 You know what the biggest problem is with you fitness fanatics out there? You don't let your body recover you over train all the time. So nothing happens. You stay in the same place You're spinning your tires in the dirt. That's why we did this episode this episode It's all about the reasons why you're not recovering and seeing results great podcast But I also have a giveaway for you right now So here's the giveaway the maps prime bundle which will help you recover by working on mobility Improving connectivity getting better ranges of motion Facilitating recovery through movement. It's great. The bundle includes maps prime maps prime pro You will get that for free But you got to do this and you have to win leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode Subscribe to this channel and turn on your notifications If we pick your comment will notify you and you'll get free access to the maps prime bundle Also, we're running a 50 off sale right now two programs maps hit that's high intensity interval training And maps split that's a bodybuilder style split routine both 50 off go sign up at maps fitness products.com and use the code DEC 5 0 for 50 off. All right. Here comes the show We get a chance to talk to cassey once a week and she handles a lot of the Customer service on the back end and I always love her suggestions on the single topic episodes because she can always go Hey, this is i'm getting a lot of questions around this specific topic And i'm not sure if we've done an organized episode around this But I do remember getting a lot of questions and that is When people aren't recovering like right like they they like what's going on like they're sore a lot or you know They feel like i'm just constantly sore and i've been beat up and i've been training for a while now And they feel like they're doing the right things But don't quite understand why their body isn't fully recovering and you know What are some of the things that you guys and this is her asking us like what do you guys ask them? Or what do you what do you look at first to help this person figure out why they're not recovering? I love talking about this because this is one of those Crucial pieces to whatever your pursuit is that I think a lot of people just glaze over and don't realize How insanely important it is this is where all the magical things happen that you're looking to to achieve With either gaining muscle or you know anything kind of performance related Yeah, and let's I mean truth be told aside from nutrition This is probably one of the hardest things to figure out I'd say this is probably the one that I've struggled with The most for as long as I've been training is that that line between you know the right amount of training and and you know not recovering or overtraining by the way One of the reasons why this is so challenging for a lot of people is because As your lifestyle changes as your life changes it's a moving target, right? That's the challenge challenges. This workout's always been right okay for me and now all of a sudden I can't recover from it. What's going on? So that's one of the first things I actually say to someone Who says this to me is I first I want them to know that listen This is part of the process is figuring this piece out and even with me I've been doing this for 20 plus years. I still run into this today because lifestyle changes Diet changes programming changes older. Yeah, there's a lot of things that are are changing And so it's it's constantly a moving target and instead of getting frustrated from it or allowing it to You know influence you quitting Just look at it as as a signal that okay There's something there's something that I'm I'm not doing here that I can improve upon and and address it that way Yeah, so I think we should open with some just easy signs or some clear signs that you're probably not recovering fully The first one would be nagging inflammation So this is when you feel inflammation typically at the insertion or origins of muscle like or at the joints like oh Why is my elbow? Kind of bothering me all the time or man My my knee feels a little stiff or sore or my shoulder or here at my in the armpit part of my pec It feels a little sore for me. This is this is a really clear sign as I'll feel these kind of Inflamed areas twinges. Yeah, and they're just nagging. You know, I guess that's the best way to describe right? They're nagging inflammatory issues the next one that's really obvious is for me at least is bad sleep like Whatever your normal sleeping patterns are if all of a sudden You are waking up throughout the night or restless Or not able to or you wake up super exhausted like you didn't sleep at all That can often be a sign that you you're not recovering properly Yeah, I notice that one a lot when the restless nights and Partially because of how I'm training but also to the amount of stress I'm carrying And not properly releasing and dealing with throughout the day that I then it carries into My sleep, which then if you don't get quality sleep, you're not fully recovering. It's sort of perpetually just keeps this You know you in the same state where you're fighting This this constantly, you know, I think that how sore you are is a signal to like Being sore is is part of the process like you're it's inevitable if you do movements and things you've never done before And and you you train with any sort of intensity at all that there's likelihood going to be some