TOP 10 Recovery Hacks to Enhance Performance, Recover Faster, & Build Muscle | Mind Pump 1870

Personally, what I've seen with myself and clients is when you do these trigger sessions like that, it also promotes more movement throughout the rest of the day. And that is like, we talk about how important that is to recovery as far as facilitating the blood flow and the nutrients and getting that all going. And everyone that's lifted for any extended period of time have had these days where you overtrain and you don't want to move. You're like, oh, you're stiff getting up. Oh, you plop down. It's like, it is not motivating to move when you are that sore and you're that tight. Then all of a sudden you do like a trigger session like that, get that blood flowing, and all of a sudden now you have this new energy. And so it's not only that immediate little trigger session that has a positive impact, but then on the rest of the day, I'm more likely to move around and do more things because I did that trigger session. So I think it's really hard to measure how this has been something that I really didn't implement in my life until we all got together because you built it into anabolic. It became like, okay, I better utilize these and see what the benefits. It's been tremendous. All right. In today's episode, we're going to talk about 10 advanced recovery hacks. Now, I do want to be clear. These should be used when you work out just a bit too hard because, and I do think we should open with this, how these do not replace the most effective things to encourage recovery. For example, proper exercise programming, good diet, good sleep, good lifestyle. You're not going to fix those things with these recovery hacks, but every once in a while you train just a bit too hard or you're redlining a bit because you're training for a competition or a sport, in which case these things, I think, can become valuable. Well, I noticed, I kind of briefly looked over the list that you sent over when you were creating this, and it looks like you left off a lot of the expensive recovery tools that exist. Yeah. I wanted to make these, for the most part, accessible to most people. Yeah. When I look at the list, I only saw one on there that could be relatively expensive. The rest of them, pretty much for free or you could get access to for relatively cheap, which is cool. I like you did that. Also, I mean, it could get pretty wild with the biohackers that people follow out there that promote a lot of really super random devices and things that get to different type of light sources and different things up your nose. At least these are applicable things that you can do. Yeah. Again, if you really just destroyed your body, these hacks aren't going to make that huge difference. The most effective ways to use these are when you're going through a training cycle where, I mean, you're pushing it and you know you're on the line, right? Because there's a curve of optimal intensity, volume, and frequency where it's the perfect dose. If you're someone that's really into fitness or especially if you're competing and you've got an event coming up, you want to hit that perfect dose, but you know that a bit over it is too much, and so you're always kind of doing this dance, right? Between like, is it right? It's when you feel like, oh, I think I might be a little over. Is there something I can do that'll bring me back so that I can continue training? Well, yeah, especially if your emphasis is really tightening up every last bit of those performance screws, right? You're super focused on squeezing the optimal amount of performance. You have to have that same intensity and focus on the recovery element for you to really benefit from it. Yeah, but again, just to be clear, it's like you're not going to use these because you were up all night partying with your friends. No. You're like, oh, I didn't get any sleep last night. It's not going to make up for all that. Let me do this recovery hack to make up the difference, or I'm training with twice as much volume as necessary. No, I think this is a good conversation because I feel like this is how we all train. I think we have a large listener base that are not just first-time beginners that have been lifting for quite some time, that have heard us talk about the message of overtraining for a really long time and trying to find that balance. But the truth is, when you understand all of that, you still are always kind of flirting with that line because you're trying to maximize your results. And so, you don't want to fall short by overtraining so much. So, I would say this is stuff. I like all these things because I find myself in this predicament a lot because a lot of times I'm flirting with that boundary. Exactly. So, think of it this way. You got this target of perfect, but the target moves depending on lifestyle, how you feel and what's going on. And you fire the arrow and it's going to overshoot the target. You have these hacks that'll move that target just a little bit forward, right? That gives you just a little extra so that it's perfect. But what it's not going to do is if the target's here and I shot over there, I'm going to move the target all the way to the left or the right. It's going to give you a little bit of playroom. And that's why it's good to have these. And I did, again, like you said, Adam, I picked easily accessible, inexpensive ways to kind of maximize recovery because I want this accessible to most people. Yeah. So, the first one is cold therapy. And there's a few different ways to do this. You can go from minimal to more extreme. So, minimal would be a cold shower. More extreme would be like literally getting into a tub full of ice water. And what this does is it does reduce systemic inflammation. Now, I want to cover this part here too because I know that there's like muscle building fanatics are like, but the studies show that it could reduce the muscle building signal. Yeah, it can through the inflammation reducing properties. But that's the point. If you've overshot, then you want to reduce the inflammation enough to keep you within that sweet spot, right? I love that this is number one. This literally happened to me this weekend. So, I'm doing kind of like my own modified version of GVT, right? So, I've been doing 10 sets of 10. And earlier in the week, I had done deadlifts, and I haven't been deadlifting very often. And I did really light. I only did 135, but I did 10 by 10. And so, I got a little sore, more sore than I wanted to. So, I overreached a little bit. And I had planned originally for me to squat on the weekend. So, this was like Wednesday or Thursday. And so, I'm walking around all sore. Well, Katrina and I had the weekend to ourselves. Max was with his uncle and