Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1707: The Top 5 Reasons You Are Not Recovering

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover the main reasons why people do not properly recover. The crucial missing piece to fitness success. (1:44) Some clear signs that you may not be recovering properly. (4:10) The Top 5 Reasons You Are Not Recovering. #1 – Your workout programming is inappropriate for YOU. (9:40) #2 – Poor sleep quality and your stress bucket may be full. (18:17) #3 – You may not be meeting your nutritional needs. (26:48) #4 – Your hormones may be out of balance. (31:52) #5 - Not utilizing the RIGHT supplements. (35:08) Related Links/Products Mentioned December Promotion: MAPS HIIT and MAPS SPLIT 50% off! **Promo code “DECEMBER50” at checkout** Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Muscle Adaptation vs. Muscle Recovery – Mind Pump Blog The Breakdown Recovery Trap, Why You Aren’t Progressing – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1345: 6 Ways To Optimize Sleep For Faster Muscle Gain And Fat Loss Managing Stress is a Priority Over Exercise – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1402: Good Stress Vs. Bad Stress & How To Know The Difference Why Calories are Important – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Hormones Facebook Private Forum Mind Pump #1607: How To Optimize Your Hormones With Dr. Rand McClain MP Hormones Pros and Cons of Creatine – Mind Pump Blog Summary of Ashwagandha Summary of Rhodiola Rosea Cordyceps Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout Ecdysteroids Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Robb Wolf (@dasrobbwolf)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we give you the top five reasons you are not recovering from your workouts. And we also go over some of the signs that you're not recovering properly and what might be getting in your way.

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interval training. And maps split, which is a bodybuilder style split routine. They're both 50% off, both programs that give you all the exercises, reps, exercise demos. You have everything you need to follow both programs. So if you're interested, head over to mapsfitinistproducts.com and use the code December 50, that's December 5-0 without a space for that discount. We get a chance to talk to Cassie once a week

and she handles a lot of the customer service on the back end. And I always love her suggestions on the single topic episodes because she can always go, hey, this is, I'm getting a lot of questions around this specific topic. And I'm not sure if we've done an organized episode around this, but I do remember getting a lot of questions. And that is when people aren't recovering, like, right? done an organized episode around this, but I do remember getting a lot of questions.

And that is when people aren't recovering, like, right, like they, they, they, like, what's going on? Like, they're sore a lot, or, you know, they feel like I'm just constantly sore and I've been, and I've been training for a while now, and they feel like they're doing the right things, but don't quite understand why their body

isn't fully recovering. And, you know, what are some of the things that you guys, and this is her asking us, like what do you guys ask them, or what do you look at first to help this person figure out why they're not recovered? I love talking about this

because this is one of those crucial pieces to whatever your pursuit is that I think a lot of people just glaze over and don't realize how insanely important it is. This is where all the magical things happen that you're looking to achieve with either gaining muscle or anything kind of performance related. Yeah, and let's, I mean, truth be told, aside from nutrition, this is probably one of the hardest things to figure out.

I'd say this is probably the one that I've struggled with the most for as long as I've been training. Is that line between the right amount of training and not recovering or over training? By the way, one of the reasons why this is so challenging for a lot of people is because as your lifestyle changes, as your life changes, we're going to move into target. Right. That's the challenge. The challenge is, this workout's always been. Right. Okay, for me, and now all of a sudden, I can't recover from it. So it's going on. So that's one of the first things I actually say to someone who says this to me is,

first I want them to know that, listen, this is part of the process is figuring this piece out. And even with me, I've been doing this for 20 plus years, I still run into this today because lifestyle changes, diet changes, programming, change, older. Yeah, there's a lot of things that are changing and so it's constantly a moving target. And instead of getting frustrated from it or allowing it to influence you quitting, just look at it as a signal that, okay, there's I'm I'm not doing here that I can improve upon and Address it that way. Yeah, so I think we should open with some just easy

Signs or some clear signs that you're probably not recovering fully The first one would be nagging inflammation. So this is when you feel inflammation typically at the Insertion or origins of muscle, or at the joints. Why is my elbow bothering me all the time? Or, man, my knee feels a little stiff or sore or my shoulder or here in the armpit part of my pec, it feels a little sore. For me, this is a really clear sign. I'll feel these kind of inflamed areas.

