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I wanted to open a discussion about optimizing recovery. Hoping to find out what most people do on this forum to make sure they are getting the most out of their workouts.

I assume that 80% of recovery comes from amount and quality of sleep and nutrition but does any one here do other things for recovery? Massages, Mobility drills, yoga, epsom baths, sauna, supplements? Also how do you ensure greater quality of sleep?

That is a great question.

I do almost everything that you are listed.

- Foam rolling and mobility drills on daily basis. Mostly as a part of warm up and as a cool down once in a while.
- I do yoga sometimes on the weeks off.
- ZMA, Glycine for deep sleep (Thank you to DocO). My usual deal is 4-6 hours of interrupted sleep due to being new dad with twins. That doesn't help.
- I don't restrict quality carbs and I take 1-1.2g/lbm of protein. I keep calorie maintenance /slight surplus according to the common calculations.
- Meditation. This is new to me and it does help A LOT. My new discovery that is a game changer.
- I don't take MultiV but I do take some supps based on my labs. B-12 currently due to me experimenting with meatless diet.

Also, new AA book addresses recovery topic as well. An it does address that well
I am thinking of implementing OP I/A or 3-1-3 scheme or both in my near future.

I am very interested what TB-ers will be responding here..

Sleep hygiene has become pretty popular in the past couple of years.

Things I've used for sleep
-ZMA, really helped with sleep quality
-Blackout curtains to reduce light levels in room
-Filters on phone to reduce certain kinds of light

I've also used a float tank a few times and found that I leave feeling pretty refreshed. Epsom salt with meditation seems like a win win.

1. Post workout meal with excessive calories containing high carb/high protein content.
2. Magnesium (anti-inflammatory properties)
3. Sleep 8 hours
4. Post workout jog in the LSS zone for 10-15 minutes after maximal-strength sessions
5. Meditation (studies on TM show decreases in cortisol/increases in DHEA)
6. If I over-train/over-reach during a session then ice bath. If not, no ice bath.

Eat sufficient carbs.

Regardless of the current health fad, that piece of bread is your caloric friend. It's not gonna grow a pair of arms and leg and try to strangle you.

+1 on the carbs, especially post-workout.

I bounce back quicker in between training sessions when I use creatine.

When I get it, adequate sleep most definitely helps but that's an area that needs improvement for sure.

Keeping daily protein intake high 1-1.5gms per lb.

I "top up" with a strongly dosed multi-vitamin once or twice a week as insurance.

Haven't used fish oil in years (eat plenty of salmon and sushi) but I might start experimenting with krill oil.

So I've started looking into something called "Heart Math", which seems to be essentially bio-feedback using heart rate variability. The idea is to monitor your HRV while you do breathing exercises to bring it back into optimal range. Haven't committed to it yet because I'm getting some snake-oil vibes, but it looks like it might have some potential as a recovery tool.

Mobility and stretching work is the best for me. My diet is crap and my sleep is generally pretty crap, but if I do my 20+ mins of stretching and breathing I seem to recover very well. I personally use ROMWOD because I don't want to think and I like the plug and play stretching option, but putting together a specific mobility routine for yourself is quite easy with all the resources on the internet.

Some of the above suggestions re: sleep and nutrition are excellent, I just don't follow any of them because I am a bit of a spud.

BlackPyjamas wrote:So I've started looking into something called "Heart Math", which seems to be essentially bio-feedback using heart rate variability. The idea is to monitor your HRV while you do breathing exercises to bring it back into optimal range. Haven't committed to it yet because I'm getting some snake-oil vibes, but it looks like it might have some potential as a recovery tool.

Similar to Joel Jamiesons HRV stuff that he uses to decide on intensity of training that day? What they say makes sense,but it's pretty expensive and not completely applicable to tactical athletes.

I am working on improving my recovery ability by creating some better habits, but if I only trained when my body was sufficiently recovered I would be lucky to train once or twice a week. In a perfect world it's great, but I think that as a tactical athlete we need to train when fatigued and not fully recovered to get our body used to performing in that state.

Things like training maxes and being realistic about how hard we perform in a training session seems to work better than trying to peak like a high level athlete. I would love to read a study or similar on it though as my favourite thing in regards to training is to be proven wrong and learn a new way to work towards my goals better

BlackPyjamas wrote:So I've started looking into something called "Heart Math", which seems to be essentially bio-feedback using heart rate variability. The idea is to monitor your HRV while you do breathing exercises to bring it back into optimal range. Haven't committed to it yet because I'm getting some snake-oil vibes, but it looks like it might have some potential as a recovery tool.

I have been using he emwave2 off and on for 3 years. I like doing 5 minutes in the morning or in the evening if I did a big workout and need to shut down the sympathetic nervous system. If you are diligent about practicing it can be beneficial.

If it's a stretch fininancially, then don't buy it. You can get a ton of mileage from ice baths, Epsom salts baths, sleep, magnesium, meditation, etc.