Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1870: Ten Advanced Recovery Hacks

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss ten ways to improve recovery. Do NOT fall into the trap of targeting perfection. (2:00)   Ten Advanced Recovery Hacks.   #1 - Cold therapy. (6:00) #2 – Static stretching. (11:49) #3 - Naps. (15:32) #4 - Trigger sessions. (20:34) #5 - Mobility work. (25:24) #6 - Deep tissue massage. (29:12) #7 – High-calorie days. (34:34) #8 – Sunlight. (36:20) #9 – Meditation. (39:25) #10 - Fish and veggies. (42:53) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic** July Promotion: RGB Bundle or MAPS Suspension 50% off! **Promo code JULY50 at checkout** Refuge in Carmel, CA - America's First Co-Ed Outdoor Relaxation Spa Mind Pump #1822: Wim Hof On How To Control Your Immune System With Breathwork Is Warming Up Before A Workout Necessary? - Mind Pump Blog Which is Best - Mobility or Stretching? - Mind Pump Blog Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle – Mind Pump Blog Becoming a Supple Leopard 2nd Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance The bizarre history of the baby cage, 1934-1948 Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Wim Hof (@iceman_hof)  Instagram Kelly Starrett (@thereadystate)  Instagram Justin Brink DC (@dr.justinbrink)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop 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 Pup, right? Today's episode we talk about 10 advanced recovery hacks. So if you over train just a little bit, you could try one, two, or three of these

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All right, in today's episode, we're going to talk about 10 advanced recovery hacks. Now, I do want to be clear, these should be used when you work out just a bit too hard because, and I do think we should open with this, how these do not replace the most effective things to encourage recovery. For example, proper exercise programming, good diet, good sleep, good lifestyle. Like, you're not going to fix those things with these recovery hacks, but every once in a while you train just a bit too hard or you're redlining a bit because you're training for competition or sport, in which case these things I think can become valuable. Well, I noticed, I kind of briefly looked over the list that you sent over when you were

creating this, and it looks like you left off a lot of the expensive recovery tools. Yeah, I wanted to make these for the most part accessible to most people. Yeah, when I look at the list, I only saw one on there that could be relatively expensive. The rest of them pretty much for free or you could get access to for relatively cheap, which is cool. I like you did that. Also, I mean, it could get pretty wild with the biohackers that people follow out there that like promote a lot of like really super like random devices and things that like get to like different type of light sources and different things

up your nose and you know, so at least they're, these are like applicable things that you can do. Yeah. And again, if you really just destroyed your body, like these hacks aren't gonna make that huge difference, the most effective ways to use these are when you're going through a training cycle where, I mean, you're pushing it and you know you're on the line, right, because there's a curve of optimal intensity volume and frequency where it's the perfect dose.

And if you're really, if you're someone that's really into fitness, or especially if you're competing and you got an event coming up, you want to hit that perfect dose, but you know that a bit over it is too much. And so you're always kind of doing this dance, right? Between life and you're the right, and it's when you feel like, oh, I think I might be a little over. Is there something I can do that'll bring me back

so I can continue trying it? Well, yeah, especially if your emphasis is really tightening up every last bit of those like performance screws, right? Like it's your super focused on squeezing the optimal amount of performance. You have to have that same intensity and focus on the recovery element for you to really benefit from it.

Yeah, but again, just to be clear, it's like you're not going to use these because you were up all night partying with your friends. No. You know, like, oh, you know what, I didn't get any sleep last night. Let me do this. It's not going to make up for all that. Let me do this recovery hack to make up the difference, or, you know, I'm training with

twice as much volume that's necessary. No, I think it's a good conversation because this is, I mean, I feel like this is how we all train. I think we have a large listener base that are not just first-time beginners that have been lifting for quite some time. That have heard us talk about the message of overtraining for a really long time and trying to find that balance.

But the truth is, when you understand all of that, you still are always kind of flirting with that line because you're trying to maximize your results. And so you don't wanna fall short don't want to fall short by it's a movie Target training so much so I would say this is stuff I like all these things because I find myself in this predicament a lot because a lot of times I'm flirting with that boundary exactly so think of it this way like you got this target of perfect But the target moves depending on lifestyle how you feel and what's going

on, and you fire the arrow and it's going to overshoot the target. You have these hacks that'll move that target just a little bit forward, right? That gives you just a little extra so that it's perfect. But what it's not going to do is if the target's here and I shot over there, I'm going to move the target all the way to the left or the right. It's going to give you a little bit of playroom and that's why it's good and I shot over there. I'm gonna move the target all the way to the left or the right. It's gonna give you a little bit of playroom and that's why it's good to have these. And I did, again, like you said, Adam,

I picked easily accessible, inexpensive ways to kind of maximize recovery because I want this accessible to most people. So the first one is cold therapy. And there's a few different ways to do this. You can go from minimal to more extreme. So minimal would be a cold shower. More extreme would be like literally getting into a tub full of ice water.

And what this does is it does reduce systemic inflammation. Now I want to cover this part here too because I know that there's like muscle building fanatics or like, but the studies show that it could reduce the muscle building signal. Yeah, I can through the inflammation reducing properties, but that's the point. If you've overshot, then you want to reduce the inflammation enough to keep you with in that sweet spot, right? I love that this is number one. This literally happened to me this weekend.