Twinges, twinges. Yeah, and they're just nagging. I guess that's the best way to describe it. They're nagging inflammatory issues. The next one that's really obvious is, for me at least, is bad sleep. Whatever your normal sleeping patterns are, if all of a sudden you are waking up throughout the night or restless or not able, or you wake up super exhausted, like you didn't sleep at all,

that can often be a sign that you're not recovering properly. Yeah, I notice that one a lot, when the restless nights and partially because of how I'm training, but also to the amount of stress I'm carrying and not properly releasing and dealing with throughout the day that I then,

it carries into my sleep, which then if you don't get quality sleep you're not fully recovering. It's sort of perpetually just keeps this you know you in the same state where you're fighting this constantly. You know I think that how sore you are is a signal too like being sore is part of the process. Like you're, it's inevitable if you do movements and things you've never done before and you train with any sort of intensity at all that there's likelihood going to be some sortness. But I remember being a young kid and actually chasing this,

like looking for to be as crippled as possible, thinking that the harder I go or the more sore I am, the harder it is for me to, yeah, to move the better it is when it's the complete opposite. Like, I wanna feel that I did the workout, I wanna know, I wanna be reminded that, oh yeah, I trained that yesterday, I can feel that, but I don't want to feel like it limits my movement and my day-to-day type stuff. And if so, if it's limiting the way I walk,

if it's limiting the way I squat or sit down and I'm, ooh, too much, too much. Too much. And that is a lot of times the first sign that will lead to this chronic soreness or lacquer recovery. Yeah. And then there's a lack of energy where you just feel like you need more caffeine throughout the day.

You're just kind of fatigued. You're dragging. You're lacking the same drive. That often means that your body is, it's moving resources to healing. And that's, a lot of this is, a lot of that is what we're talking about is your body is diverting resources to healing

and constantly trying to heal. By the way, adaptation is different than healing. Healing is literally the healing process. Adapting is going above and beyond that to become stronger or more resilient to the same stress that caused the damage in the first place. Well, when all these factors stack up too, I feel this brain fog a lot of time.

So I don't have the same type of sharpness, memory recall, and I just feel like throughout the day, I'm just fighting this notion of like, I just don't have that kind of clarity and sharpness that I would normally have if I'm full of energy and fully recovered. Yeah, and then another one is like, intolerance is the temperature. All of a sudden, you're too hot or too cold. Hands get really cold and clammy, feet get cold and clammy. This is a sign that your body's pumping out stress hormones, trying to keep you moving and keeping going. I was going to ask you, what is the actual mechanism that's happening that causes that?

What is it because it's allocating resources other and then it can't regulate temperature as well? It has to do with the catacolamine production, cortisol, stress hormone release, like when you get those stress hormone, okay, so let's say you're in a room and then like a scary dog walks in, right? Your fight or flight kicks in, you're gonna get the cold, clammy hands, you're gonna get the cold sweat,

you're gonna feel that because that hormone does that to the body, and it's a side effect because what it's doing is trying to mobilize energy to get you to move, but if this is happening all the body, and it's a side effect because what it's doing is trying to mobilize energy to get you to move, but if this is happening all the time, that means that you're off, your stress hormones are higher, your body's trying to keep you going, it's trying to keep you going while it's healing by producing more of these stress compounds. Another one that I think is common when you're young that's a harder signal to pick up on is just the hard plateau.

You know, so you're training hard and consistent, but I remember this in my 20s, knowing that I've been training seven days a week and hitting every but just being stuck in the same place forever. And because you're so young and resilient, you don't realize that part of the reason while you're stuck in this plateau is you're not recovering. You're like, I gotta go harder. Right. Yeah. And you just keep up, uping it, uping up the intensity, thinking that you need more and more and more and because you're so young and resilient, you don't realize that it's not, it's that your recovery process is what's hindering you from continuing to add, adapt and grow and change. Yeah, what had used to happen to me was I would plateau, and then I'd just throw more at myself,

and more at myself. And it's better always. And then it's start to go backwards. And that's when I would have that wake up call, like what, I just went down 15 pounds in my squat. Oh, maybe I'm overdoing it, you know, it would take me that long to kind of, you know, figure that out.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the reasons why you're just not recovering. The first one is, I think the most obvious, which is your workout programming is inappropriate for you. Now, I think it's important to clarify that what inappropriate means for you is very individual, okay, for you in this moment, in this context of your current life, okay? Inappropriate means you're doing, in? In appropriate means you're doing in this particular sense, you're doing more than is necessary

to get your body to progress. Actually, you're doing too much. You're doing the, you're going so hard or doing too much to the point where your body is not adapting, it's only worrying about healing. And remember, when it comes to exercise, the right dose is the, gonna get you to the fastest. More than the right dose will actually slow down your progress.