aunt. And we were over in Carmel, and we were getting lunch. And she's like, hey, what do you think? Let's just go to Refuge right now. And I'm like, oh my god, what a great idea. That's perfect. They got it there. Yeah, exactly. They have the cold plunge. They have sauna. They have all that stuff there. And she didn't know because I wasn't complaining to her or anything like that. I hadn't told her what I was doing workout-wise. But I knew I wanted to hit squats this weekend. But I was like, god, I'm still feeling it so much that I probably should give myself another day or two recovery before I get after squats from being so sore from the deadlifts on my posterior chain. And instead, she goes, let's go to the Refuge and had a great, great, great recovery type of day hanging out there. I was able to squat on Sunday. I was just going to ask how big of a difference. Yeah, huge difference. I felt so much better after that day. So, I ended up – now, originally, I had planned on Saturday that I was going to do it. I didn't do it on Saturday. I ended up taking it at a rest and recovery day. I implemented some of these tools that you're saying naturally because that's where she wanted to go. And then on Sunday, I ended up having a great squat session. Yeah, it makes a pretty big difference. Well, again, I want to be clear, big difference in the hack sense. But it does when you do the cold stuff. And I do the cold showers when it's minimal. When it's really – when I'm like, ooh, this might take another day or two of recovery and rest, that's when I'll soak in the cold. And that right away, I notice a difference. Yeah. And the same in terms of access. The shower is one of the most repeatable in terms of being able – everybody kind of has access to a shower for the most part. But there was another thing I wanted to point out with the cold therapy that it actually parallels a bit of – I would look at it as like training wheels for meditation. That's how I would kind of describe it. Good point. And so, it's really being able to access that parasympathetic state. But I mean, it takes training. So, the more frequent you apply this and work through it and figure out that you're going to be able to experience this a lot better and be able to have a different mechanism involved, you have to learn how to expose yourself to this cold, but then bring your body to relax and to get that heart rate down and to be able to breathe at a certain amount. So, anyway. So, it kind of – meditation is obviously one we'll get to, but this is sort of the start to that. I love that. And I love to – so, one of the things I like about Refuge is they actually have levels. So, there's like – and they have these little snowflakes. Like, one snowflake is cold, and then there's like two snowflakes that's like really, really cold or whatever. And it's funny when I catch people that they've heard the science behind the benefits of doing cold therapy, and they just like they approach lifting and training and stuff like that, they go right to the most intense, hoping for the best results. It's like if you never train cold therapy, you're just getting in a cold bathtub has benefits to it and practicing the breathing techniques like you're saying. So, this is very accessible to people. You can literally fill up your bathtub with cold water, throw whatever ice cubes that you have in your freezer in that thing, and it's be cold for most people. Or just turn on a cold shower. Right. Just turn a cold shower on, and you'll get some of these benefits. Yes, and you'll get some of these benefits from that. Now, if you train this consistently, then you'll want to go to colder and colder temperatures. But like anything else, you don't need to go all of a sudden to this, what you see on Instagram all the time, these guys dumping tons of ice on you. Zero to ice bath. Yeah, you've never done it before. No. Ease yourself in. And again, it does reduce systemic inflammation. And if used properly, it's valuable. Now, if you reduce systemic inflammation and you're training the right amount of volume and all that, you might reduce the muscle building signal. So, that's why these are good to use when you kind of overreach a little bit or for other health benefits. But I remember the first time I did something like this, I had a kid that I trained. I trained this couple. They brought me their son because he started playing football, and he'd never done double day. So, if people don't play football, it's a common standard practice, I guess, where they go through a period of double days where they're literally training and beating these kids up twice a day. Oh, yeah. Part of it's mental. Part of it's to kind of weed out the weak kids or whatever. And part of it's to really ramp up conditioning. Well, anyway, he was really suffering. I remember he'd come in and would just be hurting and stiff or whatever. And I had a wellness person in my studio that said, hey, in between these, if you could get a big plastic garbage can, like those big ones you buy at Home Depot, fill it with ice water. When you come home, jump, just get in there. See if you can stay in there for a minute or two. Come out and do that in between the two practices. Made all the difference in the world. He was like, oh my god, I don't feel stiff or whatever anymore just from doing that one thing. So, that was my first exposure to that type. What's happening? Look, if you're here when we first dropped this episode, lucky you because you still have a few hours to take advantage of what has turned out to be the biggest sale we've done all year long. So, the RGB bundle, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, is 50% off. That's nine months of exercise program. Plus, we've thrown in some more free stuff in there, okay? So, that's 50% off. MAPS Suspension is also 50% off by itself. It's a suspension trainer program. So, those are all half off. You can find them all at mapsfitnessproducts.com. But you have to use the code JULY50 for that discount. Now, I'm going to give those away for free to one of you viewers as well because, again, there's only a few hours left. So, here's how you can win the RGB bundle and MAPS Suspension for free right now. I want you to subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications, and then leave us a comment below when we first dropped this episode, at least in the first 24 hours. If we like your comment, we'll notify you, and then boom, you get those programs for free. Everyone else, again, you have a few hours. One more time, mapsfitnessproducts.com, and the code is JULY50 for those discounts. All right, here comes the show. I want to bounce around a little bit on your list. I know this isn't the second one, but I want to make it the second one because