So I'm doing kind of like my own modified version of GVT, right? So I've been doing 10 sets of 10. And earlier in the week, I had done deadlifts and I haven't been deadlifting very often. So, and I did really light, I only did 135, but I did 10 by 10. And so I got a little sore, more sore than I wanted to. So I overreached a little bit.

And I had a plan originally for me to squat on the weekend. So this was like Wednesday or Thursday. And so I'm walking around all sore. Well, Katrina and I had the weekend to ourselves. Max was with his uncle and aunt, and we were over in Carmel and we were getting lunch. And she's like, hey, what do you think? Let's just go to refuge right now. And I'm like, oh my God, you, what a great idea.

That's perfect. They got it there. Yeah, exactly. They have the cold plunge. They have saw and they have all that stuff there. And what she, she didn't know because I wasn't complaining to her or anything like that or she, I didn't told her what I was doing workout wise, but I knew I wanted to hit squats this weekend, but I was like, God, I'm still feeling it so much that I probably should

give myself another day or two recovery before I get after squats from being so sore from the deadlift on my posterior chain. And instead, which he goes, let's go to the refuge and had a great, great, great recovery type of day hanging out there. I was able to squat on Sunday. I just can ask how big of a difference? Yeah, huge difference. I felt so much better after that day. So I ended up, now originally I had planned on Saturday that I was going to do it.

I didn't do it on Saturday. I ended up taking it at a rest and recovery day. I implemented some of these tools that you're saying, but naturally, because that's where she wanted to go, and then on Sunday I ended up having a great squat session. Yeah, it makes a pretty big difference. Well, again, I wanna be clear, big difference in the hack sense, but it does when you do the cold stuff,

and I do the cold showers when it's minimal, when it's really, when I'm like, ooh, this might take another day or two of recovery and rest, that's when I'll soak in the cold showers when it's minimal. When it's really, when I'm like, ooh, this might take another day or two of recovery and rest. That's when I'll soak in the cold. And that right away, I notice a difference. Yeah, and the same in terms of like, access, like the shower is one of the most repeatable in terms of like being able,

everybody kind of has access to a shower for the most part. But there was another thing I wanted to point out with the cold therapy that it actually like parallels a bit of, I would look at it as like training wheels for meditation. So I would kind of describe it. Good point. And so it's really being able to access

that parasympathetic state, but I mean, it takes training. So the more frequent you apply this and work through it and figure out that you're going to be able to experience this a lot better and be able to have a different mechanism involved. You have to learn how to expose yourself to this cold, but then bring your body to relax and to get that heart rate down and to be able to breathe in a certain amount. So anyway, so it kind of, this meditation is obviously one we'll get to, but this is sort of the start to that.

I love that. And I love to, so one of the things I like to like about refuge is they actually have levels. So there's like, then they have these like little like snowflake, like one snowflake is cold, and then there's like two snowflakes. It's like really, really cold or whatever. And you know, it's funny when I catch people that they've heard the science behind the benefits

of doing cold therapy. And they want it, and they just, just like they approach lifting and training us like that, they go right to the most intense, hoping for the best results. And it's like, if you never train cold therapy, you're just getting in a cold bathtub has benefits to it.

And practicing the breathing techniques like you're saying getting in a cold bathtub has benefits to it. And practicing the breathing techniques like you're saying. So this is very accessible to people. You can literally fill up your bathtub with cold water, throw whatever ice cubes that you have in your freezer and that thing. And it's gonna be cold for most people. But just turn on a cold shower.

Right, just turn a cold shower on and you'll get some of it. And you'll get some of these benefits from that. Now, if you train this consistently, then you'll wanna go to colder and colder temperatures, but like anything else, you don't need to go all of a sudden to this, what you see on Instagram all the time,

these guys. Dump in tons of ice out of the ice bath. Yeah, you've never done it before. No, and it itself in. And again, it does reduce systemic inflammation, and if used properly, it's valuable. Now, if you reduce systemic inflammation and you're training the right amount of volume

and all that, you might reduce the muscle building signal. So that's why these are good to use when you kind of overreach a little bit, or for other health benefits. But I remember the first time I did something like this, I had a kid that I trained. I trained this couple. They brought me their son because he started playing football

and he'd never done double day. So if people don't play football, it's a common standard practice, I guess, where they go through a period of double days where they're literally training and he'd never done double day. So if people don't play football, it's a common standard practice, I guess, where they go through a period of double days where they're literally training and beating these kids up twice a day. Part of it's mental,

part of it's to kind of weed out the weak kids or whatever, and part of it's to really ramp up conditioning. Anyway, he was really suffering. I remember he'd come in and would just be hurting and stiff or whatever. And I had a wellness person in my studio that said, hey, in between these, if you could get a big plastic garbage can, like those big ones you could buy at Home Depot,

fill it with ice water. When you come home, just get in there, see if you can stay in there for a minute or two, come out and do that in between the two practices, made all the difference in the world. He was like, oh my God, I don't feel stiff or whatever anymore, just from doing that one thing. So I would buy first exposure.