soreness But I remember being a young kid and actually chasing this like looking for to be as crippled as possible thinking that The harder I go or the more sore I am the harder it is for me to yeah to move the better It is when it's the complete opposite like I want to I want to feel that I did the workout I want to know I want to be reminded that oh, yeah, I trained that yesterday I can feel that but I don't want to feel like it limits my Movement and my day-to-day type stuff and if so if it's limiting the way I walk if it's limiting the way I squat or sit down and I'm you Too much too much. Yeah, and and that is a lot of times The first sign that will lead to this kind of chronic soreness or lack of recovery Yeah, and then there's lack of energy, you know, where you just feel like you need more caffeine throughout the day You're just kind of fatigued You're dragging you're lacking the same drive That often means that your body is uh, you know, it's moving resources to healing and that's a lot of this is A lot of that is is what we're talking about is your body is diverting resources To healing and constantly trying to heal by the way adaptation is different than healing Healing is literally the healing process adapting is going above and beyond that To you know become stronger or more resilient to the same stress Uh that you that caused the the damage in the first place Well when all these things, you know all these factors stack up too I feel this like brain fog a lot of times So I don't have the same type of sharpness memory recall And I just feel like throughout the day I'm just fighting this this notion of like, uh, I just don't have that kind of clarity and in A sharpness that I would normally have if I'm full of energy and fully recovered Yeah, and then another one's like intolerances to temperature All of a sudden you're you're too hot or too cold Hands get really cold and clammy feet get cold and clammy This is a a sign that your body's pumping out stress hormones trying to keep you moving and keep I was gonna ask you what is the actual mechanism that's happening that causes that What is it because it's allocating resources other and though it can't it can't regulate temperature as well It has to do with the catecholamine production cortisol stress hormone release like when you get those stress hormones like okay So let's say you're you're in a room and then like a Scary dog walks in right your your fight or flight kicks in you're gonna get the cold clammy hands You're gonna get the the cold sweat, you know, you're gonna feel that because that hormone Does that to the body and it's as it's a side effect because what it's doing is trying to mobilize energy to get you to move But uh, if this is happening all the time That means that you're you're you're off your stress hormones are higher your body's trying to keep you going It's trying to keep you going while it's healing by by producing more of these stress You know compounds another one that I think is common when you're young That's a harder signal to pick up on is just the a hard plateau You know, so you're you're training hard and consistent, but you I mean I remember this in my 20s Knowing that I've been training seven days a week and hitting every bud just being stuck in the same place forever And because you're so young and resilient You you don't realize that part of the reason why you're stuck in this plateau is you're not recovering properly You're like I gotta go harder Right. Yeah, and you just keep upping it upping up the intensity thinking that you need more and more and more And because you're so young and resilient You don't realize that it's not it's that your recovery process is what's hindering you from continuing to adapt and grow and change Yeah What used to happen to me was I would plateau and then I just throw more at myself and more at myself More is better always and then I start to go backwards. Yeah, and that's when I would have that wake up call Like what I just went down 15 pounds in my squat Uh-oh, maybe I'm overdoing it, you know, it would take me that long to kind of you know, figure that out Okay, so let's talk about some of the reasons why You're just not recovering the first one is I think the most obvious which is Your workout programming is inappropriate for you. Now. I think it's important to clarify that What inappropriate means for you is very individual Okay for you in this moment in the context of your current life, okay inappropriate means You're doing in this particular sense You're doing more Then is necessary to get your body to progress. Actually, you're doing too much You're doing you're going so hard or doing too much to the point where your body is not adapting It's only worrying about healing and remember When it comes to exercise The right dose is the gonna get you there the fastest more than the right dose will actually slow down your progress Too much beyond that means you're not going to go anywhere at all And and so workout programming often It's just inappropriate for people. What does this look like? It's too intense. That's one, right? You're just going too hard sometimes and this is where those, uh, what do they call those weeks where they Uh, or the where they scale down the intensity. Deload. Deload week. There you go You know, they do studies on deload weeks and they find with hard training athletes and lifters that they make the most gains During the deload weeks during when they drop