Too much beyond that means you're not gonna go anywhere at all. And so workout programming often is just inappropriate for people. What does this look like? It's too intense, that's one, right? You're just going too hard. Sometimes, and this is where those, what do they call those weeks where they scale down the intensity. Deload week. There you go. You know, they do studies on

deload weeks, and they find with hard training athletes and lifters that they make the most gains during the deload weeks during when they drop the intensity. It's trippy because you go on vacation and you're so stressed out that you're not able to continue that type of routine that you've established and you've been so consistent but then you're off for a week, let's say, and you come back and you're like, oh my God, I feel so much stronger. And it trips you out because it is a glaringly obvious thing

at that point is like, well, maybe I could do a little bit less and see a better result. And so sometimes that's a good indication of like, maybe I might be going too much, too hard. We have to remember that that training is a stress. And if you are doing it like crazy, your body is just trying to defend itself from all these insults. And if you just keep piling it on, like it doesn't, you don't allow it to adapt and get better It's constantly trying to play defense because you're throwing everything at it all the time Yeah, and sometimes we just don't look at it like that

We think oh more is gonna give me more results and it's not true at all There is definitely a sweet spot and that sweet spot is different for every individual Yeah, it moves for every individual. It's different. It's different at different periods of your life It it determines day-to- day based off of rest and nutrition. There's so many factors that play a role in this that it's not simply just going and hammering your body and then I should see the results. I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna use an analogy.

So, before I do, so we're talking about working out too hard. That means the intensity's too high. You're either going to failure, you're doing too many supersets, you're pushing your body harder than you need to, or you're working out too long, workouts are lasting too long. Again, this is very individual, or you're working out too often.

That's another one. So here's the analogy, right? So let's say I want to develop a calis on my hands. Well, the way I stimulate a calis is I rub a rough object on my hand. And if I do it right, I'll cause a little bit of damage then what my body will do is heal the damage and then it'll add extra layers of skin to build a calis.

So that next time, that's the adaptation process, right? The healing is the skin healing, the adaptation is calis and that what that does is it sets me up so that next time I don't cause as much damage. So too hard would be rubbing my skin really hard, right? Too long would be, just, I'm rubbing it way too long. Too often is I don't give my skin enough time in between rubbing it to cause it to allow it to heal

and to adapt. So the condition of my skin and the condition of my body well has a large role in determining what's too hard, what's too long, what's too often. So this is what happens oftentimes with the training. Another thing is that you might just be doing the wrong kind of workout, just period doing the wrong kind of workout. You know, I had a client once, I'll never forget this woman who was a, she was an executive,

very, you know, go attitude and she trained with me three days a week and then she did all this high-intensity cardio, couldn't figure out why she wasn't losing body fat and her calories were being cut. And it was just a strange thing. And this was an earlier, early-ish in my career. And I remember saying, let's trade out two of those hard cardio sessions

for a relaxing type of yoga. And she's like, but I'm burning way less calories. So should I cut my calories? I said, no, let's see what happens. Let's just replace them with the yoga, which is way less intensity. You're not burning as many calories. You're not damaging your body as much. And let's see what happens.

And at first, she tripped out because she didn't gain weight. So she's like, this is weird. I'm not even gaining body fat. I'm not burning as many calories. And then something funny happened. Her body started to progress and adapt because that was the right kind of workout to add to her body at that moment.

Right, and also too when it comes to programming. So what you do, the in-between days is also a factor where way back in the day, I used to think it you'd train as hard as possible and then you'd rest as hard as possible. So meaning you'd lay down, you would do, as minimal movement as possible. And we would just sort of ride it out until

I was fully recovered and then I'd go back and hammer myself just as hard. When in fact, one of the most effective ways to fully recover is to add light movement and to add a bit of activity and active recovery. And so, once I started kind of incorporating in real light movement, stimulate the muscles, get the blood pumping, because in a sense the blood is actually one of those

mechanisms that helps you to recover fully if you get good circulation. It does, and it doesn't cause more damage. It facilitates recovery. I must have experienced this a million times before I figured it out, where I'd work out my legs real hard. And then my buddies would be like, let's go ride our mountain bikes,

I'm like, damn it, I'm not gonna recover because I'm gonna go ride mountain bikes, but I really wanna do it. So then I'll go, and I'd come back, and be like, my legs are way less sore. And then the next day I'm like, wow, it's gone. And they didn't piece it together until it happened 15 times in a row, and I was like, maybe the movement is making me recover faster.

Because I used to think what you thought. I would go home, I put my legs up and bring time to grow. Just talking about this reminds me. So at one point, I lived across the street from the gym when I lived with my grandmother when I first moved to the Bay Area. And I was in this place, like where I believe that. It was all about how hard you trained, and then how much you could rest

and to the point where I was like competitive with like how much could I go train the shit I mean like crippling barely walk out of the gym for two hours go to across the street to my my grandma's house lay in the bed and just like literally like look at the time like okay I got I got on the bed by one cool like lay there all day like thinking that like I was in my bed. Yeah, it's building. Yeah, calling my grandma, grandma, could you bring me some chicken? It rides like literally I did that for months thinking that this was going to build the most amount of recovery is like stretching like movement trigger sessions like you'll

find in maps and a ball mobility. Yeah, mobility is phenomenal for active recovery. So your sore, so the following day you're working on mobility and you're moving your body through full ranges of motion and you're not causing more damage, you're literally speeding up the recovery process. And in fact, it's the opposite of what we used to think. Like if you worked out and then didn't move at all,

in fact, if you tested this on yourself, work out real hard and then stay bed ridden for a week and then go back to work out. You'll be weaker. Well, in anybody who's had surgery, no's this, right? Because the first thing that they're trying to make sure that they establish is that you get up and you move and you get that movement established

so that way, the body gets that signal like, hey, we need to recover, we need to get back to accomplish what we used to be able to do. And so in order to do that, you got to really kind of work through that to get to that place. Well, it's obvious when you understand what's going on, right? You, when you move and walk around, you're moving blood and oxygen and nutrients through the muscles.