Yep, to that type of thing. I wanna bounce around a little bit on your list. I know this isn't the second one, but I wanna make it the second one because it goes right in line with what I did this weekend that I think is really beneficial. And that is the static stretching. And I actually combined it with the sauna

because they have that access. Oh, oh, oh. And I know that's not on your list. But that was so, like, so I did the cold plunge. I sat in there for a while, focused on my breathing that side of it, and then I got to sit in the steam and the sauna, and then while I'm in there,

I'm sitting there and I'm holding a static stretch. Part of that, so yes, the cold therapy brings down the inflammation, then getting heated up to where I can get into a deeper static stretch felt amazing to be able to compliment that one. So static stretching is interesting because what it does is it temporarily gets the central nervous system

to calm down. In cases where muscles feel tight and you're slightly over-trained, this can be valuable. So if anyone, if you've ever had a tight muscle, you know you're just walking around and it just feels like it's, almost like it's partially contracted. Like, oh, it got my trap is just partially contracted or my quads feel really tight. And what that can do is that can actually hamper recovery a little bit, right?

Because it could take a little more time to recover because it's not getting as much blood flow. Now, what's happening is a central nervous system identifies there's some damage, keeping the muscle slightly tight to create stability. So it's actually trying to protect you. Protect them, making it. Right, so what you don't want to do is static stretch and then right away go beat yourself up again.

But if it's on a day that you're not going to work out again, a static stretch where you're holding a stretch for 30 seconds or a minute, temporarily tells the CNS to relax. You get a little bit more blood flow and you'll notice immediate pain relief from doing something like this. And if you have the luxury to do this,

again, I was lucky to be at a place where they have a sauna and steam, but even like a hot shower will do this. You are... Because that also tells your CNS the colonel. That's right. So it's easier to get into a deeper stretch. I mean, that's a little hack that you can do that. The combination of both the nice cold water like that

to bring the inflammation down, and then to heat back up, to heat the muscles up, so that I could get deeper into the stretch, hold it for that period. I mean, it was such a beautiful recovery. It is. And so if you have muscles, target areas that feel tight a little flanged, I overdid it, you could spend 10 minutes doing static stretches for the... In particular, here's some things to pay attention to. In particular, it's when the muscle is stiff and sore at the insertion points. That's when static stretching, in my opinion, is really good.

So, like, if my whole chest is sore, I'll get some relief from static stretching. But if I have kind of this nagging inflammation where it attaches here in the armpit, or if my forearms are tight here at the elbows, or my bicep down here, where the attachments are, that's when I see the value in the static stretching. It's restrictedricting your movement and the normal everyday activity. And so to be clear to the static stress, we prioritize that at the end of the workout

for the most part. Not right before you train. Not before you train, and that's because you do need that state of tension when you get into the workouts because you're obviously requiring that out of your muscles throughout the workout. Yeah, so the best time to do it is when you're not gonna, you're gonna do it and then you're not requiring that out of your muscles throughout the workout. Yeah, so the best time to do it is when you're not gonna,

you're gonna do it and then you're not gonna go to super active. And off day like this. Or right before best. That's when I use tools like this and even going, jumping back to the cold punch again. So I train those dead lifts. I didn't think right afterwards,

oh go do the cold punch because I want a super, no, I don't want, I want inflammation. I want the, when I realize that I overreached day two, day three later that, oh wow because I want a super no, I don't want I want I want inflammation I want the when I realize that I overreach day two day three later that oh wow, I went a little far now I'm like okay, I better give myself a day off and let's prioritize a recovery day so here comes the cold plunge now here comes the steam doing it that way versus same thing goes with the static stretching I wouldn't go like oh tomorrow I'm gonna go workout now I sit and do a static stretch before I go into my workout. I would rather use like a mobility session in a situation like that.

Save the static stretch for when I'm not training or an off day completely. All right, so this next one targets one of the most important factors when it comes to recovery, which is sleep. Sleep, there's almost nothing that will dramatically impact your recovery in a negative way, like losing sleep.

And you can have everything perfect, have one night of poor sleep and studies will show measurable changes in inflammatory markers and hormones and stress hormones and chemicals, perceived pain, like if you lose sleep, your cold and hot tolerance suck, pain becomes more painful, irritability's become more irritable, you gain craving, it's really, it's a big deal.

So again, this is a hack because it doesn't replace good sleep, but it does have an impact, and that's to take a nap. And I mean a 30 minute nap, literally a 20, 30 minute nap, not a two hour nap, you don't need necessarily do that. In fact, long nap sometimes suck because you come out of them in your groggy and you feel, you're or tired, is it? For the rest of the day.

But literally, you could set a timer. And what I like to do is I use something called brain FM. We've talked about this on the show. And they play these sounds that tend to induce this sleep or meditative state in the brain. And it works. I'll put it on and I'll set my alarm for 30 minutes and I'll be able to get into a deep sleep

or a deep enough sleep in that 30 minute period to where I wake up and I feel, it's almost like I had a cup of coffee. Like, I'll feel like I'm fresh. Now, haven't they done enough studies on this? Isn't the sleeping portion, which 30 is a good time because you probably spend five to 10 falling asleep.

20 is supposed to be the sweet spot. Isn't that, haven't we proven this? That's what I've seen. Now, it depends on how sleep deprived you are, and you may need more, but usually if I take an app, I mean, if I do an hour or two hours, I wake up and I feel terrible. I'm like in a bad mood.

Yeah, I just don't feel good. 30 minutes and I feel incredible. And I've seen this with clients as well. And that isn't that because it's keeping you from falling into REM, right? Yeah. Once you fall into REM, you get that't because it's keeping you from falling into REM, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Once you fall into REM, you get that deeper. That's where you want to go longer. And if you are, if you're

trying to interrupt it. Right. And then you interrupt it, then you feel worse than what you did. Yeah. So some tips here with this is to set up the, the nap so that you can at least, so you know you might be able to fall asleep. But don't put pressure on yourself. Which times? Why I like brain FM recognition because they actually have times like that. You can have guided meditation.

