Medicine Men Divulge Secrets of Recovery

Beastio Theorio has been asked to address rest and recovery. And so we shall deliver unto thee in 4 different categories.

Rest between sets

It’s about 6 parts goal-based and 4 parts personal preference. If you want to improve your cardiovascular health, take shorter rests. If you want to incite greater hypertrophy gains, take shorter rests. If you want to get a lot of form work in a short period of time, take shorter rests. If you have a wedding/funeral/gala/orgy/supervillainy orientation to attend and are pressed for time, take shorter rests. How short exactly should these rests be? Anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes depending on how demanding each set is that you’re doing. Basically don’t give your heart rate much chance to drop back down.

On the other hand, if you don’t give 2 fucks about your cardio because either you don’t plan on fighting zombies anytime soon or you do your cardio separately, take longer rests. If you want to focus more on strength than physique, take longer rests. If you have absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the day besides plotting future supervillainy, take longer rests. How long exactly? Anywhere from 3-10 minutes.  Studies have shown that after a short bout of high intensity power output, it takes about 5 minutes for the majority of your ATP/CP levels to regenerate. When I ran the Smolov squat program, I had sets so brutal that even 10 minutes didn’t seem like enough rest. Any longer than that however and I would’ve had to warm up again!

Things to do while waiting for your next set: sipping water, dynamic stretching, pacing, growling, and mumbling expletives under your breath. Keep your blood flowing and your focus on the weights.

This should be you between every working set.

Recovery between workouts and during deload periods

After a tough and productive workout, you’re going to want to want to eat enough to rebuild, replenish, recover, and provide fuel for new adaptation to the stress of the workout you just performed. That’s why, for strength purposes, carbohydrates are your best friends. Obviously you need protein and good fats for all manner of functions throughout the human body, most relevant of which are repairing muscle fiber, naturally producing steroid hormones, and reducing inflammation. However, nothing will give your body that sense of abundance that causes it to adapt to progressive overload in the gym like a large pepperoni pizza, a bowl full of white rice, or a couple of baked potatoes. Keep in mind we’re talking pure strength here. If you’re worried about your aesthetics or maintaining a certain weight, carb up after workouts to refill your glycogen but take it easier on them the rest of the time. If you just want to be strong, stuff your face to your heart’s content.

Another aspect of recovery between workouts is getting the nutrients you ingested to the bodyparts that need recovery. Skip some rope, go for walks or jogs, play ping pong, engage in some mild-to-moderate intensity intercourse… Just do something that’s not taxing for about an hour every day and that doesn’t involve sitting on your ass on the couch watching a screen. And after you’re done with that, do some stretching. You want to recover from the strain of heavy lifting but you don’t want your body to forget how to move. Another benefit is that some mellow activity will release some endorphins and put you in a good mood and you don't have to wait for your next heavy gym session to get your endorphin fix.

This should be you between workouts.

Recovery from minor injury     

                Minor injuries occur all the time in the gym with symptoms ranging from excessive tightness in an area to extreme pain. Overuse of muscles and excessive microtears from constant repetition of the same movements week in and week out for years will cause strains and pains. Tendons will get inflamed. Joints will feel stiff. Muscles will knot up. These things happen and aren’t much cause for concern. There are 4 major steps to managing these minor strains and pains:

1)  Immediately after experiencing the pain, RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) the area. Don’t push through the pain. This is a long term endeavor and missing a few sets during a workout is better than needing a week or a month off to recover from the extra damage you’ll sustain from fighting through the pain. If it’s a reoccurring flare-up type injury (tendonitis), just lower the volume of exercise performed with the area.

 2)  After the swelling/inflammation subsides, do some light stretching and massaging of the area. If it’s super tender, stop and go back to step 1.

3)  Get lots of sleep. Your body recovers when you sleep. Missing sleep while injured will prolong the recovery process.

4)  Gradually reintroduce the area to lifting over a week or so. Some slight discomfort is okay but if you feel pain then go back to step 1. Also, continue lifting around the injury, hitting the movements that don’t cause pain, otherwise you’re a phaggot.

Note: It’s not easy but you have to know the difference between normal muscle breakdown pain/soreness, and injury pain. I have no idea how to explain it and there’s a fine line between the two but this comes with experience. And even then it isn’t a science. Just ice and rest when in doubt.

Recovery from major injury

Get thee to a specialist.

Very inspirational.

Moral of the story: Stay warm. Stay focused. Calories. Sleep. Daily activity. RICE method. Understand when help is needed. That is all.



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