Categories

Life Lift

About the Author

Katie
Katie Chasey is a personalized training programmer and the head coach of the RXBound Training Team, where she is an Olympic Lifting, Russian Kettlebell, and all around Strength and Conditioning Coach.

She has an extensive background as an elite-level show jumper, volleyball player, and swimmer and has competed in a variety of sports both in the United States and internationally.
... show more ...

Other Articles by Katie

Archive

Recently Added

Proper Recovery is Active Recovery

by: Katie Chasey

In my last couple of articles, I have discussed the concepts of overtraining versus under recovering and the difference between overuse and fatigue. Let me add in the final piece of this puzzle: proper recovery.

Proper recovery eliminates the concept of “overtraining,” protects the body and muscles against overuse, and decreases the risk for fatigue. I've already touched on the importance of having a personalized training program, being aware of your stressors, the importance of sleep, proper diet, and movement Now let’s actively recover the body.

What is Active Recovery?

Proper recovery is active recovery. Active recovery regenerates muscle tissue and this is relevant to fixing the musculoskeletal system, especially when it seems to be broken. Proper recovery can strengthen and restore function to the appropriate muscles that are needed to help heal pain of lost cartilage or painful joints.

Contrary to poplar belief, even cartilage can be deliberately regenerated when we restore function and eliminate damaging joint stress caused by musculoskeletal misalignment. The same can be said for blood cells (restored each month), tissue (the liver can lose 80% of tissue mass to do so), and even brain cells by way of firing neurons regenerating.

Recovery for Athletes

There is hope for sore muscles and achy joints. When you break things down, you can build them back up. If you leave the body broken, neglect the body’s systems, and stop restoring it to its proper function, you will eventually break it down. Training is really a breaking down and rebuilding of muscle. But, that muscle must receive the nutrients, oxygen, and “have room to breathe” -  the muscle needs to grow. Without properly recovering, we suffocate the system. Muscles give the body a working paradigm for all tissue and therefore, it really is a “use it or lose it” scenario. This is why I mentioned that there is danger in “rest”(non-movement) and benefit in actively recovering (movement). Muscle tissue breathes on stimulation and suffocates in stagnation.

The River of Renewal

The body’s highest priority is to keep itself alive. Think of the body like a river. When we are stagnant, this river gets polluted. It is not the river that is bad, it is our lack of care for it. Polluted rivers stink and, sticking with this analogy, that is the body’s way (by pain and stiffness, not stinking) of telling us it needs a cleaning. This “flushing” of the system is not done by medications or drugs but is done by proper care from the start that ultimately prevents the desperate use for medications.

Four Elements of Proper Recovery

Sleep

Sleep does not just stand on its’ own, but insufficient sleep can also be a symptom. Lack of movement, a poor diet, and dehydration are relevant to poor sleep patterns, thereby making insufficient sleep a symptom (*which can also be a cause) of not recovering. Believe it or not, the body even regards acute sleep deprivation as a precursor to death because the internal systems can no longer function. You are not a superwoman or an elite athlete just because you can “get by on just four hours” of sleep. Be aware of your hydration levels, your diet, and your stress, adjust accordingly, and allow the body to get its necessary 8-10hours of sleep on a 24hr cycle.

Diet

Food is the body’s fuel. It once was the hunters and gatherers, farmers, and herders that were the most active. The more they performed these activities, the better they ate. Stagnant bodies become weak and obese (and along with obesity comes disease). Conversely, active bodies reap the rewards of strength and good health. One thing leads to another - lack of motion breeds poor nutrition (think about how much worse you eat when you're not training) and poor nutrition gives birth to musculoskeletal dysfunction.

The ingredients we ingest hold the key to true health. Soft drinks (liquid candy), artificial stimulants such as caffeine, low-fat diets, genetically-modified foods, packaged and processed foods, pesticides and other chemicals that are so common in today’s diets, are not created for a body designed to feed on “real” food.

My ultimate rule for those just starting to get their nutrition under control is “simple is better.” An apple has one ingredient. Water is perhaps the best-kept secret; not coffee, tea, flavored water, just pure water. There isn’t a single bodily process that doesn’t depend on it.

Movement

If you can’t sleep at night, you might not be getting enough physical exercise during the day. The body needs to release endorphins and other neurochemicals during the day to set the body and mind up for sleep. This is where personal programming comes in handy. Have a custom-tailored workout program made for you that allows for enough exercise and movement in the day but that does not allow for stress to interfere by doing too much too fast and under pressure.

Heat and Sweat, and Ice

The skin is the body’s largest organ. Merocrine sweat glands (all 2-5 million) release water and a number of metabolized drugs (and electrolytes) and protect the body from environmental hazards by flushing them from the surface. Therefore, the skin is a primary way of excreting toxins from the inside-out. I highly encourage the use of saunas as a part of the recovery process. There is also tremendous benefit to sweating by running or similar movement. These activities clear the skin by opening up the skin’s pores, allowing the body to breathe and flush out toxins built up in and living within the tissues.

Under high heat, the body releases endorphins (a natural pain relieving chemical in the body that also helps with sleep) and causes blood vessels to dilate. Circulation increases and this increased blood flow accelerates the body’s natural healing process that reduces muscle tension and eliminates lactic acid and other toxins.

Ice

Cryotherapy, or "cold therapy" constricts blood vessels and decreases metabolic activity. While this might not sound like something that you would want to do to the body, it is essential to proper recovery.

There is no precise protocol but it is widely accepted that water temperature should be between 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit and immersion time should be between 10 to 20 minutes. As soon as the skin is out of the ice water, the tissues beneath the surface immediately begin to warm up. With that comes a similar result as the heat does in that it increases blood flow which helps return the byproducts of cellular breakdown to the lymph system. The lymphatic system is the “pipe system” that moves toxins and other harmful metabolic debris around in the body for efficient recycling. However, unlike the heart, the lymph system does not have a pump and therefore needs to be stimulated. This is only one way to do so. Ice tubs or ice baths are great for targeting large groups of muscles simultaneously.

Coach’s Note: My preferred recovery day is a great morning run to get the lymphatic system going and the body moving followed by some good protein and greens. Then I hit up my favorite recovery spot…a local Russian-style bath house where there are five “baths” closely lined up. I am guilty of spending up to 6 hours there myself (which is more than enough for most) going from the  sauna to the ice tub. I heard once from a Russian coach that you do not leave the sauna until 100 drops of sweat fall off the tip of the nose. I count.

After 100 drops in the sauna I rinse quickly and hit the ice tub. I am not a “plunger” as many are, but prefer to sit in the ice water and watch the clock in until it is time to move on to the salt water pool. I do several rounds. Note: it is vital to rinse between each pool! I see far too many people forget this part, carrying their excreted toxins from the sauna right into the ice water. Another great idea to enhance the detox process and to open up the pores of the skin is to bring along a scrub glove and to skin brush as you rinse.

I carry plenty of pure water with me (do not take plastic bottles into the sauna as heat causes plastic to leak toxins into the water) and I hydrate all day long on both water and coconut water (to restore the electrolytes lost) with a little protein. I take a short break for tea in the tea room (I play an occasional game of chess) and then go back for the second part of my recovery day. I hydrate all evening and sleep stress-free soundly. I recommend a day like this once a week at a minimum.

Train well, eat well, recover well!





CATEGORY: Training