You can have specific nap times. You've set the time. So when that thing's done playing in your ears, you're done. So here's what I do for me, right? I know that if I go into my bedroom with everything blacked out or whatever, I may get into deep of a sleep and then I wake up and I feel too groggy. Now, my wife is very different.

She needs that because it's hard for her to get into an app. So you got to feel this out for yourself. Personally, what I'll do is I'll go in the living room, close the shades so that it's darker, but not dark. Then I'll sit back on the couch, put brain FM on, set my timer. But you're such a nominally when it comes out. This is still just being the front seat navigating.

He could be, music could be played play cars could be whizzing by it Could be daylight outside this fool could fall asleep in the front seat It's amazing. Yeah, what do they call that? It was like a term for that like soldier like I can fall asleep like a soldier I've heard someone tell you that thing. Yeah, yeah, because there's this thing like with like soldiers in war like they have to They'd be able to sleep standing up or whatever extent have times to oh interesting.. Oh, interesting. I mean, I'm trying to make myself sound cool. It's not cool. I feel like a soldier of sleep. It's like I'm a Navy SEAL.

Well, I'm kind of like a warrior. Kind of like a Navy SEAL when you think about it. I don't have any of the other skills. Just a sleeping one. It is a superpower though. It really is, because you, you of all of us do have this ability. I've seen you do it before, where we're all together.

And you like, are not, we can all be in a league. I've seen this before. We've all been in the living room at our trucky house. I'll talk to you in business. Sal is nodding off. He sleeps with him and then you say something or you act like you're gonna do something to him and he snaps right at it.

Huh, right, then right back in the conversation. Well, I'm similar, I mean, in terms of like having to have a little bit of light. Like I can't have it like super dark. And also I like you having music or I'll do brain of fam or something that's sort of guiding it. So it's not just like,

it's not mimicking the same type of sleep that I'm getting at night because otherwise, then I'm like, I feel like I want to keep going. Now, naps is interesting. That's to spend too much time on naps, but naps are a part of a lot of old cultures. They're quite beneficial. Like, you look at Mediterranean cultures, you look at some old, like even Asian cultures, they're quite beneficial. Like, you look at Mediterranean cultures,

you look at some old, like even Asian cultures, it's a part of their culture to take a short nap. Because it's CESTA's? Yeah, in the late afternoon. Now, I can't do this, I don't have, sometimes I do this actually, I should say. Now that we, now with our work schedule, I get an opportunity to do this,

but my ideal day would always involve a 40 minute nap. If I had the perfect day. Well, is it a lie that, is it a lie where it is, where it shuts the scene? Yes, it works like 12 to 2 or so. They used to, that's still not a thing. Well, I mean, if you go in the South, people still tend to do this, but I mean, people.

Oh, I thought I heard that it's still like that, where you can't go like, stores are all shut down from 12 to 12. That would be like in the South. Oh, really? I'll do that kind of stuff. I would love to be able to do so on a regular basis. Yeah, I know, pretty good. You were right. Man, it's'll do that kind of stuff. I would love to be able to do so on a regular basis. Yeah, I know.

You're right. I mean, it's right about that time coming out. Right about one through two. So I was like, oh, I've got a little bit more time in me than I need to get out of here. And then I wake up and I'm good. This next one, you find this in maps and a ballic. And they're called, we call them trigger sessions. I've heard other people talk about stuff like this. I've heard people call them feeder sessions or many workouts, but essentially micrida sessions. Yeah, if you don't own a map centabolic,

a trigger session is like a five to eight minute, really light band workout, where you just get blood and in the muscle, you feel it burn a little bit, but you're not really working out, and you kind of train the body a little bit, and then that has been, well, at least in my experience, and I've seen this with clients, really facilitates recovery.

There's this belief, and this is true for extreme cases of overtraining, where you don't want to move, and this is when you're like sick, or you've got like a rabdo, where you've just totally breaking down muscles to the point where you might need to be hospitalized. Otherwise, if you're overtrained,

like if your legs are super sore, one of the best things you could do is really light leg movements. And you'll feel right away, the improvement in recovery trigger sessions really helped to do so. I think this is one of the reasons why they're so effective in our MAPS and a BOLOG program is I think that they, not only they maintain that muscle building signal, but they make recovery happen a little bit faster.

So blood circulation, that's what you need to spark that healing recovery process. And so to keep that just enough, so you get like a pump, so you're like moving blood flow through to be able to facilitate that, I think you know, your movement's gonna promote that. I think they have an even bigger impact that it's hard to measure in the individual

because of the variance in every individual, like what it does, but personally, what I've seen with myself and clients is when you do these trigger sessions like that, it also promotes more movement throughout the rest of the day. And that is like, you talk about how important that is to recovery as far as facilitating the blood flow and the nutrients and getting that all going. And everyone that's lifted for an extended period of time had these days where you over train and you don't wanna move.