it goes right in line with what I did this weekend that I think is really beneficial. And that is the static stretching. And I actually combined it with the sauna because I have that access. And I know that's not on your list, but that was so... So, I did the cold plunge. I sat in there for a while, focused on my breathing, that side of it. And then I got to sit in the steam and the sauna. And then while I'm in there, I'm sitting there and I'm holding a static stretch. Part of that... So, yes, the cold therapy brings down the inflammation. Then getting heated up to where I can get into a deeper static stretch felt amazing to be able to complement that. So, static stretching is interesting because what it does is it temporarily gets the central nervous system to calm down. In cases where muscles feel tight and you're slightly overtrained, this can be valuable. So, if anyone... If you've ever had a tight muscle, you know you're just walking around and it just feels like it's almost like it's partially contracted. Like, oh God, my trap is just partially contracted or my quads feel really tight. And what that can do is that can actually hamper recovery a little bit, right? Because it could take a little more time to recover because it's not getting as much blood flow. Now, what's happening is the central nervous system identifies there's some damage, keeping the muscle slightly tight to create stability. So, it's actually trying to protect you. Protect them. Right. So, what you don't want to do is static stretch and then right away go beat yourself up again. But if it's on a day that you're not going to work out again, a static stretch where you're holding a stretch for 30 seconds or a minute temporarily tells the CNS to relax. You get a little bit more blood flow and you'll notice immediate pain relief from doing something like this. And if you have the luxury to do this, again, I was lucky to be at a place where they have a sauna and steam. But even like a hot shower will do this. Because that also tells your CNS to calm down. That's right. So, it's easier to get into a deeper stretch. I mean, that's a little hack that you can do that. The combination of both the nice cold water like that to bring the inflammation down and then to heat back up, to heat the muscles up so that I could get deeper into the stretch, hold it for that period of time. I mean, it was such a beautiful recovery. It is. And so, if you have muscles, target areas that feel tight, a little inflamed, I overdid it, you could spend 10 minutes doing static stretches. Here's some things to pay attention to. In particular, it's when the muscle is stiff and sore at the insertion points. That's when static stretching, in my opinion, is really good. So, if my whole chest is sore, I'll get some relief from static stretching. But if I have this nagging inflammation where it attaches here in the armpit or if my forearms are tight here at the elbows or my bicep down here where the attachments are, that's when I see the value in the static stretching. It's restricting your movement and normal everyday activity. Yeah. And so, to be clear, too, the static stretching, we prioritize it at the end of the workout for the most part. Not right before you train. Not before you train. And you do need that state of tension when you get into the workouts because you're obviously requiring that out of your muscles throughout the workout. Yeah. So, the best time to do it is when you're going to do it and then you're not going to go super active. Or right before bed. That's when I use tools like this and even jumping back to the cold plunge again. So, I train those deadlifts. I didn't think right afterwards, oh, go do the cold plunge because I want inflammation. When I realized that I overreached day two, day three later that, oh, wow, I went a little too far. Now, I'm like, okay, I better give myself a day off and let's prioritize a recovery day. So, here comes the cold plunge. Now, here comes the steam doing it that way versus same thing goes with the static stretching. I wouldn't go like, oh, tomorrow, I'm going to go work out. Now, I sit and do a static stretch before I go into my workout. I would rather use like a mobility session in a situation like that. Save the static stretch for when I'm not training or an off day completely. All right. So, this next one targets one of the most important factors when it comes to recovery, which is sleep. Sleep, there's almost nothing that will dramatically impact your recovery in a negative way like losing sleep. And you have everything perfect, have one night of poor sleep and studies will show measurable changes in inflammatory markers and hormones and stress hormones and chemicals, perceived pain. Like if you lose sleep, your cold and hot tolerance suck. Pain becomes more painful. Irritabilities become more irritable. You gain craving. It's really, it's a big deal. So, again, this is a hack because it doesn't replace good sleep, but it does have an impact and that is to take a nap. And I mean a 30-minute nap, literally a 20, 30-minute nap, not a two-hour nap. You don't necessarily do that. In fact, long naps sometimes suck because you come out of them and you're groggy and you feel weird for the rest of the day. But literally you could set a timer and I like to, what I like to do is I use something called Brain FM. We've talked about this on the show and they play these sounds that tend to induce this sleep or meditative state in the brain. And it works. I'll put it on and I'll set my alarm for 30 minutes and I'll be able to get into a deep sleep or a deep enough sleep in that 30-minute period to where I wake up and I feel, it's almost like I had a cup of coffee. I'll feel like I'm refreshed. Now, haven't they done enough studies on this? Isn't the sleeping portion, 30 is a good time because you probably spend five to 10 falling asleep. 