the intensity trippy because you go on vacation And you're so stressed out that you're not able to continue that type of Routine that you've established and you know, you've been so consistent But then, you know, you you're off for a week Let's say then you come back and you're like, oh my god I feel so much stronger and it trips you out because it Is a glaringly obvious thing at that point is like, well, maybe I could do a little bit less And see, you know a better result. And so sometimes that's a good indication of like, maybe I might be, uh, going too much Too hard We have to remember that that training, um, is a stress And if you are doing it like crazy, your body is just trying to defend itself from all these insults And and if you just keep piling that on like it doesn't you don't allow it to adapt and get better It's constantly trying to play defense because you're throwing everything at it all the time And sometimes we just don't look at it that we think oh more is going to give me more results And it's not true at all. There is definitely a sweet spot and that sweet spot is different for every individual Yeah, it moves for every individual. It's different. It's different at different periods of your life It it's determines day to day based off of rest and nutrition There's so many factors that that play a role in this that it's not simply just Going and hammering your body and then I should see the results. I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna use an analogy So, uh, before I do so we're talking about working out too hard. That means the intensity is too high You're either going to failure You're doing too many supersets. You're pushing your body harder Then you need to or you're working out too long workouts are lasting too long again This is very individual or you're working out too often. That's another one. So here's the analogy, right? So let's say I wanted to develop a callus on my hands. Well the way I stimulate a callus is I rough I rub a rough object on my hand and if I do it right I'll cause a little bit of damage Then what my body will do is heal the damage and then it'll add extra layers of skin to build a callus So that next time exactly that's the adaptation process, right? The healing is the skin healing the adaptation is callus and that what that does is it Sets me up so that next time I don't cause as much damage. So too hard would be Rubbing my skin really hard, right too long would be just I'm rubbing it way too long Too often is I don't give my skin enough time in between rubbing it to cause it to allow it to to heal and to adapt So there and in the condition of my skin and the condition of my body Will has a large role in determining what's too hard. What's too long. What's too often So this is what happens oftentimes with the training another thing is that you might just be doing The wrong kind of workout just period doing the wrong kind of workout, you know, I I had a client once I'll never forget this woman who was a she was a an executive very, you know go attitude And she trained with me three days a week and then she did all this high intensity cardio Couldn't figure out why she wasn't losing body fat and her calories were being cut and it was just a strange thing This was earlier early ish in my career and I remember saying let's Trade out two of those hard cardio sessions for a relaxing type of yoga and she's like but I'm burning Way less calories. So should I cut my calories? I said no, let's see what happens Let's just replace them with the yoga And which is way less intensity. You're not burning as many calories You're not damaging your body as much and let's see what happens and at first she tripped out because she didn't gain weight So she's like this is weird. I'm not even gaining body fat I'm not burning as many calories and then something funny happened her body started to progress and adapt because That was the right kind of workout to add to her body at that moment Right and also too when it comes to programming So what you do the in-between days is also, you know a factor where Way back in the day, I used to think it you'd train as hard as possible and then you'd rest as hard as possible So meaning you'd lay down you would do as minimal movement as possible And we would just sort of ride it out until I was fully recovered and then I'll go back and hammer myself just as hard when in fact You know one of the most effective ways to fully recover is to add light movement and to add a bit of activity And active recovery and so you know once I started kind of incorporating in Real light movement stimulate the muscles get the the blood pumping because in a sense the blood is actually You know one of those mechanisms that helps you to to recover fully if you get good circulation It does and it doesn't cause more damage. It facilitates recovery I must have experienced this a million times before I figured it out where I'd work out my legs real hard And then my buddies will be like let's go ride our mountain bikes I'm like damn it. I'm not going to recover because I'm going to go ride mountain bikes But I really want to do it so then I'll go and I'd come back and like my legs are way less sore And then the next day I'm like wow it's gone and I didn't piece it together to like it happened 15 times in a row And I was like maybe the movement is making me recover faster. I used to think what you thought I would go home. I put my legs up and bro. Yeah