You're like, oh, you're stiff getting up, you plop down, it's like, it is not motivating to move when you were that sore and you're that tight. Then I'll send you do like a trigger session like that, get that blood flowing, and also now you have this new energy, and so it's not only that immediate little trigger session that has a positive impact, but then on the rest of the day,

I'm more likely to move around and do more things because I did that trigger session that has a positive impact. But then on the rest of the day, I'm more likely to move around and do more things because I did that trigger session. So I think it's really hard to measure how this has been something that I really didn't implement in my life until we all got together because you built it into anabolic and became like, okay, I better utilize these and see what the benefits. It's been tremendous. Yeah, it's interesting to, you feel this naturally, when you're sitting a lot more, how much more your body resists,

getting out of that state. It's just, it's crazy. If you just get up and you're constantly, at least kind of moving and being active and doing things like light things, it's so much easier to then take you in that state to then move into something a little more intense. It was my secret hack when I was competing

to keep my step count up. One of the things I've, to your exactly the point you're making Justin right now is as I was like progressing through my training and I had to be a little more active, a little more active, a little more active. And I have, I'm just like anybody else, I have those days where I plop down after a long day of work,

I just wanna sit on the couch and veg out, watch TV for a little bit. I would just make this rule like, okay, I needed like every couple hours, and I had the back then, I used to have the bands just hanging from like a door, that was right in my living room by my TV, that I had to just get up and do that, and what it would end up happening, just because I got up, did a couple chest flies or band curls or lateral raises real quick.

Now, I'll be more apt to go do something else, then I'd get out and go walk, or go do a training session. It was a huge hack for me Yeah, you know, it's funny. I first experience. I don't know this is what I'm experiencing but I first experience This is a kid I haven't told the story a long time, but years ago I read this silly article where someone said that Arnold built his legs You know, I think an inch on his legs because he went to the woods and did squats all day I remember this and drank a bunch of milk literally I read this story and I thought to pick me up and I'd miss the day after school. I literally woke up and yelled for my mom for my room. I can't get out of bed. My legs were all wet.

I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I was like, I'm going to go me up and I'd miss the day after school

I literally woke up and yelled for my mom for my room. I can't get out of bed my legs will move So sort of yeah, so my mom was like so mad at me She's like fine right well the next day you know how it is. It's even worse. You're a more sort of the next day So I said I can't and my mom was like no, we're gonna get you out So she's like I'm sorry, but we're gonna stretch your legs and move you to see if you feel better and Sure enough she forced me at the end of a wooden spoon. So I keep it up and I did. I moved my legs and stretch and I was like, oh wow, I can walk again just because I was stretching

and moving and doing a little bit. She maybe do some light body weight squats and all that stuff and I'm like, don't make me do this, mom. So I keep better do this. But it worked. I felt myself feel much better. That takes us to the next one, which is very closely related, which are mobility sessions or mobility work.

Now, the difference between mobility work and trigger sessions are with trigger sessions, you're kind of aiming for a little bit of a pump. Mobility work, you're just trying to move through full ranges of motion. You're just trying to fully express your body through full ranges of motion. Why does mobility work help with recovery? Because it tells your body that you're safe. It tells your body not to be so unguarded. One of the things that happens when you over train

a little bit, everything tightens up because your body's like, don't- It's unfamiliar. It's like don't move too much. We gotta keep make sure you're gonna be okay. Because it doesn't know that you're gonna go and do some light mobility work at things. You're gonna do another hard workout.

So trying to prevent you from doing that again, right? Mobility work tells your body, hey, it's cool. You don't need to stay slightly tensed. And because you're not staying slightly tensed, we can now use those resources for faster and better recovery. So, mobility work a little bit different than trigger sessions in that particular room.

Well, we all kind of feel this when we lose balance, or we go for a step and the step isn't there, and then our body kind of freaks out and has to kind of adjust to you. Yeah, and you feel that response. And it's very similar to any kind of range of motion that your body is just not familiar with that range of motion. It just doesn't live in that range very often,

but to be able to kind of zoom into that and show, you know, and familiarize your body with the fact that you know, you could be strong support in your, and you've really focused on getting the reps of, of having your body respond to twisting movements to, you know, your arm in a position where it's, you know, reaching behind you and an overhead and be able to feel strong and confident supported in that, your body's going to then take that into your workouts and have a totally different response. I remember reading Kelly Starrett's what supple-up herd and then meeting with Dr. Brink and going

through that whole assessment with him and it forever-changing. At this point, I'm already, what, 10, 12 years into being a personal trainer already or more than that. And going through that process forever changed how I like it never warmed up the same way for a session ever again because of that, because of the benefits that I found from mobility. And I find it faster and easier. Like once you figure out like how to prime the body like that and help speed up and facilitate recovery through movement It becomes easier and more fun. I mean I

Enjoy now where I used to never do stupid things like that I just get down on the ground real quick and kind of move around and push my knees over my toes and sit in that kind of squat and Scroll position like those weren't things that I had adopted earlier on in my lifting career, that have now become a staple, and I find it easier, more fun, more comfortable to do that, and I know that how much it helps with recovery. There's less things you fight in the workout too.

You know, otherwise you're like, okay, about now is where my knee's gonna start talking to me, and my shoulder's gonna do this. And, you know, if you're addressing those things constantly, your body feels supported, safe, and stable, and it adds into the performance of what you're doing. So to give an example of the difference between trigger sessions and a mobility type session or work, let's say I'm going to focus on my shoulders for recovery. A trigger session might be band laterals, really light band route laterals get a little bit of a pump. Mobility for the shoulders would be like a stick dislocate or shoulder dislocate.