20 is supposed to be the sweet spot, isn't that? Haven't we proven this? It's what I've seen. Now, it depends on how sleep deprived you are. You may need more. But usually if I take a nap, if I do an hour or two hours, I wake up and I feel terrible. I'm like in a bad mood. Yeah, I just don't feel good. 30 minutes and I feel incredible. And I've seen this with clients as well. And isn't that because it's keeping you from falling into REM, right? Yeah. Right? Once you fall into REM, you get that deeper and that's where you want to go longer. And then you interrupt it. Right. And then you interrupt it, then you feel worse than what you did. So some tips here with this is to set up the nap so that you can at least, so you know you might be able to fall asleep, but don't put pressure on yourself sometimes. Why I like Brain FM recommendation because they actually have times like that. You can have like guided meditation, you can have specific nap times, you set the time. So when that thing's done playing in your ears, you're done. So here's what I do for me, right? I know that if I go into my bedroom with everything blacked out or whatever, I may get in too deep of a sleep and then I wake up and I don't, I feel too groggy. Now my wife is very different. She needs that because it's hard for her to get into a nap. So you got to figure this out for yourself. Personally, what I'll do is I'll go in the living room, close the shades so that it's darker, but not dark. Then I'll sit back on the couch, put Brain FM on, set my timer. Bro, you're such an anomaly when it comes to this, dude. Or he'll just be in the front seat navigating. He could be, music could be playing, cars could be whizzing by, it could be daylight outside. This fool could fall asleep in the front seat of a car. What do they call that? There's like a term for that, like soldier. I can fall asleep like a soldier. I've heard someone tell me that before. Is that a thing? Yeah, because there's this thing with soldiers in war, they have to be able to sleep standing up or whatever because they don't have time to sleep. I don't, I mean, I'm trying to make myself sound cool. It's not cool. I feel like a soldier of sleep. Just like a Navy SEAL. Well, I'm kind of like a warrior. Kind of like a Navy SEAL when you think about it. I don't have any of the other skills, just the sleeping one. It is a superpower though. It really is because you of all of us do have this ability. I've seen you do it before where we were all together and you like, we could all be in the living room. I've seen this before. We've all been in the living room at our trucky house, all talking business. Sal is nodding off. He sleeps with Timmy. And then you say something or you act like you're going to do something to him and he snaps right out of it. And then right back in the conversation. Well, I'm similar. I mean, in terms of like having to have a little bit of light, like I can't have it like super dark. And also I like either having music or I'll do Brain FM or something that's like sort of guiding it. So it's not just like, it's not mimicking the same type of sleep that I'm getting at night because otherwise then I'm like, I feel like I want to keep going. Now, naps is interesting. Not to spend too much time on naps, but naps are a part of a lot of old cultures. They're quite beneficial. Like you look at Mediterranean cultures, you look at some old, like even Asian cultures, it's a part of their culture to take a short nap. Like siestas? Yeah. In the late afternoon. Now I can't do this. I don't have, sometimes I do this actually, I should say now that we now with our work schedule, I get an opportunity to do this, but my ideal day would always involve a 40 minute nap. If I had the perfect day. Isn't it Italy? Is it Italy where it is, where it shuts the siesta, where it's like 12 to two or something? They used to. Oh, that's still not a thing? Well, I mean, if you go in the South, people still tend to do this, but I mean, people- Oh, I thought I heard that it's still like that, where you can't go, like stores are all shut down from 12 to two. That would be like in the South. Oh, really? They'll do that kind of stuff. I would love to be able to do this on a regular basis. It's right about that time. It's coming out. Right around one through two. So I was like, oh, I've got a little bit more time in me and then I need to get out of here. And then I wake up and I'm good. This next one, you find this in MAPS Anabolic and we call them trigger sessions. I've heard other people talk about stuff like this. I've heard people call them feeder sessions or mini workouts, but essentially- Microdose sessions. If you don't own MAPS Anabolic, a trigger session is like a five to eight minute, really light band workout where you just get blood into the muscle. You feel it burn a little bit, but you're not really working out. And you kind of train the body a little bit. And then that has been shown, well, at least in my experience, and I've seen this with clients, really facilitates recovery. There's this belief, and this is true for extreme cases of overtraining where you don't want to move. And this is when you're like sick, or you've got like rhabdo, where you've just totally breaking down muscles to the point where you might need to be hospitalized. Otherwise, if you're overtrained, like if your legs are super sore, one of the best things you can do is really light leg movements. And you'll feel right away the improvement and recovery. Trigger sessions really help to do this. And I think this is one of the reasons why they're so effective in our MAPS Anabolic program is I think that not only they maintain that muscle building signal, but they make recovery happen a little bit faster. It's that blood circulation. That's what you need to spark that healing recovery process. And so to keep that just enough so you get like a pump, so you're like moving blood flow through to be able to facilitate that, I think movement's going to promote that. I think they have an even bigger impact that's hard to measure in the individual because of the variance in every individual, like what it does. But personally, what I've seen with myself and clients is when you do these trigger sessions like that, it also promotes more movement throughout the rest of the day. And that is like, you talk about how important that is to recovery as far as facilitating the blood flow and the nutrients and getting that all going. And everyone that's lifted for any extended period of time have had these days where you over train and you don't want to move. Yeah. You're like, oh, you're stiff getting up. Oh, you plop down. It's like it is not motivating to move when you are that sore and you're that tight. Then all of a sudden you do like a trigger session like that, get that blood flowing. And also now you have this new energy. And so it's not only that immediate little trigger session that has a positive impact, but then on the rest of the day, I'm more likely to move around and do more things because I did that trigger session. So I think it's really hard to measure how this has been something that I really didn't implement in my life until we all got together because you built it into anabolic. It became like, okay, I better utilize these and see what the benefits. It's been tremendous. Yeah. It's interesting to, and you feel this naturally, like when you're sitting a lot more, like how much more your body resists getting out of that state. I know. It's just, it's crazy. If you just get up and you're constantly at least kind of moving and being active and doing things like light things, it's so much easier