So it's like, what do you think is going to speed up recovery and build more muscle would be sitting there and slowing down how much blood, oxygen, and nutrients are effective? Or pumping a bunch of blood and nutrients through there. It just makes total sense when you understand what the recovery process looks like. Oh, I don't want to completely be sedentary.

That's not ideal. You're sending a weird signal to your body by not moving afterwards, because your body's like, oh, there's a lot of stress, got to repair, got to build, and then, oh, wait a minute, we don't need these muscles. They're not really moving much anymore. So it's this weird counter signal that actually causes recovery to take much longer.

The next one, this one's a big one, and I didn't figure this out until I was older, which is sleep quality. Poor sleep quality will crush your ability to recover. And I don't care who you are, I don't even care if you're on tons of anabolic steroids or whatever. I don't care how great your genetics are.

If you have poor sleep, you can forget, not only can you forget about recovering from your workouts, you can forget about your brain getting rid of the waste products and stuff that it needs to for you to function the next day. To the point where lack of sleep quality accelerates or causes dementia, Alzheimer's, lots of health issues.

To the point, again, they've done studies where they've gone, had people go sleep deprived. They go crazy. Within three days, I think the rate of insanity is like 50% or something like that. So, really crazy. So, it's a big deal. And it's not just, I didn't sleep for eight hours. Did you sleep good for eight hours? Or were you up kind of throughout the night

when you rest? That's where you actually get a chance to build your body back and fully recover and balance out your hormones and your body just sort of catch up with all the stimulus and all the insults that you've put upon it throughout the day. Now, the most important part I think of this is actually

addressing how you get better at this versus talking about it. Because, of course. Because I don't know if you got, I mean, I remember hearing and reading the importance of sleep. So then you just go to bed. Yeah, right. So I kind of always knew that. Like it was just kind of, whatever.

And I know that I, I dismissed it and said, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead and sleep's overrated. Like I used to say those things, but I wasn't like, I wasn't reading anything that said, you sleep wasn't important. Like I feel like a lot of people that are listening right now know that. I think the most important message is,

so what does that look like if I really want to improve it? That was something that didn't come full circle for me later on. Like, oh, and the best thing that someone ever said to me, and I don't remember where the first time I heard it was like, you know, it's so interesting how we all have these crazy rituals around getting up and starting our day, you know, everything from brushing your teeth, the showering, to a cup of coffee, to reading a newspaper, to whatever. It's like we have these systems that we've put in place

and your alarm sets every single day. Most people have an alarm that's set at the same time every day, they consistently do it. But bed is nighttime is so different. Oh, it depends on if I'm watching a Netflix show. I might go to bed at midnight. I might go to bed at 10 o'clock. I might go to bed sometimes at 9.30 if I'm watching a Netflix show. I might go to bed at midnight. I might go to bed at 10 o'clock. I might go to bed sometimes at 9.30

if I'm really tired and exhausted. And I feel I have to. Or, you know, no one really puts a lot of energy and focus around preparing themselves for sleep. And I think learning how to do that will improve the sleep quality versus like you were saying, Justin's like, what do I do to just lay there and like try and sleep harder?

Yeah, yeah. Cause that's the way I hear it. You, cause that's the way I hear it. You know, that's the way I hear it the first when I thought about it before, just like, what am I gonna do, try and sleep better? That just sounds weird. No, I think preparing is, that's the best first step, right?

Have a schedule, I go to bed at, I wanna be in bed by 10. So at 9 p.m., I'm getting ready to go to bed. Was that look like, I'm gonna dim the lights, wear a blue light blocking glasses, I'm not gonna eat anything, I'm not gonna have go to bed. Was that look like, I'm gonna dim the lights where blue light blocking glasses. I'm not gonna eat anything. I'm not gonna have any stimulants after maybe 3 PM. And I'm preparing for bed.