So both kind of focusing on the similar area, both feel very different. I would say play them around with each, see which one you like better. I tend to think if I have more recovery demands, in other words, if I pushed it a little even further past what I need to do, I'm going to go more towards mobility work. If it's just a to do. I'm gonna go more towards mobility work. If it's just a little over then I'll go more towards trigger sessions. That's just my personal experience

or my personal opinion. All right, this next one is really good. This might require help from someone else, although they have devices now that you can do some of this on your own, but it don't want to replace what you'll get with somebody who's skilled. And that's deep tissue massage. Really, really good deep tissue massage from a skilled practitioner is incredibly valuable.

And I had a personal experience that changed my mind forever on this. I had a massage therapist. It was very good at correctional exercise, work in my facility. And at the time, I was doing a lot of jujitsuitsu in Judo and I was getting a lot of tennis elbow. Remember I'm a trainer at this time so I know stretching and I know exercising my hands and my forms but you know Jiu-Jitsu and Judo are so grip intensive and it was just oh my god always and I would ice them I'd have to ice them every workout I'd have to like stretch the hell out of them before every workout so I can even do exercises. And I just couldn't figure it out.

And I was too hard headed to take time off. I'm like, I don't want to take time off. I'm going to miss my training. Well, anyway, she's like, Sal, schedule an appointment with me. I'll spend an hour on just working on your forearms. And I kind of put it off because I'm like, massage, what are you going to do with massage? Like, I know what this is. I'm over-trained.

That's not going to help me. Well, anyway, she cornered me. She's like, either you value me or you don't. She actually told me this. Let me do this for you. So all right. So she spent an hour on my forms and real deep tissue massage is intense.

It's not like a, I'm not relaxing. That's not screwable. No, no, no, no, no. I had my forms on the table. So I was sitting sideways from the table. And I remember halfway through, I'm like, this isn't good, she's hurting me. This is not, anyway.

Well anyway, this is 100% true. My tennis elbow gone, one session gone, never came back after that, and that was it, I was totally sold. So I have my own personal experience with this. Yeah, so this was the one thing on your list that I saw that cost money. Yeah, everything else you can pretty much put together

at your house. Because you marry one. Yeah, like I did, right? So that was a- A official stop doing it. I mean, he's a, there's cost to that. But she gets you marry, that's it. Watch that, you know, watch him,

they're clever like that. You know, and there is, there's a very big difference between a Swedish massage and a deep tissue slash sports massage. And a good sports massage, they'll actually take you through like kind of PNF stretching, they'll find the target areas where the muscle is in that state of tonus that you're talking about where the CNS is basically

locking it all up. And they'll release that. And man, that makes a huge difference. In fact, when I was going through competing, this was during the time the Katrina was still massaging me consistently. I got away with a lot of overtraining because I consistently was getting massaged. I mean, because there's been times after that where I've tried to increase the volume to that, it's like, why can't I not handle this? You know what's weird? I want to say this.

You know what I noticed after a really deep, like really good deep tissue massage that I didn't realize? I got a pump at the end of it. I would get off the table and I would have a little bit of a pump. And that's partly because why they opened shit up and had blood flow in. I mean, obviously that's going to make a big impact. And again, the therapist that I worked with, I could see it with my clients. I could train someone a little harder because they were going to meet with her.

If they didn't, I'd have to scale back the intensity. The other thing that's nice about this one, that's like, because like when we talk about trigger sessions and mobility sessions, I mean, you can somewhat feel that difference immediately, but sometimes it's prolonged what you see, the benefits or it's so little that the average person, you get a really good tissue massage when you're locked up like that, like the relief is instant. Right, right. Yeah. Plus there's areas that are hard to work on, like the traps and neck, like, oh, how do I get

that to stretch and work? I mean, you can, but you got to kind of have skill when a good therapist can use their elbow and get right in there. Yeah, so it's, it's good. So by the way, on your own, this isn't going to replace a good therapist, but on your own, you know, foam rollers, lacrosse balls,

those kind of devices can somewhat bring some of this kind of relief where you're pressing on the, now the key, by the way, and I do wanna say this, I did learn this, I'm sure you know this too. When you're pressing on a tight muscle, don't hold your breath. No. That's actually telling your body to stay tight.

I didn't realize that. So like when she was hammering on my forearms, she's like, whoa, you breathe. Because that's the mechanism whenever you're facing anything in tense, is like, you wanna lock up, but yeah, you gotta be able to relax your way. She's like, I'm trying to tell your body to relax, you're telling your body not to relax.

Oh, that's why I'm just- It's conflicting information. To that point, I actually, so that was one of the things, because I was like a not really a massage guy until I met Katrina, then became like this massage snob about it. And I saw the meditative benefits from it, because you have to learn to do that.

She had to cause me a breath, breathe, like teaching me to breathe that she's benefits from it, because you have to learn to do that. She had to cause a breathe, breathe, like teaching me to breathe that she's going through it. And it's wild to think like the type of massage that I could handle when we first met to where now, where it's like, you can dig enemy, like really, really hard. And I've learned to relax while that's happening. And I feel like I can get way more relief

because I've learned to do that. The same thing like with the cold therapy, the first time you get in it, it's like, and you can't breathe, but as you get better and better at learning to breathe through it, I think the benefits increase. You're right, you're right. You're right.