to then take you in that state to then move into something a little more intense. It was my secret hack when I was competing to keep my step count up. One of the things I've, to exactly the point you're making Justin right now is as I was like progressing through my training and I had to be a little more active, a little more active, a little more active. And I have, just like anybody else, I have those days where I plop down after a long day at work. I just want to sit on the couch and veg out, watch TV for a little bit. I would just make this rule like, okay, I needed like every couple hours. And I had back then, I used to have the bands just hanging from like a door that was right in my living room by my TV that I had to just get up and do that. And what would end up happening just because I got up, did a couple of chest flies or band curls or lateral raises real quick. Now all of a sudden I'd be more apt to go do something else. Then I'd get out and go walk or go do a training session. It was a huge hack for me. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I first experienced, I don't know this is what I'm experiencing, but I first experienced this as a kid. I haven't told this story in a long time, but years ago I read this silly article where someone said that Arnold built his legs, an inch on his legs because he went to the woods and did squats all day and drank a bunch of milk. Literally, I read this story and I thought as a kid, I'm like, that's what I'm going to do. I didn't live by the woods. So I went to this elementary school about a quarter mile away, took a barbell with me and I took a gallon of milk and I squatted. I tried to squat all day, didn't make it. Anyway, couldn't make it home. I got so hammered from the workout and my dad had to pick me up and I missed the day after school. I literally woke up and yelled for my mom from my room. I can't get out of bed. My legs won't move. So my mom was like so mad at me. She's like, fine, right? Well, the next day, you know how it is. It's even worse. You were more sore the next day. So I said, I can't. And my mom was like, no, we're going to get you out. So she's like, I'm sorry, but we're going to stretch your legs and move you to see if you feel better. And sure enough, she forced me at the end of a wooden spoon. She's like, you better get up. And I did. I moved my legs and stretched and I was like, oh, wow, I can walk again just because I was stretching and moving and doing a little bit. She made me do some light body weight squats and all that stuff. And I'm like, don't make me do this, mom. She's like, you better do this. But it worked. I felt myself feel much better. That takes us to the next one, which is very closely related, which are mobility sessions or mobility work. Now the difference between mobility work and trigger sessions are with trigger sessions, you're kind of aiming for a little bit of a pump. Mobility work, you're just trying to move through full ranges of motion. You're just trying to fully express your body through full ranges of motion. Why does mobility work help with recovery? Because it tells your body that you're safe. It tells your body not to be so on guard. One of the things that happens when you overtrain a little bit, everything tightens up because your body's like familiar. It's like, don't move too much. We got to keep, make sure you're going to be okay. Because it doesn't know that you're going to go and do some light mobility work. It thinks you're going to do another hard workout. So it's trying to prevent you from doing that again, right? Mobility work tells your body, hey, it's cool. You don't need to stay slightly tensed. And because you're not staying slightly tensed, we can now use those resources for faster and better recovery. So mobility work a little bit different than trigger sessions in that particular room. Well, we all kind of feel this when we lose balance or we go for a step and the step isn't there. And then our body kind of freaks out and has to kind of adjust for you. Yeah. And you feel that response. And it's very similar to any kind of range of motion that your body's just not familiar with that range of motion. It just doesn't live in that range very often. But to be able to kind of zoom into that and show and familiarize your body with the fact that you can be strong support and you've really focused on getting the reps of having your body respond to twisting movements, to your arm in a position where it's reaching behind you and an overhead and be able to feel strong and confident supported in that, your body's going to then take that into your workouts and have a totally different response. I remember reading Kelly Starrett's with Supple Leopard and then meeting with Dr. Brink and going through that whole assessment with him and it forever changed. And at this point, I'm already, what? 10, 12 years into being a personal trainer already or more than that. And going through that process forever changed how I would like never warmed up the same way for a session ever again because of that, because of the benefits that I found from mobility. And I find it faster and easier. Like once you figure out like how to prime the body like that and help speed up and facilitate recovery through movement, it becomes easier and more fun. I mean, I enjoy now where I used to never do stupid things like that where I just get down on the ground real quick and kind of move around and push my knees over my toes and sit in that kind of squat and scroll position. Like those weren't things that I had adopted earlier on in my lifting career that have now become a staple. And I find it easier, more fun, more comfortable to do that. And I know that how much it helps with recovery. Well, there's less things you fight in the workout too. Look, otherwise you're like, okay, about now is where my knee is gonna start talking to me and my shoulder is gonna do this. And if you're addressing those things constantly, your body feels supported, safe, and stable. And it adds into the performance of what you're doing. So to give an example of the difference between trigger sessions and a mobility type session or work, let's say I'm gonna focus on my shoulders for recovery. A trigger session might be band laterals, really light band laterals get a little bit of a pump. Mobility for the shoulders would be like a stick dislocate or shoulder dislocate. So both kind of focusing on the similar area, both feel very different. I would say play around with each, see which one you like better. I tend to think if I have more recovery demands, in other words, if I pushed it a little even further past what I need to do, I'm gonna go more towards mobility work. If it's just a little over, then I'll go more towards trigger