Got recovery? You know, like those old “Got Milk?” ads, but instead of milk it’s recovery. Anyways, before that jokes goes sour, recovery is important. So, let’s talk about it. Even though we typically think of training as a good stress, or eustress, it’s still a form of stress that we must recover from to benefit from. All the training in the world won’t matter if we’re not recovering from said training. Stress also comes from different life stressors such as: our relationships, our career, that crazy neighbor’s dog that keeps you up all night barking, etc.

All these stressors, the good and the bad, will take a toll on us. If our recovery strategies aren’t up to par and we’re training hard consistently, then we’re inevitably going to hit a wall at some point. If you’re not seeing the progress you like ask yourself, “How is my recovery?” Because it may not be that you aren’t training hard enough, but that you haven’t been recovering hard enough.

Before we discuss different modalities for recovery though, and which are more important than others, I’d like to share a story. I’m unsure of where this story originated from and there are different iterations of it that have been shared, but it’s a powerful story. The story can feel a bit jarring at times and things get a little rocky, but it’s a valuable lesson.

 

Big Rocks

A philosophy professor walked into his classroom and set a big empty jar on the table. He filled it full of big rocks all the way to the top, then he asked the class if it was full. When they said, “yes, the jar is full,” he poured small pebbles into the jar filling it up even more. Once again, he asked if it was full and they said, “yes, the jar is full.” He then took sand and filled the jar up even more yet again.

He explained to them how the big rocks are the important things in our life that we value most. We should prioritize and put these things first, and the pebbles and sand are of lesser significance. If we don’t prioritize well and fill our jar with sand and pebbles first, then there is no room for the things that truly matter, our big rocks.

 

Diagram From Dr. Jacob Harden’s Prehab 101 Course

 

The Big Rocks of Recovery

When we use this analogy to relate to recovery we can call our big rocks “objective” recovery, and our pebbles and sand “subjective” recovery. The above diagram is a slide from Dr. Jacob Harden’s Prehab 101 course that I’m sharing with his permission, because it illustrates a simple way to understand what our big rocks are. To break down the big rocks from this slide we have the following:

• Rest/Fatigue management: Adding an extra “rest” day from training or reducing the overall training volume
• Sleep: how much sleep you get and the quality of that sleep
• Nutrition: both quantity and quality of the food and drinks you consume
• Hydration: Drinking enough water for your needs
• Manage psychological stress: The mental/emotional stressors we have in our life

These big rocks must come first because they are the things that will help us mitigate stress and recover from the stressors we place on our bodies with training (and other life stressors too). The pebbles and sand matter too, but we must focus on the big rocks first. All the foam rolling, massage, and stretching in the world won’t do much to help you recover if you eat like a 5-year-old and sleep like a Giraffe (they sleep 2 hours a night on average). 

 

Prioritizing Recovery Strategies

We all understand the importance of getting 8 hours of sleep a night. We all understand it’s important to eat enough protein, eat fruits and vegetable, etc. We also know anecdotally that things like massages, foam rolling, and stretching make us feel better after doing them. But, does that mean these will help us recover from hard training better than other modalities? Not necessarily.

Not everything is equal when it comes to recovery. Sometimes we do things with the hope they will help us move and feel better, yet they are only short term fixes for a long term problem. “I’m sore and feeling beat up all the time, I should go get a massage,” we think. When instead we should first ask ourselves, “How’s my sleep?” “How’s my nutrition?” “Am I training exercising way too much?”

We’ll go to the gym and stretch for 15-20 minutes after our workout, but we won’t get to bed 15-20 minutes earlier. We flop around on foam rollers, invest in cryotherapy, etc., all the while not eating with the intent to fuel our recovery and aid our overall health. At times we do this because it seems easier. It’s easier to pay for a 30-minute massage than to give up our TV time at night to get to bed earlier. Or maybe because we didn’t know these things don’t help as much as we were led to believe.  

 

 

There’s nothing wrong with these subjective recovery strategies either if you like them. If stretching after a workout makes you feel better knock yourself out (not literally though, that wouldn’t help). But, the objective recovery modalities, the big rocks, must come first.

The big rocks also matter more when they are truly needed. Meaning when we are training hard and often. Of course, getting enough sleep, eating well, etc., will always be beneficial, but if we’re not training hard consistently, we don’t need to worry as much from a recovery standpoint. When we’re training hard though, then we will have to put more thought into our objective recovery strategies. Once those big rocks are dumped into the jar then we can consider the pebbles and sand.

 

Train hard, but…

When we train hard we must recover harder if we want to get the most out of that training. So, we focus on our big rocks (objective modalities). We take an honest assessment of our sleep patterns, nutrition, hydration, etc., and start there first. If those are all sufficient and we don’t feel beat up all the time and sore, then get a massage. Foam roll and stretch if you want to. Just make sure you don’t fill up your jar with pebbles and sand first and leave yourself wondering why you feel sore and achy all the time. Big rocks first.