What do you do to help muscle recover?

Bigbear

The Kodiak
Trusted Member
What do people do to help with muscle recovery? How much sleep do you aim for how many rest days and do you do de load phases or take breaks?

Personally I would always aim for at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep each night. At least one day off through the week which I still did cardio on and usually would deload my weight by 20 or 30 % for a week every 6th week or so. Sometimes I would even take a full week off but I hated it lol. I also tried hot cold showers or baths post workout where it goes from insanely hot to insanely cold every 45 seconds but didn't see or feel any benifets from it. I'm also wondering if im lacking sleep would gear help in muscle recovery and possibly make up for effects of exhaustion?
 
I train 3 days a week with cardio on other days.

Always have one day in there where I do stretching and use the foam roller.

As far as sleep I likely get about 6 hours a night with a little more on the weekend.

I always train to failure then a bit beyond so don’t think at my age or with that intensity I could train more often.
 
Daily walks, I try and get my dogs out 2-3x daily, theragun (massage gun), I also do defrancos agile 8 every morning, I find it helps recovery, and the biggest reason I do it every morning is it gets my body ready for the day, really wakes you up

If I have time I try to do a 15 minute yoga routine focusing on hamstrings, lats, shoulders and hips

Nutrition plays a huge role on recovery as you already know, I supplement with a lot of vitamin c (2-4g a day) and find it helps with Dom's
 
I train 3 days a week with cardio on other days.

Always have one day in there where I do stretching and use the foam roller.

As far as sleep I likely get about 6 hours a night with a little more on the weekend.

I always train to failure then a bit beyond so don’t think at my age or with that intensity I could train more often.
I wish I could sleep 6 hours a night, being on the night shift I struggle to get sleep, but rely on power naps whenever I can, and really hibernating on my days off.

Even at work I'll hammer my lunch down and nap the rest of my break, seems to help
 
I wish I could sleep 6 hours a night, being on the night shift I struggle to get sleep, but rely on power naps whenever I can, and really hibernating on my days off.

Even at work I'll hammer my lunch down and nap the rest of my break, seems to help
Me too. Shift work messes me right up I sleep horribly through the day waking up every hour or so then next week I'm on days so my circadian rhythm is so off I still sleep horribly at night. Real pain in the ass and I wanted to train today on 3 hours sleep so I started looking into training while sleep deprived. Biggest thing I found was it effecting your muscle recovery.
 
I wish I could sleep 6 hours a night, being on the night shift I struggle to get sleep, but rely on power naps whenever I can, and really hibernating on my days off.

Even at work I'll hammer my lunch down and nap the rest of my break, seems to help
When I grew the best an dwas natural, I would sleep 2x4 hour spots. So 4 hours at night and 4 hours after work. I started at 5 am then.
 
What I tell people they need to do or what I actually do myself? Haha.

Obviously sleep and time off when required are the big ones, for sure. Other than food intake.

I, myself, having worked shifts all the time and with two young kids, don't get much more than 3-4 hours on a good night. Nap if I ever can, but it's a rarity. I focus on pushing food to compensate, anabolics/gh, and tissue work (massage/stretching). Rarely take days off training. Maybe one every 10 days if I can mentally handle it. Do what you can.
 
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is no magic forumula. Few obvious points and not in any particular order:

1. HGH, healing peptides and anabolic steroids will help recovery. Kind of obvious but it makes a big difference and you don't need much of them.
2. Even if you are taking script GH, BPC157, test and nandrolone you still have to learn to listen to your body - it will tell you what you need. You just have to listen. If you don't - you will regret it.
3. Take time off - I am good with EOD weights or 2 days on 1 off. Anymore I am going to get injured. Every few months I take a week off. If I need more I take more time off.
4. Sleep is a commodity I get when I can. I can't guarantee 8 hours a night but sure it would be optimal. I worked security in bars for a decade and then private security and it was always into the middle of the night. It took a long time to get into a sleep pattern and I still struggle today. Per @Bignate said nutrition is incredibly important no matter if your natural or on PED's. Your body can't repair itself without the required calories and macros/vitamins/minerals. Probably the most important factor of all.
5. Some people use pre-workouts / post work-out products and none have really done much for me other than creatine and protein powder (which I no longer use). I made a decision to get all my protein from food.
6. I go to a chiropractor once a month and I get a massage once a month. I have a foam roller and regardless of training I stretch daily and keep active.
 
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is no magic forumula. Few obvious points and not in any particular order:

1. HGH, healing peptides and anabolic steroids will help recovery. Kind of obvious but it makes a big difference and you don't need much of them.
2. Even if you are taking script GH, BPC157, test and nandrolone you still have to learn to listen to your body - it will tell you what you need. You just have to listen. If you don't - you will regret it.
3. Take time off - I am good with EOD weights or 2 days on 1 off. Anymore I am going to get injured. Every few months I take a week off. If I need more I take more time off.
4. Sleep is a commodity I get when I can. I can't guarantee 8 hours a night but sure it would be optimal. I worked security in bars for a decade and then private security and it was always into the middle of the night. It took a long time to get into a sleep pattern and I still struggle today. Per @Bignate said nutrition is incredibly important no matter if your natural or on PED's. Your body can't repair itself without the required calories and macros/vitamins/minerals. Probably the most important factor of all.
5. Some people use pre-workouts / post work-out products and none have really done much for me other than creatine and protein powder (which I no longer use). I made a decision to get all my protein from food.
6. I go to a chiropractor once a month and I get a massage once a month. I have a foam roller and regardless of training I stretch daily and keep active.
Awesome advice 👍
 
I think the thing is to listen to your body. If I’m in the growth part of my routine , I find the best thing to do is focus on what muscles feel the best and train those . I almost never take days off unless work costs me days from .the gym.
Ronnie Coleman went heavy as fuck every day and trained six days a week.
You can grow all the time as long as you are eating food , and sleeping right.
Probably been said already but the cleaner the better . Cleaner food = more food.
I think overtraining is something people talk about a lot but really tot takes a lot to overtrain . Amd if you are on gear I guarantee there’s always at least one muscle group you can go and hit .
Personally I think the meal you eat before bed is the most important part of recovery ,
If I have a big bowl of cottage cheese and some casein or time released protein I can literally fell my body healing when I’m asleep on cycle .
And if it hasn’t been said , multivitamin is just the king for helping you bounce back from all the vitamins and minerals burned through training.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I think the thing is to listen to your body. If I’m in the growth part of my routine , I find the best thing to do is focus on what muscles feel the best and train those . I almost never take days off unless work costs me days from .the gym.
Ronnie Coleman went heavy as fuck every day and trained six days a week.
You can grow all the time as long as you are eating food , and sleeping right.
Probably been said already but the cleaner the better . Cleaner food = more food.
I think overtraining is something people talk about a lot but really tot takes a lot to overtrain . Amd if you are on gear I guarantee there’s always at least one muscle group you can go and hit .
Personally I think the meal you eat before bed is the most important part of recovery ,
If I have a big bowl of cottage cheese and some casein or time released protein I can literally fell my body healing when I’m asleep on cycle .
And if it hasn’t been said , multivitamin is just the king for helping you bounce back from all the vitamins and minerals burned through training.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Someone would say allthe time -i forget who- there is no such thing as over training just under eatting and under sleeping

I to some degree agreewith this. When i was in university and only working part time i would trade 2x a day have a 8-10 hour sleep and a 1 hour nap.

I feel asleep on the bench press once or twice inbetween sets though lol
 
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