And then when it's time to go to bed, my brain and my body are ready to go to sleep. Well, the blue light blocking glasses are great, but also the closer you can get to that first light to when the sun goes down, obviously, that's like sort of your great window. So you can kind of that first light to when the sun goes down. You know, obviously that's like sort of your, your, your great window. So you can kind of match that circadian rhythm, kind of period. Cause I, I noticed too, like if I get more sunlight during the day, it's a lot easier

to me to get deeper sleep. Yes, that's a big one. Which does play a factor for me personally and also too, not eating too late, which then now I have digestive things that interrupt that real deep sleep that I could. Yeah, well your organs have circadian rhythm too. So sunlight and sun, you know, they help set your circadian rhythm, but so do your organs, including your stomach. So when you eat food, really late, that sends a signal to your brain that says, all right, it's time to be awake. So you probably don't want to eat a couple hours before bed. The next one is that your

stress bucket might already be full or it's overflowing when you add your workout. What does that mean? So your body, think of your body having a stress bucket and all stress gets thrown into this bucket. So workout, is that a stress? Yes it is. What about argument with my spouse? That's a stress. You know, I yelled at the guy in traffic, that's a stress. Work is real hard right now. That's a sleep, that's a stress.

So if you're throwing, if you know, if you know in your life right now that you have a lot of stress going on, what you probably don't want to do is throw a very stressful workout on top of that. In fact, at that moment, what's probably don't want to do is throw a very stressful work out on top of that. In fact, at that moment, what's probably going to get you best results is it work out that takes a little bit of stress out of that bucket, right?

Something that's helped more calm, more relaxing, maybe more mobility work, or you recognize my stress bucket's almost full, so my workouts are shorter, less intense, and less frequent. Now, what are the things that you think insult at the most or like how, how do you either personally manage that or help clients manage something like that? Because I guess that's so. It's very individual. Right, it's very individual.

There's a wide range, you know, and maybe somebody who's always had like a rocky relationship, that's like life for them. I'm always fighting with my spouse. So what am I gonna do? Never work out hard, like that's just normal for me. So'm always fighting with my spouse, so what am I gonna do? Never work out hard. Like that's just normal for me. So like how do you help somebody decide,

am I already overfilling my bucket full of stress? Are there things that you're telling them to look out for or pay attention? Yeah, well, you gotta ask yourself, am I more stressed out now than I normally am? Because you're absolutely right. Like, some of them might be able to cut me off in traffic or flip me off or whatever. And to me, it's like, you're absolutely right. Like, someone might be able to cut me off in traffic

or flip me off or whatever, and to me it's like, you know, whatever, but to someone else that may really cause a lot of stress and ruin their day. So this is a personal, this is a personal one for you. Yeah, I think really it's just about like taking inventory. So if you can just sit there and think about all those things that even if you mention it, like, oh, like it,

it tends to you up a bit and you realize that I'm carrying this with me. And this is, or it's something that you're constantly thinking about that you just can't stop spinning on. And you know, these are things like, well, how can I, how can I actionably kind of take steps towards reducing that amount of stress? And maybe if it's work, it's like, for me, it's writing things down and getting more

organized. So it's like, I can take things off one by one. And so then that kind of lowers taking all of it on at once in my mind. So that's one way I can kind of address that. And then also too, if I need to have a confrontation with a relationship, I need to face that. I need to go take action in that direction.

But it's individual, 100%, you just have to kind of realize like what those steps look like. Because I know a lot of people that use the workout as their way of, you know, de-stressing. Of course. They, you know, I got to fight with my wife or I got this financial stress right now or I just got fired for my job. Oh my god, all this stuff.

So I'm gonna go to the gym and hammer the shit out of myself. Like a lot of times that's where people go and thinking that that's going to mean. And they get that temporary feeling, because we talk about the cortisol junkies, right? They get that spike in that and that feels good. Good. Good. Good. Right. It gives them that good feeling. Oh, so glad I went and did that.

But in reality, they may not get the results that they want from that. Because if you're going into the gym to make a body composition change, right? Reduce body fat or build muscle. And you go there and that's your goal, but then you're going there because you got all the stress and then you do like an intense workout to give you that temporary spike that gives you a temporary feeling of relief.

In reality, though, you weren't doing as much good for your body as you thought you were doing. And so I think it's important that you're paying attention to both. Like, say my client is recovering really well, and that is their answer, okay, it's not that big of a deal. But if we're in a plateau and we're not recovering very well, and then I know that they're doing all this stress, and I know that they're also punishing themselves in the gym,

now I have something to like use as like, okay, well, if you were seeing good results, and you did that every once, well, probably not a big deal. But if I've got you and you're stuck in this hard plateau, you're complaining about being sore all time, and then I also know that you're using your workout to try and not think about your wife that you hate or not think about your job that you hate. And that's probably what level are you right now?

Right, right. I think that's a good way to figure that out. Right, right. I think that's a good way to kind of figure that out. Right, no, that's a very good point. All right, this next one is, this one was relatively common with newer clients, which is they weren't meeting their nutritional needs. In other words, you need resources to repair, heal, and adapt.

