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Recovery and Maintenance Planning
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Recovery and
Maintenance - These terms are often heard in just about every area of our
lives: from improving your fitness and athletic performance
and handling stressful professions to maintaining your health with a
strong immune system. Typically, most people in the military
/ law enforcement fitness and health genre ask about how to get
stronger for Fitness Tests while working long and stressful
hours. While recently, many military members and police
officers ask about recovery and maintenance plans to better perform at
their job in combat situations.
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Here is a sample email from a Marine
who asks a familiar question, Any
advice for what should be staple supplements in addition to a healthy
diet when looking to gain size, strength, and aid in recovery?
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Yes,
many of us want to get bigger, stronger, and faster AND have energy to
live another day. Part of the answer to the question above is
in the question, but true recovery comes in several critical areas and
if one is lacking, your fitness, nutrition, maintenance, performance
training plan and overall health can be in jeopardy of yielding less
than optimal results. Life in general, hard workouts, and
stressful professions involved in life and death situations create a
rush of stress hormones that the body has to deal with in order to
create a healthy, living organism. The effects of a few of
these hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) create immediate survival mode
energy. It does not matter if you are worrying about not
being able to pay a bill to having bullets shot at you, the same stress
hormones create alertness and energy to deal with the problems, and
regulate heart rate, but these hormones can also be detrimental to your
recovery and wellbeing if not dealt with properly. For
instance stress / stress hormones:
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Suppress the digestive system
Alters immune system
Weakens reproductive system
Decreases muscle growth
And Controls mood, motivation and fear,
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However, the following areas are recommended for TRUE Recovery and
Maintenance from stress that WILL affect your physical and mental
performance:
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Food (aka Meal Plan), Diet or whatever you wish to call it. What you put into your body matters for mind and body performance, as well as your ability to recover. Foods rich in protein/good fats (amino acids, omega 3 fatty acids), carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, anti-oxidants, multi-grains) all are required for you to healthfully deal with balancing out the stress hormones in our bodies. Lack of eating regularly increases cortisol as it puts a physical stress on the body.
Some
Great samples of Protein / Good Fats:
Boiled eggs
Nuts - Peanuts, almonds etc _ source of GOOD fats too
Beef Jerky - watch for MSG
Salmon / Tuna / Chicken - source of good fats too
Peanut butter packages
Some Ideas
Any fruit - banana, apple, orange, grapes, etc
Vegetables - carrots, green leafy items,
Multigrain breads / pastas / Quinoa - also source of protein
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What about Supplements? I am not a big fan
of supplements BUT take them occasionally. For me
personally, a daily Multi Vitamin and omega-3 caplets
and just good eating are the BEST thing for recovery from stress and
workouts as well. Every now and then when I cannot get REAL food I will
drink a Muscle Milk / whey protein shake. I like to drink
chocolate milk after a long and hard workout as it replenishes sugar,
proteins, fat quickly and easily. I basically treat
supplements the same way I do Meals - Ready to Eat (MREs). I
would not eat an MRE if I had a restaurant / cafeteria available, but
would when it is the only thing I can eat for a meal / snack when in
the military. I will grab a supplement drink if I feel like a need an extra shot of vitamins,
mineral, amino acids, caffeine. Eating more calories per day
(good calories of carbs, fat, protein) along with workouts will
increase weight. Those who have difficulty gaining strength /
size typically need to add both carbs and protein to their diets and
focus on sleep / proper recovery in between workouts.
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Hydration. Being dehydrated increases cortisol levels and
stresses the body. Also electrolyte imbalances will
create fatigue and an inability to properly function mentally or
physically. After sweaty workouts - (ring sweat out of / salt
stains on clothes type of sweat) I like to eat a can of chicken noodle
soup (Noodle O's personally) as it is loaded with potassium (3-4 times
that of a banana plus protein / carbs). Those are my only supplement I
use regularly. Water is the best source of hydration but the
body will pull water from nearly everything that enters it.
However, foods / drinks high in caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol all
negatively affect your hydration levels as well as increase stress
hormone levels. Limit these - eliminate if
possible. /
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A general rule of thumb for active people is 50-75% body weight in
pounds = ounces per day of H2O.
Sleep. The best training plans will not work if sleep and rest between workouts are neglected. Without adequate sleep (eight hours a night), there is not enough rest for muscle cell growth and repair. In fact, when you sleep, growth hormone is produced and protein synthesis in the muscles occurs IF you eat foods with protein during the day. For adolescents especially, sleep is critical as growth can be impaired if quality and quantity of sleep is lacking.
Lack of sleep can also affect your mood and
increase hormonal stress levels which will have a negative impact on
performance. Now, one night of missed sleep is not going to
have many negative effects on your performance, but several days in a
row or a few weeks of interrupted sleep combined can lead to similar
symptoms of a stressed out / over-training syndrome.
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In the military or law enforcement professions, sleep may not occur at regular intervals and the quality may be lacking. But those who work hard during the day or exercise will have an easier time falling asleep compared to those who do not.
Exercise or hard physical work: Exercise and physical work are great OUTLETS for stress to be released from the body. The body produces the fun hormones also during exercise called endorphins which relieve pain / stress and make us overall relaxed. Workouts also produce stress hormones in order for the body to react and survive hard / long workouts. If you do not physically RELEASE these stress hormones by post workout meal planning, they will interrupt your sleep and long term health.
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Clear your mind of intrusive
thoughts - One trick is to go to a "happy place"
and breathe deep / slow breaths when you are bombarded by stressful
thoughts that may or may not occur or have occurred in the
past. Your body will react to your brain imagining negative
thoughts and keep stress hormones racing through your body.
Reverse the trend and think relaxing thoughts of a favorite place,
time, event and revisit that. If that does not work for long,
write down your to-do list / what bothers and get it out of your head
and you will be less stressed.
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RECOVERY - In order to maintain health / fitness levels or build upon current levels you have to rest, eat properly (good food), and balance your workouts with periodization programming. Thoroughly understanding cycles of peak performance, maintenance, and recovery are critical to your long term health and longevity.
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Feel free to email me if you have any questions at stew@stewsmith.com
TRX Workouts - This is a great device to use if you are failing at pushups and pullups. The TRX rows will help you build your chest, shoulders, triceps and bicep / back muscles like a set of weights, but also work the core at the same time.
Published Books Available in Stores
and at Stew Smith Fitness
Tactical Fitness | Tactical Strength | Tactical Mobility
Warrior Workouts Vol 1 | Vol 2
| Vol 3
The Complete Guide to Navy
SEAL Fitness
Navy SEAL Weight Training Workout
Maximum Fitness