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The importance of sleep and recovery for training.

When you hear recovery, you might think about foam rolling, Theragun, stretching or even fancy recovery drinks. While these indeed help the recovery process, they would be considered the last elements of the recovery or the highest hanging fruits if you will. In fact, the best recovery tools are often overlooked but they make up most of the recovery process. These are sleep, nutrition, and hydration. Sorry to disappoint but your Theragun will not outwork a good night of sleep.

Recovery matters and it should be part of your training just as much as exercising itself! When you train, you put stress on your body. This stress is important for your body to recognize that a change is needed. Once your body recognizes that, your fitness level will start to change and along with it your muscle mass will increase, and your cardiovascular system will improve. 

However, this does not happen while exercising, it happens while recovering! That is right, exercise puts your body under a catabolism state, which essentially means that damage is being done. If nothing is done to repair the damaged muscles, you will see no positive changes, and you might even see negative changes happening such as muscle mass loss, weight loss and an increase in fatigue! So, make sure you get a good night of sleep after you exercise to allow your body to recover properly.

Repairing your muscles also happens through proper nutrition and hydration. Your body needs protein to help repair the damage done to the muscles after exercising. A protein dense meal will be adequate to help muscle growth and help you achieve your goal overtime. 

In case you haven’t noticed, you sweat while exercising! It is the body’s natural response to exercise to allow it to cool down. However, the water mass lost through exercise needs to be replaced in the hours following exercise so make sure to drink plenty of water after your workout!

So here, you have it, the keys of recovery! If you hit the gym regularly, get a regular good night of sleep and fuel your body properly after training, you should be able to get to your fitness goals! Theragun, foam rolling, and massages come after and are extra treats to make yourself feel good! ?