sessions. That's just my personal experience or my personal opinion. All right, this next one is really good. This might require help from someone else. Although they have devices now that you can do some of this on your own, but it won't replace what you'll get with somebody who's skilled. And that's deep tissue massage. Really, really good deep tissue massage from a skilled practitioner is incredibly valuable. And I had a personal experience that changed my mind forever on this. So I had a massage therapist who was very good at correctional exercise work in my facility. And at the time I was doing a lot of jujitsu and judo and I was getting a lot of tennis elbow. Remember, I'm a trainer at this time. So I know stretching and I know exercising my hands and my forearms, but jujitsu and judo are so grip intensive. And it was just, oh my God, always. And I would ice them. I'd have to ice them every workout. I'd have to stretch the hell out of them before every workout so I can even do exercises. And I just couldn't figure it out. And I was too hardheaded to take time off. I'm like, I don't wanna take time off. I'm gonna miss my training. Well, anyway, she's like, Sal, schedule an appointment with me. I'll spend an hour on just working on your forearms. And I kind of put it off because I'm like, massage, what are you gonna do with massage? Like, I know what this is. I'm overtrained. That's not gonna help me. Well, anyway, she cornered me. She's like, either you value me or you don't. She actually told me this. Let me do this for you. I said, all right. So she spent an hour on my forearms. And real deep tissue massage is intense. It's not like a, I'm not relaxing. It's not comfortable. No, no, no. I had my forearms on the table. So I was sitting sideways from the table. And I remember halfway through, I'm like, this isn't good. She's hurting me. Like, this is not good. Well, anyway, this is 100% true. My tennis elbow, gone. One session, gone. Never came back after that. And that was it. I was totally sold. So I have my own personal experience with this. Yeah, so this was the one thing on your list that I saw that cost money. Yeah. Everything else, you can pretty much put together at your house. Unless you marry one. Yeah, like I did, right? So that was- Although she'll stop doing it. I mean, there's cost to that. But she gets you married. That's right. You gotta watch that. You gotta watch them. They're clever like that. You know, and there is, there's a very big difference between a Swedish massage and a deep tissue slash sports massage. And a good sports massage, they'll actually take you through like kind of PNF stretching. They'll find the target areas where the muscle is in that state of tonus that you're talking about, where the CNS is basically locking it all up. And they'll release that. And man, that makes a huge difference. In fact, when I was going through competing, this was during the time that Katrina was still massaging me consistently. I got away with a lot of overtraining because I consistently was getting massaged. I mean, because there's been times after that where I've tried to increase the volume to that. It's like, why can I not handle this? You know, it's weird. I want to say this. You know what I noticed after really deep, like really good deep tissue massage that I didn't realize? I got a pump at the end of it. I would get off the table and I would have a little bit of a pump. Sure. And that's partly, that's because why they opened ---- up and had blood flow in. I mean, obviously that's going to make a big impact. And again, the therapist that I worked with, I could see it with my clients. I could train someone a little harder because they were going to meet with her. If they didn't, I'd have to scale back the intensity. The other thing that's nice about this one, that's like, because like when we talk about trigger sessions and mobility sessions, I mean, you can somewhat feel that difference immediately, but sometimes it's prolonged what you see the benefits or it's so little that the average person, you get a really good deep tissue massage when you're locked up like that. Like the relief is instant. Right away. Yeah. Plus there's areas that are hard to work on like the traps and neck. Like, oh, how do I get that to stretch and work? I mean, you can, but you got to kind of have skill when a good therapist can use their elbow and get right in there. Oh yeah. Yeah. So it's good to, oh, by the way, on your own, this isn't going to replace a good therapist, but on your own, you know, foam rollers, lacrosse balls, those kinds of devices can somewhat bring some of this kind of relief where you're pressing on them. Now the key, by the way, and I do want to say this, I did learn this. I'm sure you know this too. When you're pressing on a tight muscle, don't hold your breath. No, that's actually telling your body to stay tight. I didn't realize that. When she was hammering on my forearms, she's like, whoa, you need to breathe. Because that's the mechanism whenever you're facing anything intense. It's like, you want to lock up, but yeah, you got to be able to relax your weight. She's like, I'm trying to tell your body to relax. You're telling your body not to relax. I'm like, oh, that's why. It's conflicting information. To that point, I actually, so that was one of the things, because I was like a not really a massage guy until I met Katrina that became like this massage snob about it. And I saw the meditative benefits from it because you have to learn to do that. Breathe, breathe, like teaching me to breathe as she's going through it. And it's wild to think like the type of massage that I could handle when we first met to where now, where it's like, you can dig into me like really, really hard. And I've learned to relax while that's happening. And I feel like I can get way more relief because I've learned to do that. The same thing, like with the cold therapy, the first time you get in there, it's like, and you can't breathe. But as you get better and better at learning to breathe through it, I think the benefits increase. You're right, for sure. Does she ever hammer? I just want to say, she ever hammer this part of your neck right here where they turn your head and put their elbow in there? Oh, my God. Oh, God. I was like, this is- That and all the way down the levator scapula. I used to have such a hard time accessing that. You know, I tried with one of those lacrosse balls. Again, like just to get somebody to manually kind of work through that is so valuable. Incredible. All right, this next one, you can get carried away with it. And there's a saying in the muscle building world that I don't like, which is there's no such thing as overtraining, just under eating. That's not true. I