time to grow Just talking about this reminds me so I at one point I lived across the street from the gym when I lived with my grandmother when I first moved to the bay area And I was I was in this place like where uh, I believed that it was all about how hard you train And then how much you could rest and to the point where I was like competitive with like how much could I I would go train the shit I mean like crippling barely walk out of the gym for two hours Go to across the street to my my grandma's house lay in the bed and just like literally like look at the time Like okay, I got I got on the bed by one Like lay there all day like thinking that like all this muscle is your bed Yeah, it's building. Yeah calling my grandma grandma. Could you bring me some chicken rice? Literally I did that for months thinking that this was going to build the most amount of active recovery is like stretching Like movement trigger sessions like you'll find in maps anabolic mobility. Yeah mobility is phenomenal for Active recovery. So you're you're sore so the following day you're working on mobility And you're moving your body through full ranges of motion and you're not causing more damage You're literally speeding up the recovery process and in fact It's the it's the opposite of what we used to think like if you worked out and then didn't move at all In fact, if you tested this on yourself work out real hard and then stay bedridden for a week and then go back to work Out you'll be weaker Well and anybody who's had surgery knows this right because the first thing that they're trying to make sure that They establishes that you get up and you move and you get that Movement established so that way you know the body like gets that signal like hey, we need to recovery. We need to get back You know to accomplish like what we used to be able to do and so in order to do that You got to really kind of work through that to get to that place Yeah, it's obvious when you understand what's going on right you when you move and walk around You're you're moving blood and oxygen and nutrients Through the muscles So it's like what do you think is going to speed up recovery and build more muscle Would be sitting there and slowing down how much blood oxygen and nutrition is effective or Pumping a bunch of blood and nutrients through there You it just makes total sense when you understand what what the recovery process looks like that Oh, I don't want to completely be sedentary. That's not ideal You're sending a weird signal to your body by not moving Afterwards because your body's like oh, oh, there's a lot of stress got to repair got to build And then oh wait a minute. We don't need these muscles. They're not really moving much anymore So it's this weird counter signal that actually causes recovery to take much longer The next one this one's a big one and I didn't figure this out till I was older Which is sleep quality Poor sleep quality will crush your ability to recover and I don't care who you are I don't even care if you're on tons of anabolic steroids or whatever I don't care how great your genetics are If you have poor sleep you can forget not only can you forget about recovering from your workout You can forget about your brain getting rid of the the waste products and stuff That it needs to for you to function the next day to the point where Lack of sleep quality accelerates or causes dementia Alzheimer's lots of health issues to the point again They've done studies where they've gone had people go sleep deprived. They go crazy within three days I think the the rate of insanity is like 50 percent or something like that Really crazy. So this is a big deal and it's not just I didn't sleep for eight hours Did you sleep good for eight hours or were you up kind of throughout the night? Well, this is where you actually get a chance to to build your body back and fully recover and balance out your hormones and and your body to sort of catch up with all the stimulus and all the insults that you've Uh, you know, like put put upon it throughout the day. Now the most important part. I think of this is actually Uh addressing how you get better at this versus talking about it Of course, because I don't know if you got I mean, I remember hearing and reading the importance of sleep So then you just go to bed, right? So I kind of always knew that like it was just kind of Whatever and I know that I I dismissed it and said, oh, I'll I'll sleep when I'm dead and sleep's overrated Like I used to say those things But it wasn't like I didn't I wasn't reading anything that said we you sleep wasn't important Like I think I feel like a lot of people that are listening right now know that I think the most important message is so what does that look like if I really want to improve it? That was something that didn't come full circle to for me later on like Oh, and and the best thing that someone ever said to me and I don't remember where the first time I heard it was like You know, it's it's so interesting how we all have these crazy Rituals around getting up and starting our day, you know everything from brushing your teeth the showering to You know cup of coffee to reading a newspaper to you know, whatever it's like we have these These systems that we've put in place and your alarm sets every single day And most people have an alarm that's set at the same time every day. They consistently do it But bed is night time is so different. Oh, it depends on if I'm