Rest & Recovery

Regular periods of rest and recovery are essential to your mental and physical health. They also create the time your body needs to recover from intense activity and enable you to build muscle mass and bone strength.

If you are strength training 3 to 5 days a week, make sure to include at least one total rest day and one active recovery day in your schedule.

Depending on your fitness and activity levels, you can plan your rest and recovery days around your social life:

stretch, walk or practice yoga with a friend or alone - both can be good.

get creative with a day dedicated to crafting, reading, writing, playing an instrument, listening to music.

get outside. Standing on the grass in your bare feet. Going to to the beach to look at the horizon and name all the colours you can see in the sea. Wander around some woods or gaze at flowers in a garden. 

check in with your body. Create the habit of thinking about how your body is responding to your strength work. Are you incorporating effective warm ups and cool downs throughout the week? Would you benefit from a visit to the physio/osteopath to help you look after your old lady body*?

sleep. Use your rest & recovery days to reset the clock on your night time routine. What can you do to bring your usual bedtime forward by 15 or 30 minutes? (Sustainable lifestyle changes take time, so be kind to yourself when setting goals).

keep eating. Just because you are resting doesn't mean you stop eating. Look for protein rich foods, add in carbs and healthy fats, keep alcohol and sugars on the down low. 

Follow me on instagram to see some of my rest and recovery moments.

*Possibly, but not necessarily the body you have now. Many of my clients are motivated to train today so that when they are old, they will continue to jump, run, dance and lift heavy things.