually my morning routine and staying on my feet, either doing chores or standing while writing, are enough to complement the time I give myself to recover. If specific body parts feel stiff or tired, I have a range of restorative yoga poses to ensure enough blood flows to those muscles to enhance their healing. I might also do some restorative yoga inversions, either feet up against the wall while lying on my back or a supported shoulder stand, for as long as is comfortable. Naps can sometimes be helpful. So can sitting in a meditative yoga position, breathing comfortably and slowly. The variations are endless, as well as relaxing and fun.

Staying hydrated is important, as is adequate natural, non-inflammatory nutrition, especially protein. Other than these low-tech, commonsense ways to promote recovery, my main allies are patience and time. This means not training again before I’m ready! But it also means not allowing too much time, on the sofa or elsewhere. I find that if I allow recovery for more than a day my energy dips and inertia rises, which makes it harder to get moving again.

My body is already doing most of the work. My job is to support it in its efforts, even if that is just being grateful for being able to heal in the first place. This is the process I want to maintain and enhance as I get older, a time when overall movement and strength usually ebbs.Maintaining movement and strength are the main ingredients to later-life health, vitality and longevity. And effective and adequate recovery unleashes the healing forces that keep us alive healthier and longer. I used to exercise in order to be able to indulge in eating, drinking and relaxing. Recovery awareness changed all that. I now recover with gentle movement, rest and nutrition in order to be able to move again, slightly better and slightly stronger.