 Hey guys, as you can see, I'm in a relaxed state, just finished an awesome workout and I want to make a quick video today and it's a really important one, okay? It's about how to maximize the benefits from your workouts, okay? Because it's not enough just to do the workout, all right? Stay tuned. So the workout I did today was 8 times 2 minutes at VO2 Max with 2 minutes recovery, of course a 6K warm-up and a 3K cool-down. Not a huge session but it's the first time I've been touching that sort of pace for like 2 years or something. So I was really happy with that and we'll build on the session over the next few weeks. But here's the thing, after a session like that, after a quality session, really after any workout to be perfectly honest but definitely after like quality workouts when you're really working hard. When you're done with the workout, you're actually only halfway done with the session because following a workout is the recovery process, right? And the recovery process takes a few hours, I mean certainly when you're looking at like signaling cascades inside the muscles and things that happen in terms of actually making the adaptations that you're after, right? Because you go out and you do a workout, you're actually just breaking your body down, right? You're less fit after the workout than you were before the workout. So now the body has to rebuild and not only rebuild but actually make new adaptations, right? Build new protein, build more mitochondria. You want more of the aerobic enzymes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like all of these adaptations that happen when we do endurance type training, they happen when you're resting, not when you're out there training, right? So that's why I'm in the very chill mode right now here on the couch or in the chair. Sometimes I'm on the couch. I like to just spend the first few hours following a quality workout relaxing. I know that's a luxury that maybe everyone else can't have. Well, it's not a luxury. It's a priority. It's a priority. I prioritize to do that. And maybe not everyone is going to make that sort of priority, but at least keep it in your mind that when you're done with a workout, you're actually only halfway done with the session as a whole because the first part is breaking you down and the second part is building you back up. When you're looking at those signaling cascades, like from a biochemical point of view, those first three hours after a session are really key. That's when you want to keep stress hormones low. That's when you want to make sure, of course, that you're hydrated and had food eaten. You want to get those calories in, get those carbohydrates in, get the protein in, relax, get that stress level down, and allow the body to now work on those adaptations. Certainly for the first three hours, as I said, but obviously there's more to it than that. Even the first six hours are very crucial and the first 12 hours, honestly, being an athlete is a 24 seven kind of gig. You never not training. Training is going on all the time, not just during the training session. I guess all I wanted to share with you today in this video was to remind you and I've done that in the past too, but remind you again that you need to have a certain awareness that after a session, in particular the first few hours, but even the rest of that day, you're still training. You are still training even though you're not physically out there training, right? So whether you go to work or whether you're at home with your family or doing something, minimizing activity, minimizing stress, trying to sit instead of standing, lie down instead of sitting. Anything like that, anything that can sort of reduce your stress levels so that your body can work on those adaptations is going to be beneficial. That's why elite athletes are literally like in bed most of the day between their two sessions. It's just to maximize the gains, right? Maximize those gains. So that's it, you know? Do your training and then rest, recover, de-stress, eat, drink and sleep. Sleep is super powerful also to maximize the adaptations after a training session. So that's what I'm doing here now. Just chilling and I wanted to share that with you guys through this video. What do you think of my new microphone? Sounds pretty good, right? Thanks for watching. If you're interested in online coaching, check out my link in the description to my coaching website. Subscribe, of course, to this channel. I'm making a video, I'm trying to do a video every week now. Maybe you won't be able to do it all every week but trying to do it every week and yeah, I'm excited about 2022. Training is going well and I'm happy. How's your training going? Let me know in the comments section. Thanks for watching. Give it a like and see you in the next video. Bye.