That means that you could send all the, your body could have all the plans for repair, heal, and adapt. That means that you could send all the, your body could have all the plans for repair, all the plans for adaptation. But if it doesn't have the building blocks, it's not gonna do anything. So can you negatively affect your recovery because your calories are too low? Yeah, in fact, that's one of the number one things

to look out for when you're on a diet where you're cutting your calories is, and I'm recovering, I can't recover because my calories are so low. Not enough protein, that was a big one, especially with female clients, where they weren't getting enough protein, they were like 40 grams a day, it was really, really low.

So I'd have them bump it to 80 grams or something like that, which still isn't super high, but it's twice as much as they were doing before. And all of a sudden, they're like, man, I can recover much better. I feel so much stronger. I remember a buddy of mine, back when I used to train in Jiu-Jitsu,

he would come in and he kept complaining about his joints and how sore he was getting. And so then I said, you know, you might if I ask you about your nutrition, because, you know, I'm in the fitness space. And so we talked and he was a, he was vegan. So I said, you know, sometimes it's hard to get enough protein when you're eating a vegan diet.

You might have asked where you get your protein sources and he wasn't supplementing with protein. I said, well, why don't you try a vegan protein powder and take it post workout and just see how you feel? And I remember he came back and he was like, dude, it's like magic. He's like, I'm recovering so much better. You just wasn't getting the adequate amount of protein that his body needed to recover for what he was like, dude, it's like magic. He's like, I'm recovering so much better. You just wasn't getting the adequate amount of protein

that his body needed to recover for what he was doing. So, yeah. I think this is actually why people a lot of times feel like protein powders are so magical. It's why the space is so big in Washington. Zero lots. Yeah, because there's people that, man, I tell you what, when I start taking my protein shake,

I start seeing, and they attribute it to the protein shake, but in reality, it's just because they were under-consuming. They're putting in chicken breast. Yeah, exactly. If they would have just went and had eight ounces more of chicken breast every single day, instead of the shake, they would have felt the exact same results. And so, I think it's important that you understand that

because I agree, this is the number one thing personally for myself. I've talked about in the show before that, you know, I just gravitate towards carbs, or I could easily meal skip the size of my body. I need 200 grams of protein give or take. It's really easy. I can go on a day and hit 90 grams of protein.

Like, and do that chronically for a week, two weeks straight. And so this is actually the first place that I go. So I'm pretty good at being aware of my day to day stress. If I didn't give you a very good sleep, how to back off the workout. But if I notice I'm really sore and I'm not recovering very much, it's almost always I'm under consuming protein

and I need to bump that. Well, I feel like too, in my own personal experience and also training coaching a lot of athletes, like they handle this piece of it like terribly. Because of the fact that they're moving so often, and there's so much high demand physically all the time, and it's almost the sense that they could consume anything, and it's not going to have that much

effect on them personally, but like, including a lot of inflammatory foods and a lot of processed type foods and simple carbohydrates and things that their body might be reacting to, like putting them in a perpetual state of inflammation, that's something you're gonna keep fighting throughout the next day, it's gonna affect the way you sleep. It has this cascading effect.

I remember talking to, I think it was Rob Wolff, he's a good friend of ours, and he was, this is when the continual glucose monitors were becoming a thing. And he was explained to me how he was observed and in someone that they would get a stronger insulin response from an avocado

than they did from a cookie. And he was like, this is so strange. And then you realize, well, they have an intolerance to the avocado. So when you have an intolerance to a food, which is an analogy, an analogy is much more extreme. But this person had an intolerance, their body looked at this avocado

and mounted an immune response. What it did is it mobilized sugar out of the liver, spiking sugar in the blood, causing a rise, and insulin. So this is a bit of an extreme example, but if you're eating foods that your body is not digesting well, not processing well, that's a stress. It's another stress on your body.

So rather than recovering really well, your body now is dealing with these foods that are causing bloat or constipation or diarrhea or acid reflux or inflammation. And so it's taking away from your body's ability to repair and recover. I 100%. This is me personally. I 100% recover better when I eat my carbohydrates from gluten-free containing foods.

100%. I can actually get away with eating gluten for a little while before it starts to show up in terms of my digestion. But the first thing I notice is I get sore more often. And it's because my body's just more inflamed because I have a mild intolerance to gluten. Now this next one, I feel like one, it's getting worse. Two, I think that if you've checked all the boxes, like, you're listening right now and you're like, you know, I'm good.

I do that. No, I do. I hit my protein tank and you're, I'm sleep and you're listening right now. But yet, I'm still, I do that. No, I hit my protein tank, and you're, I'm sleep, and you're listening right now, but yet I'm still having a hard time. This is the next thing. And I always, by the way, I like to check all these boxes first before I send somebody in this direction to possibly go get your blood work.