But does she ever hammer? I just wanna say, do she ever hammer this part of your neck right here where they turn your neck and put their elbow? Oh, I'm good. Oh God. I was like, this is good. That and all the way down the levator scapula, I used to have such a hard time accessing that.

Try it with one of those lacrosse balls. Like, again, like just to get somebody to manually kind of work through that is so valuable. Incredible. All right, this next one, you can get carried away with it. And there's a saying in the muscle building world that I don't like, which is,

there's no such thing as over-trained, just under-eating, that's not true. I don't care how much you eat, you can over-trained. However, there's, like a lot of sayings, there's some, a kernel of truth in that. And that is, when you find yourself at the point of, you know, you're a little over-trained or you've gone just a little too hard,

one way you can kind of hack into recovery a little bit is just to increase your calories that day, in particular proteins. One higher calorie day for me, I can feel a difference when I'm tiptoeing that line of too much and the right amount. I like how you set the table for this because actually a lot of hard plateaus that I have found people in is because of that. And I think that's where that saying in the body building world gets a little bit of street cred because a lot of times when you

Assess somebody like oh wow you were just hammering the shit of your body and you're not feeding it enough Like let's scale back a little bit of intensity increase those calories and wham I see somebody come out of a plateau and now some they start putting muscle this I was this person like I for sure was the kid Training super hard sometimes double days, seven days a week, and then, and moving all day long, and just not feeding my body enough, simply scaling back on the intensity, increasing calories, made a huge difference in me building muscles.

So I like you addressing it that way, because there is some truth to that whole saying, although I think it's abused. It's also not a free-for-all day, that's not what I'm talking about. Because if you're over trained, the worst thing you could do is then say, omnipotent calories, and go eat a bunch of garbage and increase inflammation.

What I mean, the best way to do this is to take what you normally eat and just eat more of that the day that you wanna improve or speed up your recovery. All right, this next one, sound silly. This might have been considered an old wife's tail back in the day, but now we have lots of

studies and evidence to show that they were right, and that is to get some sun. Get some sunlight. Remember back in the day, oh, you don't feel good, oh, you're tired, oh, you're getting sick, go outside and get some fresh air, right? And then for a while people are like, oh, that's an old wives tale, doesn't do anything. No, it turns out getting sun, especially in the morning, early, or late morning, sets your circadian rhythm. It helps release anti-inflammatory chemicals in the body, reduces inflammation, improves or increases vitamin D production.

It can help you synthesize anabolic hormones. Like getting some sunlight is a great way to help you. Well, they know this in the hospital setting. I mean, when Courtney was in the pediatric unit, they had literally a playground outside, so they could, at any moment, they could cycle through kids that were in need of healing and recovering.

It's sped up the healing process because they're outside in the sun, they're getting fresh air. That's stale, you know, that air, the type of lighting and everything, the institutional setting is just not conducive towards the body's needs. I also think that this is all that we know too. I still think there's unknown benefits.

I agree. Being out in the sunlight and nature. I just, and anybody who's ever experimented consistently with it, it's probably can speak to say, like, I can feel a difference and I know a difference. I sleep better when I do that. I sleep better when I do that. I feel better when I do that. Energy level is better.

Moody is, I mean, there's so many things that, and yes, scientists came through for us and has proven some things like circadian rhythm, proven things like vitamin D. We know low vitamin D levels are also connected to like low testosterone. We know the benefits of testosterone when it comes to building muscle.

So there's some connections that we've made that are now obvious to us, but I still think there's even unknown powers and things of being out in the sun. And we'll keep learning more, but we do know that like being in the dark all the time, we know enough now. Get your ass out there. Yeah, and we know, look, okay, and this is a pretty, I think, reasonable observation. Like if you are in the dark all the time, I mean consider human evolution, it meant that you were alone in the cave

away from the group, probably because you were sick or infectious and your body, or scared, or dying and your body starts to get that signal. You go outside, the body gets the signal, like all right, we need to pick things up, speed up recovery, make this person feel a little better. So it makes a big difference. And you know, back in the day, it's funny. There were, we need to pick things up, speed up recovery, make this person feel a little better. So it makes a big difference. And you know, back in the day, it's funny.

There were, I saw these old pictures from, I wanna say the early 1900s, where there's, what's the disorder? Is it rickets when kids had too low of item and D? I wanna say it was called rickets. Yeah, rickets, or, no, no, no, no, no. Rickets where you're, yeah, you're in, rickets for them. They had these, so there were hospitals in New York City. So you know, New York, the way it's built, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, a little better. So, pretty interesting stuff. Alright, so this next one sounds like it might have nothing to do with recovery, but actually

has quite a bit to do with it. And that is to meditate or maybe have some kind of a meditative or spiritual practice. Now, why is that? Because if your body is in a high level of stress during your exercise and you've overdone it a little bit, one of the best things you can do is when you're not doing the exercise is to bring your body in a much more recuperative state, or at least reduce the general stress that you have during the day

because that'll impact your recovery. So literally a 10, 15 minute meditative session can bring all that stuff down and help facilitate and speed up recovery. Yeah, because it's easy based off of like modern day life now to constantly being that sympathetic state where you're just, whether it's on your phone, and you're reacting to something, you're on driving, and you're just, you know, tense or you're thinking about

something, you have a relationship you're dealing with, that, you know, there's friction there, whatever it is, like you could carry a lot of that, that similar type of energy with you and to not be able to break that up and really get in, because you're not going to fully recover until you get into this parasympathetic state where it's a totally different operating system dealing with stress. And so to be able to figure out how to start practicing this and be intentional about being mindful, mindful practice and breathing and these types of things to be able to counter that and step out of that state of stress.