don't care how much you eat, you can overtrain. However, there's like a lot of sayings, there's a kernel of truth in that. And that is when you find yourself at the point of, you know, you're a little overtrained or you've gone just a little too hard. One way you can kind of hack into recovery a little bit is just to increase your calories that day, in particular proteins. One higher calorie day for me, I can feel a difference when I'm tiptoeing that line of too much and the right amount. I like how you set the table for this because actually a lot of hard plateaus that I have found people in is because of that. And I think that's where that saying in the bodybuilding world gets a little bit of street cred because a lot of times when you assess somebody, you're like, oh wow, you were just hammering the ---- out of your body and you're not feeding it enough. Like let's scale back a little bit of intensity, increase those calories and wham, I see somebody come out of a plateau and now all of a sudden they start putting muscle on. I was this person, like I for sure was the kid training super hard, sometimes double days, six, seven days a week and moving all day long and just not feeding my body enough. Simply scaling back on the intensity, increasing calories made a huge difference in me building muscle. So I like you addressing it that way because there is some truth to that whole saying, although I think it's abused. It's also not a free for all day. That's not what I'm talking about because if you're over-trained, the worst thing you could do is then say, oh, I'm gonna eat more calories and go eat a bunch of garbage and increase inflammation. The best way to do this is to take what you normally eat and just eat more of that the day that you wanna improve or speed up your recovery. All right, this next one sounds silly. This might've been considered an old wife's tale back in the day, but now we have lots of studies and evidence to show that they were right and that is to get some sun, get some sunlight. Remember back in the day, oh, you don't feel good. Oh, you're tired. Oh, you're getting sick. Go outside and get some fresh air, right? And then for a while people are like, oh, that's an old wife's tale, doesn't do anything. No, it turns out getting sun, especially in the morning, early or late morning sets your circadian rhythm. It helps release anti-inflammatory chemicals in the body, reduces inflammation, improves or increases vitamin D production. It can help you synthesize anabolic hormones. Like getting some sunlight is a great way. Well, they know this in the hospital setting. I mean, when Courtney was in the pediatric unit, they had literally a playground outside so they could at any moment, they could cycle through kids that were in need of healing and recovering. It sped up the healing process because they're outside in the sun, they're getting fresh air. That stale, you know, that air, the type of lighting and everything, the institutional setting is just not conducive towards the body's needs. I also think that this is all that we know too. I still think there's unknown benefits such as being out in the sunlight and nature. And anybody who's ever experimented consistently with it probably can speak to saying like, I can feel a difference and I know a difference. I sleep better when I do that. I feel better when I do that. Energy level is better. Mood is better. I mean, there's so many things. And yes, science has came through for us and has proven some things like circadian rhythm, proven things like vitamin D. We know low vitamin D levels are also connected to like low testosterone. We know the benefits of testosterone when it comes to building muscle. So there's some connections that we've made that are now obvious to us, but I still think there's even unknown powers and things of being out in the sun. And we'll keep learning more, but we do know that like being in the dark all the time. Yeah, we know enough now. Get your ass out there. Yeah, and we know, look, okay, and this is a pretty, I'd say, I think reasonable observation. Like if you are in the dark all the time, I mean, consider human evolution, it meant that you were alone in the cave, away from the group, probably because you were sick or infectious or scared or dying, and your body starts to get that signal. You go outside, the body gets the signal like, all right, we need to pick things up, speed up recovery, make this person feel a little better. So it makes a big difference. And you know, back in the day, it's funny. I saw these old pictures from, I wanna say the early 1900s, where there's a, what's the disorder? Is it rickets when kids had too low of vitamin D? I wanna say it was called rickets. Yeah, rickets. Rickets where your limbs are deformed. So there were hospitals in New York City. So you know New York, the way it's built with the big buildings and stuff, right? They had these like cages, they look like, that were attached to windows that they would put the kids outside so they could get some sunlight. So it looked kind of bad, but they knew then the value. Oh, these kids don't look healthy. Put them in the cage without the sun and they'll get a little better. So pretty interesting stuff. All right, so this next one sounds like it might have nothing to do with recovery, but actually has quite a bit to do with it. And that is to meditate. Maybe have some kind of a meditative or spiritual practice. Now, why is that? Because if your body's in a high level of stress during your exercise and you've overdone it a little bit, one of the best things you could do is when you're not doing the exercise is to bring your body in a much more recuperative state, or at least reduce the general stress that you have during the day because that'll impact your recovery. So literally a 10, 15 minute meditative session can bring all that stuff down and help facilitate and speed up recovery. Because it's easy based off of modern day life now to constantly be in that sympathetic state where you're just, whether it's on your phone and you're reacting to something, you're driving and you're just tense or you're thinking about something, you have a relationship you're dealing with, there's friction there, whatever it is, you could carry a lot of that similar type of energy with you. And to not be able to break that up and really get in, because you're not going to really fully recover until you get into this parasympathetic state where it's a totally different operating system dealing with stress. And so to be able to figure out how to start practicing this and be intentional about being mindful and mindful practice and breathing and these types of things, to be able to counter that and step out of that state of stress, you need to figure