Let's start to look at your hormones. Last night we had Dr. Ran in our mind pump hormones forum, and this was like a major conversation. And he says, you know, sometimes like our test levels and our estrogen levels isn't enough to tell the whole story and that it's important that we're also finding out from the client their feedback. Like, hey, I'm sore all the time.

My energy levels are down, but it says my test level is somewhat normal. It's like your hormones could be off and you still not be in a dangerous place. And if you've checked all these other boxes, you're doing all the other things we're talking about, this very well could be the reason while you're not recovering.

Yeah, hormone imbalance issues tend to feel like this. It tends to feel like at a nowhere. Like, wait a minute, this is really weird. Nothing has really changed. All of a sudden, I'm losing muscle, I'm gaining body fat very easily. My energy is kind of low. This is very, very strange, like what's going on? Like I have a friend who got her thyroid tested and found that she was creating too many

antibodies. And she had all these strange, unexplainable symptoms. And she's like, I'm doing all these things right. And I feel like I'm rested, but my body's just not responding. That's, that can sometimes point to hormone imbalance issues. And so what you could do is you'll get tested. And you, by the way, you want to go to a hormone specialist because a hormone specialist, this is way more complex than looking at the range. This is what I've learned recently by, through working with Regenerative and Sport Medicine.

That's the company that we have affiliated with that does this kind of stuff, is that if you, it's not just about looking in the range because you could look at a range, just give an example of like testosterone range for men, it'll start at 300 nanograms per desolate or I think is the way that they measure it. It's high as 1,000, right? So you could be 305, and you're within normal range, right? You could be 900 and be within normal range. So it's much more complex of that.

It's looking at all the hormones and relationship to each other. And then, of course, the types of symptoms that you're exhibiting. So if you're like, man, I am so tired all the hormones and relationship to each other. And then of course the types of symptoms that you're exhibiting. So if you're like, man, I am so tired all the time. Then they look at your testosterone. I'm like, well, you're 450, so you're low, but you're not at a range. How's your sleep?

Oh, I got a newborn, I sleep three hours a night. Okay, let's look at that first. Let's work on your sleep first. Or if I'm like, I get nine hours of sleep every single night, I wake up exhausted. I don't know what the heck is going on. Okay, it might be your testosterone. It might be that's what's work on your sleep first. Or if I'm like, I get nine hours of sleep every single night, I wake up exhausted, I don't know what the heck is going on. Okay, it might be your testosterone. It might be that's what's going on and they'll look a little deeper.

So if this is something you want to look into, this is not our expertise, we're fitness experts, not hormone experts, then I recommend you go to, I think it is mphormones.com or mine mp. Mp. Letter mphormones.com and then mp mp. Mp. Mp. So our month. Letter m p hormones.com and then you can ask more questions about this. All right, so this last one is last for a reason.

And that's because of all the things that we talked about, this contributes the least to your body's ability to recover. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a role and it can't help, but it won't fix your recovery issues if your recovery issues are because of all the things that we talked about, okay? So this can give you a little bit of an edge, and that's about it. And I think that the next thing that we're talking about,

which is supplements, it's cool to use when you're doing everything right and you're pushing your body and you're kind of, you know, up against that line, right? You keep pushing up against the line. So you want a little bit more of a buffer so you can continue training really intensely. And there are certain supplements that have been proven to enhance recovery. Again, it's not going to fix poor sleep.

It's not going to fix poor programming or a crappy diet. But if all those things are good and you want to push your body a little harder, but you're kind of on that line, then they can kind of help. And the first supplement is creatine. Creatines easily the most studied, ergo genic supplement around. There's thousands of studies. Many of them peer reviewed, double blind, placebo controlled, it's safe, it's effective, it's actually healthy, they're not recommending it to older populations, it's good for the

brain and the heart, not just your muscles, does make you stronger, and it does help your mitochondria function better, gives them more energy so that you can speed up the recovery process. Now, I want to go back to the creatine one, because originally creatine was really promoted as like an energy and building muscle. Has it more recently been attached to recovery and speeding up that process? Because that wasn't always like that, right? No, but that's part of the reason why it helps you build muscle. So it amps up muscle protein synthesis, right?

So that's where your body takes the protein and turns it into active tissue or utilizes it for, let's say, building muscle, which is the thing that we're trying to do, or repair muscle. Crayotein supplementation increases ATP in the body. ATP is one of the primary sources of energy for most all of your cells, or if not all of the cells. And when you have more ATP, that protein synthesis cycle speeds up a little bit.

So you get a little bit of a faster. So that's what it is. Because of the recovery process of the ATP and ADP, is that it's contributing to the process of recovery. Because it's got more of that energy, it could then recover at a faster rate. Yes, it also increases intracellular fluid. So what you'll notice when you take creatin is you may gain initially a couple pounds on the scale and people are like, oh, it's waterway,

it is, it's not bloat by the way, bloat is outside of the cells. Inside the cells, fluid looks good. It's like a pump is kind of like that, right? So muscles look a little fuller, a little tighter, but increasing intracellular fluid improves nutrient delivery, improves waste removal, reduces inflammation. So that also helps speed up the process of recovery. Another one is ashwagandha. This is very heavily studied herb. It's been used for thousands of years in aeravetic medicine.

