How much Recovery is enough ?

Recovery methods have many purposes aside from helping our bodies heal from the strains of intense exercise. They are part of the balance formula.

RULE: For every hour spent in strenuous exercise, you need to devote half of that time to recovery methods. For example: If you workout 4 hours a week, then 2 hours a week goes to a massage (1 hour), sauna (20 minutes), ART session (15 minutes) and hot/cold showers after training (25 minutes). This is not hard to adhere to if you approach it as smaller pieces of time.

During extra crazy times, the recovery activities (working in or within) are even MORE important than the exercise activities (working out).

Training provides us with the opportunities to challenge ourselves and recovery methods give us the reflective time to learn from those challenging experiences.

Recovery Methods (examples)

Active Release Technique
Mud / Epsom / Sea Salt Bath Sauna (dry)
Hot/Cold Shower
Yoga
Meditation
Reiki
Acupuncture
Cranial Sacral
Massage
Facial, Manicure, Pedicure
Deep Breathing exercises
Stretching
No TV / Computer at night
Extra sleep