Get your elbows around the bar quickly today! Just like yesterday 
SWOD:
A1) Ring Push-ups, Max Reps in 15 sec x 5 sets
A2) Strict Pull-ups, Max Reps in 15 sec x 5 sets
A3) Racked position mobility drill, 1 min each arm x 2 sets
WOD:
-AMRAP in 6 min-
8 Power Cleans (155#/95#)
16 Bar-facing burpees
"Competitor Finisher"
Start this about 10-15 min after the WOD
1000m row
4 Muscle-ups (sub = 12 kipping pull-ups)
25 sit-ups
-3 Rounds for time-
Recovery Strategies 101
By: Coach Ian J. McHugh
This isn’t an exact science but I am going to share a few strategies and tips to help speed up your recovery. A lot of you train HARD and it’s my hope that you are already using some of these strategies, but if not you should.
SLEEP
I know you’ve heard this one before but I can’t emphasize enough how important sleep is. Think about it this way: you know when you don’t get a good night’s sleep and you feel sluggish, grumpy, etc. all day at work, how do you think you’re going to feel while training? It’s a simple answer; you’re going to feel like crap.
There are many great physical benefits to sleeping, read about some of them HERE.
Sleep tips:
- Create a cave-like environment in your bedroom. Make it dark, maybe lower the temperature a little bit, and TURN OFF YOUR T.V.
- Go to bed earlier. Rather than watching that late night T.V. or movie, shut it down and go to bed. Going to bed 30 minutes earlier than normal means an extra three and half hours of sleep a week!
- Read a book prior to bed or listen to some soothing music. This may help slow your mind down a little bit and allow you to fall asleep quicker.
ICE
Are you sore, feeling inflamed, or do you have achy muscles? Get some ice on those spots. I’ll be the first to tell you that the science of icing your body for recovery isn’t that “official” but athletes have been using this strategy for a long time. The main idea is that after icing your body it’s going to re-warm itself with increased blood-flow. This increased blood-flow to your particular muscle group is thought to help with your recovery. You can read a little bit about how icing works HERE.
Icing tips:
- Get yourself some ice packs. They are not as tedious as taking an ice bath in your tub. They store easy in your freezer and they are reusable.
- Fill your home’s tub with plenty of ice and then fill with cold water. A ratio of 1:1 should work fine. This can be sort of a tedious, but if you have a loved one who also might benefit from an ice bath have them help you prep your tub.
- Don’t feel like the longer you stay in the ice the better. A quick three minute icing or maybe up to a 5 minute icing should do the trick.
- Hot and cold contrast is a good technique. Something like three minutes of icing followed by three minutes of re-warming a couple times may help speed up your recovery.
Stretching/Mobilizing
Do you ever wake up feeling stiff? Did you go from being able to touch your toes to barely being able to bend over? Stretch! Believe it or not flexibility is one of the Ten Fitness Domains. Here’s one way to think about flexibility. Flexibility can allow you to squat below parallel and squatting below parallel can allow you to build incredible strength. Yet, if your flexibility is lacking, well you can figure that one out.
Stretching tips:
- Stretch during breakfast. You should already have some time set aside to eat breakfast, why not “kill two birds with one stone”.
- Focus on your “problem areas”. For me personally it’s my shoulders, so I like to spend a little more time focusing on shoulder stretching/mobility drills.
- You don’t need to do a whole yoga class. Simply spending an extra 5-10 minutes each morning stretching will add up over time. Ten minutes each morning for six days equals an extra hour of stretching each week!
- Get yourself some tools: PVC pipe, foam roller, stretching bands, lacrosse ball, etc. Please note that these are NOT required to achieve a good stretch.
Other areas to look at to improve your recovery:
- Nutrition (DUH!)
- Post workout nutrition
- Hydration
- Training frequency
- Training intensity
- Warm-up/Cool-down strategies
- Lifestyle
- Use of compression
Remember, you are all training like athletes so you need to use the same recovery strategies as athletes. Ignoring these strategies is setting yourself up for athletic performance failure.
ian
