Off days and Recovery

[Scaldrew]

Awesome advice, what would I do without you? I'll continue living from this day forward, which I guess means not to die *brofist*.

Nah but seriously, I am just doing whatever I should be doing if I took away training from my life altogethor. I was just wondering if there was anything I could do on days where I was extra motivated to speed up my recovery. I realize it's half of the training, getting recovered from the training, so if anyone had any advice beyond just eating and sleeping I wanted to know. Couldn't find any resources on it, I tried searching, so I don't know why it was moved here. Oh well.

You're a little whippersnapper, so you haven't really grasped the concept of training vs. exercise. If left to your own devices, you'd be in the gym 2 times a day 7 days a week. When you're in the gym, you feel an intense excitement to get better and stronger every single time without fail or wavering. I'm not saying this to spite you, I'm saying this because I understand how you feel and how you think. I've known people like you and I've had to tell them the exact same thing I'm going to tell you right now: accept that the workout was sufficient in applying the necessary stress and wait until next time to do better. This'll be hard for you because every fibre in your being is contradicting this very notion. Maybe if you get a few injuries under your proverbial and literal belt, you'll learn to take some level of distance between yourself and the lifting of progressively heavier weights. (Not a recommendation, just an observation, that last bit.)

As far as aiding recovery is concerned, just don't bother doing anything fancy. Anything that aids recovery to a sufficient degree implies a recurring event or activity, which means additional programming and resources allocated to recover from the new stress (that, ironically, are there to aid your recovery). Not only are you too green to go about this on your own (i.e. without a coach checking in on you from time to time), but there are good reasons to believe it may not even be feasible. I won't go into those, but beyond that, you're a 19-year old indestructible young man. You could move all of your furniture into a new home, eat 2000 kcal, sleep 5 and a half hours, and still set PRs the same day or the day afterwards. I know because I've done exactly that at 22 years of age. I also regularly work anywhere from 8 to 10 hours (sometimes 12-16 even) on the weekends and then lift heavy the next day anyway. I couldn't get away with that if I was 43, but I can at 23.

If you want specifics cos you're bored of watching porn, playing video games, and drinking Monster (I'd have to ask how and why): walking, cycling, playing sports with friends, swimming, walking the dog, coitus, selling your body for H etc are all fine. They may or may not help, they will not interfere. Just don't try to do murph or steven or w/e the fuck it's called. Foam rolling may make you feel better mentally and so translate to "I just feel better" when you're under the bar, something a lot of my training partners tell me and I just believe whenever they tell me. I don't do it cos I hate doing it and I don't need it.

A time and place for everything, whippersnapper. A time to lift, a time to eat, and a time to just not do either of the two aforementioned activities. Surrender yourself to that reality to give your brain a break and you'll be A-OK.

[SSDino]

Well, thanks for the insight, appreciate it. I'll just continue living my life and selling my body for H then (fuck now you know my secret). I give a 90% accuracy on your assessment btw :P

[Scaldrew]

Well, thanks for the insight, appreciate it. I'll just continue living my life and selling my body for H then (fuck now you know my secret). I give a 90% accuracy on your assessment btw :P

Thanks. I'm pretty good at that up until I suck at it.

[poser]

Competitive sports with your friends goes a long ways towards feeling confident in your training. These don't necessarily have to be taxing events like full court basketball either. I'm talking like, if you go over to your buddies house and they have then bad mitten net up, ping pong or air hockey table out, horse shoes setup, slip n slide (races are fun as hell) , frisbee, kickball, etc, whoop their ass; Express your dominance.

But also, hikes are good. I always feel "flushed out" after a nice 45 minute hike. Casual swimming feels good on the body (vertical jump off the diving board comps are fun). Bowling is fun, So is paddle boarding. Do stuff, have fun, enjoy life.

[SSDino]

Agreed Poser. I train MMA and going to training feeling stronger every single time, making takedowns feel almost effortless definitely make you confident and gets you motivated to train again. I do feel a bit sore the next day (I train gym first on those days, then go train MMA cause I think it affects my training less that way). I think it's as you said Scaldrew at 19 your indestructable because I'm 100% fine the day after that and usually go train again. How do you guys know that you are getting stronger in your everyday life by the way?

[I_iz_a_fatass]

How do you guys know that you are getting stronger in your everyday life by the way?

Things I would has hesitated to do a few years ago I don't think twice about now. Today, I unracked a 12-drive DAS device, put it under one arm, and walked it halfway around the building to the IT office. I can out-work and out-perform the half-my-age cow-orkers when it comes to rack and stack of UPS units. I'm the guy people in our office - an office full of twenty-something-year-olds - come get when something heavy needs to get moved around.

[poser]

I've been moving that last 3 days. I have a queen size memory foam mattress that is an absolute BEAST to move. I tied it up with rope so I had some hoist points and managed to get it up high enough that I could bend over to almost 90 degrees (good morning position) and walk that mattress on my back all the way to the street and throw it on top of my SUV by myself. When I was unloading it, a guy across the street came over and said "I got you, bro" In an attempt to help. He was an active looking 30 something. Folks in this town are active. It's a rare sight to see a fat person. Anyway, he could not ever get his back straight while carrying the mattress. I stopped 3 times to let him rest and suggested "standing up straight with it, but he couldn't lock his back out with the weight. With 2 people, it was a breeze for me. You need a strong fucking back in order to be a man living in the world. You don't really need a 700 pound deadlift, but you should be able to lock out under the weight of a Mattress or you are weak.

I also managed to bear hug and carry the recliner by myself, which was impressive given the size and weight of it. I'll admit, however, I used a dolly to carry the half full deep freezer [emoji6]