And Ashwagandha. And this whole class of supplements, the adapted gins, like it's interesting to see how they can kind of balance everything out. In Western medicine, right? But Eastern medicine's been using this stuff forever, right? For a long time. In Australia, Australia is a stress recovery supplement.

And it's the first one of the first supplements that will get recommended to you by an erivetic practitioner. Would you, if you were into a lot of stress? Would you classify it as like the king of adaptogens? Would you, would you, would you, would you? That's probably ginseng. I didn't put ginseng up here Would you would you? That's probably ginseng. I didn't put ginseng up here though, because people can react very strangely to ginseng.

I'm one of those. If I take ginseng, it makes me like really hot and feverish and not feel so good. Ashwaganda, I have yet, I think if you have a really bad intolerance or allergy to nightshades, maybe don't do Ashwaganda, but I have yet to run into a client or somebody I recommended to who didn't feel

some kind of a positive effect from Ashwagana. It's like better sleep and it helps your body utilize cortisol a little bit better. So you get more energy. It's really really good. Rodeolas, another one. Rodeolas more of a stimulant. It's actually a good replacement for caffeine

for some people. That's been shown to speed up recovery protein powder. If your protein's low, that's a big one, man. We just talked about that earlier. That's probably to me. That's the first one. Even though it falls in the supplement category. In the real truth is it's not the protein powder. It's that you're low on your protein. That's just a quick and easy way to do it. So if you're somebody who chronically misses your protein and take, then simply taking a shake every single day could be game changing for you. Yeah, mushroom supplements are big now too,

although they've been used forever. Like, cordiceps is one of my favorites. That one, you know, that one got a lot of news. I think it was the, I wanna say the 2000 Olympics. Chinese Olympic team. Yeah, the swimmers were crushing. Yeah. They said, oh, it's Cordaceps, who knows if it was Cordaceps,

maybe it was some exotic kind of ball of service. But people started diving in the research. And Cordaceps does improve recovery and it improves VO2 max and stamina in particular. So for people who want more stamina, work capacity, I've recommended cordoceps to people who DM me who do like physical labor jobs. So I'll say try cordoceps and they notice that they are, you know, better heat tolerance and they can work longer. So that's kind of a cool supplement Rishi, which I hope

I'm pronouncing right, it's R E I S H I. This is another, you know, kind of adaptogenic type supplement. Now here's the problem with some of these herbs and stuff is that you gotta find good sources. For sigmatics, the company we work with, with the mushroom-based ones, they're the best by far. I haven't yet to find mushroom-based supplement company that comes close to the stringent quality control

that they have with their products. And then there's this last one that I love because I brought this up, I think the first time on the podcast like seven years ago, six years ago, now it's exploding all over the place. So I do wanna give, do a little clarity around the supplement, okay? So this particular supplement is called Echti Sterone

and there are other types of sterones that are similar like Turkesterone, very similar to Ekti sterone. These are insect hormones. That's making it around right now too, by the way. Yes, you've seen that all over the place. Both of them, right? So they're insect hormones. Literally, it's a hormone in insects that gets them to molt, but it's also something

you find in plants. And it has this very interesting effect in humans where it gets you to build more muscle and recover faster and it gets you leaner. And yes, it does work, it's been studied and it does work. You got to find really good stuff. The problem is this. You grow an acto skeleton. Yeah, you get it.

You start to grow a little bit. You grow another leg, a bug. No, it actually stops working after about 45 days. You notice that you don't get this affecting the market It's a very short-lived kind of product and but you definitely notice it when you're on it We're sorry. We have no affiliate. We have no companies that we can promote and I'll say probably a good 50% of the stuff out in the market's garbage So it's really poor quality control again. It's not going to fix poor sleep, bad diet, bad programming, none of that stuff. But if everything's good, this is one of the supplements that you may notice

when you take it. Now, that being said, I do want to express that they're not quite sure how it works. They think it's mediated through the estrogen receptor, believe it or not, which makes me want to avoid recommending it to women. And all the studies I've seen have been done on men. So I wouldn't recommend it to women because I don't know what the potential effects can be with women, but with men it seems to be all good. So there you have it. All the stuff you can do, or the reasons why you're not recovering, and some of the stuff you can do to speed up that process.

Look if you like our information, head over to mindpumpFree.com and check out all of our free guides on fitness, and fat loss, nutrition, and guides on personal training. Again, it's MindPumpFree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram. So, Justin is at MindPump Justin. I'm at MindPump Sal and Adam is at MindPump Adam. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

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