that out. Well, I'm going to sound all esoteric because I just said it with the sunlight, and now I'm going to say it with meditation, but I think this is another area that we're still learning. And we're slowly realizing how important it is, especially to your point, Justin, what we are with our phones, with this constant low-level stress. These are all new problems. Yeah, these are. We didn't have it 100 plus years ago and we're starting to realize that, okay, we've always known that meditation has been in all these long spiritual practices and we know that there's been benefits to it, but I don't think we realize how much and how important it's becoming in today's time and we're still learning that. So I think- We have to schedule it. We're barely scratching the surface on this. Look, here's the deal, okay? Just go back to when we were kids. You don't have to go back 100 years. Go back to when we were kids. There were lots of opportunities for you to think about bigger picture stuff. Now, it doesn't guarantee that you were going to do that. And be bored. Well, that's what I mean. It doesn't guarantee it, right? So you still had to make that choice, but if you're waiting in line at the store when we were kids, you sat there and if it was a long line, well, it opened up an opportunity to think about the bigger picture. You went to the bathroom every day and sat in silence every day. Oh, yeah. You ever go to the bathroom now without your phone? Freak out. Hey, slide the phone on the door. I don't have my phone. I can't go to the bathroom. I won't even go to the bathroom without it. It's a fact. It's true. Or you're walking somewhere. You walk to your friend's house, right? Or you're driving somewhere. You don't have all these distractions or you're in a waiting room or anywhere, right? You have all these opportunities to have these kinds of thoughts, right? So you need to get a schedule. Just gotta get a scheduled exercise now. It's the same thing. Like you used to be active 100 years ago on accident. Now you have to schedule exercise. I think it's important to schedule time for you to think about the bigger picture. And what that does is it takes you out of today's stress and it can start to bring things down and put things in perspective. That's prayer. Prayer does that, right? When you're praying, what you're praying for are bigger picture things and studies will show it does bring that general anxiety, that general stress kind of down a little bit. All right, this last one is more of a dietary one. And really it's to lower general inflammation, okay? And that is to increase your fish intake and vegetable intake. Now fish, obviously high in omega-3 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Vegetables can do the same thing unless you're intolerant to the vegetables, in which case it can cause inflammation. But if not, it lowers general inflammation. Now inflammation, I do want to say this is not a bad thing. I want to be very clear. It's a very important signaler in the body. The only time you want to naturally lower inflammation and pay attention to is when, like I said, when you pushed it just a little bit past, in which case you can bring it down by doing these things. This fish one is one that, I haven't done this in a long time, but I used to do it quite a bit when I was over-trained. I would make sure to eat a lot of salmon and sardines that day. And I would notice, I would notice a reduction in my soreness and in my stiffness. Well, isn't this what most your, you know, quote unquote, anti-inflammatory diets are comprised of? There's fish and vegetables. I mean, that's like the staple. Biggest benefits from them for sure. Leafy greens and yeah, definitely fish. Right, right. That's most of what it is. I mean, I think, and I think one of the biggest takeaways, I know the omega-3s are important and the anti-inflammatory properties of that, but I even think just the promoting the protein, which you brought up earlier, I think is probably one of the most common things. I think people already grossly under-eat protein intake on a consistent basis. And then if you add in the fact that you're overreaching and over-training, one of the best things you could possibly do is make sure you're hitting adequate protein. And I think targeting things like fish and veggies is a great strategy to do that. So I used to literally, I used to do this all the time. I don't quite, no, I don't quite. I know I don't train where I pass over training as often as I used to. And I used to only because I was far more intense with my workouts. I would do things like Brazilian jiu-jitsu and wrestling and judo, which if you're training in a class, I'm not going to tell my partner, you know, hey, we got to go easy today. You know, we're going to go hard. If I'm going against someone who's going hard, I'm going to go hard. And so I would do this when I knew I overdid it. Like if I trained that day, and I'm like, oh man, I overdid it. The next day, all I would eat, I used to do this all the time. All I would eat was fish and vegetables. Like my whole day, all my meals are going to consist of fish and vegetables. And I would notice a dramatic reduction in stiffness and soreness. So this is something that you could definitely implement. And most people don't eat enough fish. Most people don't eat enough vegetables. So even if you don't feel like you need a recovery hack, that's probably a good thing. And just overall digestion in terms of like being able to kind of work through that sometimes it's good to step away, you know, and eat some things that are a little easier to digest. And also to kind of with the fiber and upping your fiber intake from vegetables, it helps a lot with that. Just so that your body isn't just fighting things internally on top of the stressor keg. By the way, fish sticks don't count. I just want to say that. It's real fish. I'm out. You see it, you know, dipping in his ketchup. You're trying to get fat, you know, better recovery. No, it doesn't count. All right, look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at mindpumpjustin. Adam is on Instagram at mindpumpadam. And you can find me on Twitter at mindpumpsal. How do I incorporate cardio and not lose muscle? Seen people do this before where they'll start to lose the sharpness of their muscles or they'll start to lose the sculpt a little bit. And that's disheartening. But if you do it right, then you minimize that muscle loss or that metabolism slowdown. In fact, if you do it right, you can actually speed up your metabolism at the same time that you build stamina and endurance. You just have to be able to kind of program it properly. And the way to program it improperly is just to go do as much cardio as you can for as long as you can.