FITNESS

Centr Team

5 recovery tips for high-intensity strength training

Your muscles prefer quality sleep over coffee.

If you’re struggling to keep your nutrition on-point, poor sleep could also be to blame.

“Sleep is essential for maintaining optimal hormone levels,” Angie confirms. “A poor night’s rest can interfere with insulin signaling (the process that controls blood glucose levels) and appetite, which can lead to fat gain.”

Good news: If your sleep sucks, we can help:

• Struggling to get to sleep? Try our 10 science-backed fixes for common sleep problems.
• For help drifting off, find your ideal audio to sleep like a baby.
• Waking up in the night? There’s a reason Go Back to Sleep with Bobby is one of our most popular sleep visualizations.

2. Don’t let alcohol hold you back

You may think of alcohol as something that helps you relax, but just 1 drink for a woman or 2 drinks for a man can decrease sleep quality by 24 percent. Alcohol makes your liver work when it should be resting, upsets your cardiovascular system and suppresses REM sleep cycles.

Learn to control stress and watch your results soar.

While some stress can be harnessed – for instance, hyping yourself up for a big challenge – chronic stress can kill your progress.

If stress is a constant in your days, here are some tips:

• Join Chris for a meditation to turn stress into positive action.
• Factor outdoor breaks into your day with a Guided Walk meditation.
• Practice gratitude to increase dopamine and serotonin circuits.
• Get out of your brain and into your body with Tahl.

4. Fuel your recovery

Your body doesn’t just need fuel to work out, it needs it to recover, too. Rehydrate by drinking plenty of water and make sure you have a high-protein snack or meal within 1-2 hours of working out.

We’ve got 15 high-protein dinners that make eating for recovery delicious.

There are a few other nutritional tips you can follow to max your recovery:

• Avoid ultra-processed foods (eg. chips, sugary cereals, frozen pizza), which are low in nutrients and will impact your energy levels.
• Reduce refined sugar intake, which can cause inflammation and negatively impact recovery.
• Refuel by including quality carbs like quinoa, buckwheat, oats, brown rice and whole-grain bread in your meals.

5. Keep moving with active rest

How can you use your days off to aid your recovery? Your trainer Ingrid recommends active rest.

“Try doing some yoga with Tahl or choosing a stretching session from Explore. When we lift weights, we shorten the muscle fibers – by moving, doing dynamic stretching or getting a massage, you elongate the muscles and release that tension,” she says.

Craving an extra workout? “If you’re going to pick up the dumbbells on a rest day, make sure it’s to work a muscle group that you haven’t already pushed to the limit that week,” Ingrid says.

“Don’t forget, bodyweight workouts can also be super gangster! A quick bodyweight abs workout is an option, or if you want to grow your booty, you might add a bodyweight glutes workout later in the week.”

Recover well and we’ll see you back on the workout mat!