You need to figure that out. I'm going to sound all as a tariff because I just said it with the sunlight and now I'm going to say with meditation, but I think there's another area that we're still learning. I still feel, I feel, and we're starting to, and we're slowly realizing how important it is, especially to your point, Justin, that we are with our phones, with this constant, low-level stress. These are all new problems. Yeah, these are.

We didn't have it 100 plus years ago, and we're starting to realize that, okay, we've always known that meditation has been in all these long spiritual practices, and we know that there's been benefits to it, but I don't think we realize how much and how important it's becoming in today's time, and we're still learning that. So I think we have to schedule it. We're barely scratching surface on this.

Look, here's a deal, okay. Just go back to when we were a kid. You don't have to go back a hundred years. Go back to when we were a kid's. There were lots of opportunities for you to think about bigger picture stuff. Now, it isn't guarantee that you're gonna do that and be bored.

Well, that's what I mean. It doesn't guarantee it, right? So you still had to make that choice, but if you're waiting in line at the store, when we were kids, you sat there, and if it was a long line, well, it opened up an opportunity to think about the bigger picture. You went to the bathroom every day.

It sat in silence. Or every day. Oh yeah, you You went to the bathroom every day. It sat in silence. Yeah, or every day. Oh yeah, you ever go to the bathroom now without your phone? No. Hey, slide the phone on the door. I don't have my phone. I can't go to the bathroom. I want to go to the bathroom without it.

It's a fact. It's true. Or you're walking somewhere. You walk to your friend's house, right? Or you're driving somewhere. You don't have all these distractions. Or you're in a waiting room or anywhere, right? You have all these opportunities to have these kind of thoughts, right?

So you need to just get a schedule, just get a schedule exercise. Now it's the same thing. Like you used to be active 100 years ago on accident. Now you have to schedule exercise. I think it's important to schedule time for you to think about the bigger picture. And what that does is it takes you out of today's stress

and it can start to bring things down and put things in perspective. That's prayer, prayer does that, right? When you're praying, what you're praying for are bigger picture things and studies will show it does. Bring that, that general anxiety, that general stress kind of down a little bit. All right, this last one is more of a dietary one.

And really it's to lower general inflammation, okay? And that is to increase your fish intake and vegetable intake. Now fish, obviously high in omega-3 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Vegetables can do the same thing, unless you're intolerant to the vegetables in which case in cause inflammation, but if not, it lowers general inflammation. Now, inflammation, I do want to say this is not a bad thing. I want to be very clear.

It's a very important signal in the body. The only time you want a naturally lower inflammation and pay attention to is when, like I said, when you pushed it just a little bit past, in which case, you can bring it down by doing these things. This fish one is one that I haven't done this in a long time, but I used to do it quite a bit when I was over trained. I would make sure to eat a lot of salmon

and sardines that day. And I would notice, I would notice a reduction in my soreness and my stiffness. Well, isn't this what most your, you know, quote unquote anti-inflammatory diets are comprised of this fish and vegetables? And that's like the state biggest benefits for them. Right. I mean, there's greens and yeah, definitely. Right, right. That's most of what I mean, I think, and I think one of the biggest takeaways, I know that omega-3s are important and the anti-inflammatory properties of that. But I even think, and I think one of the biggest takeaways, I know that Omega-3s are important and the anti-inflammatory properties of that. But I even think just the promoting the protein,

which you brought up earlier, I think, is probably one of the most common things. I think people already grossly under eat protein and take on a consistent basis. And then if you add in the fact that you're overreaching and over training, one of the best things you could possibly do is make sure you're hitting adequate protein. And I think targeting things like fish and veggies

is a great strategy. So I used to literally, I used to do this all the time. I don't quite, I don't quite. I know I don't train where I pass over training as often as I used to and I used to only because I was far more intense with my workouts, I would do things like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling and judo, which if you're training in a class,

I'm not gonna tell my partner, you know, hey, we gotta go easy today, you know, we're gonna go hard, if I'm going against someone who's going hard, I'm gonna go hard. And so I would do this when I knew I overdid it. Like if I trained that day, and I'd be like, oh man, I overdid it, the next day, all I would eat, I used to do so all the time,

all I would eat was fish and vegetables. Like my whole day, all my meals are gonna consist of fish and vegetables, and I would notice, all my meals are gonna consist of fish and vegetables. And I would notice a dramatic reduction in stiffness and so on. So this is something that you can definitely implement. And most people don't eat enough fish, most people eat enough vegetables.

So even if you don't feel like you need a recovery hack, this probably a good thing. And just overall digestion in terms of like being able to kind of work through that. Sometimes it's good to step away, you know, and eat some things that are a little easier to digest and also to with the fiber and up in your fiber intake from vegetables that helps a lot with that, just so that your body isn't just fighting things internally on top of the stressor care.

By the way, fish sticks don't count. Just want to say that. It's really tough. You see it dipping in his ketchup. You try to get fat, you better recover it. No, it doesn't count. All right, look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides.

We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump.sau. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, just in, add them is on Instagram at my pump atom and you can find me on Twitter at my pump cell. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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