watching a Netflix show I might go to bed at midnight. I might go to bed at 10 o'clock I might go to bed sometimes at 9 30 if I'm really tired and exhausted and I feel I have to or You know, no one really puts a lot of energy and focus around Preparing themselves for sleep. And I think learning how to do that Will improve the sleep quality versus like you were saying Justin's like, who do I do just lay there and like try and sleep harder Because that's that's the way I hear it You know, that's the way I hear it the first when I thought about it before just like, what am I going to do? Try and sleep better. That just sounds weird. No, I think preparing is uh, that's the best first step Right have a schedule. I go to bed. I you know, I want to be in bed by 10 So at 9 p.m. I'm getting ready to go to bed. What does that look like? I'm going to dim the lights where blue light blocking glasses. I'm not going to eat anything I'm not going to have any stimulants after, you know, maybe 3 p.m And I'm preparing for bed and then when it's time to go to bed my brain and my body are ready to go to sleep Well, the blue like blocking glasses are great But also like the the closer you can get to that first light to when the sun goes down You know, obviously that's like sort of your your great window So you can kind of match that circadian rhythm Kind of period because I noticed too like if I get more sunlight during the day, it's a lot easier for me to get deeper sleep Yes, that's a big one Which does play a factor for me personally and also to not eating too late, which then I have digestive things that Interrupt that real deep sleep that I could yeah. Well, your organs have circadian rhythm too. So sunlight and sun You know, they help set your circadian rhythm, but so do your organs including your stomach. So when you eat food Really late That sends a signal to your brain that says it's time to be awake So you probably don't want to eat a couple hours before bed. The next one is That your stress bucket might already be Full or it's overflowing when you add your workout. What does that mean? So Your body think of your body having a stress bucket and all stress gets thrown into this bucket. So Workout is that a stress? Yes, it is What about Argument with my spouse that's a stress You know, I yelled at the guy in traffic. That's a stress work is real hard right now. That's a lack of sleep That's a stress So if you're throw if you know if you know in your life right now that you have a lot of stress going on What you probably don't want to do is throw a very stressful workout on top of that In fact at that moment What's probably going to get you best results is it work out that takes a little bit of stress out of that bucket Right something that's helped more calm more relaxing maybe more mobility work Or you recognize my stress buckets almost full So my workouts are shorter less intense and less frequent now Do you What are the things that you think insult that the most or like how how do you either personally manage that or help like clients Manage something like that because I guess that's so um, they're very individual right it's very individual There's a wide range, you know, and maybe somebody who's always had like a rocky relationship That's like life for them. It's like I'm always fighting with my spouse. So what am I gonna do never work out hard Like that's just normal for me. So like how do you help somebody decide? Am I already over filling my bucket full of stress? Are there things that you're telling them to look out for or pay attention? Well, you got to ask yourself. Am I Am I more stressed out now than I normally am Because you're absolutely right like someone might be able to cut me off In traffic or flip me off or whatever and to me it's like, you know, whatever But to someone else that may really cause a lot of stress and ruin their day. So this is a personal This is a personal one for yeah, I think really it's just about like taking inventory So if you can just sit there and think about all those things that even if you mention it like oh Like it tenses you up a bit and you realize that I'm carrying this with me And this or it's something that you're constantly thinking about that you just can't stop spinning on Uh, and you know, these are things like well, how can I how can I actionably? Kind of take steps towards reducing that amount of stress and maybe if it's work, it's It's like right for me. It's writing things down and getting more organized So it's like I can take things off one by one And and so then that kind of lowers taking all of it on at once in my mind So that's one way I can kind of address that and then also too if I need to have a confrontation With a relationship I need to to face that I need to go, you know, take action in that direction But it's individual a hundred percent You just have to kind of realize like what those steps look like because I know a lot of people that that use the workout as their way of You know de-stressing, of course They you know, I got in a fight with my wife or I got this financial stress right now Or I just got fired from my job. Oh my god, all stuff So I'm going to go to the go to the gym and hammer the shit out of myself Like a lot of times that's where people go and thinking that that's going to me And they get that temporary feeling as we talk about the the cortisol junkies, right? They get that that spike in that and that feels good Right, it gives them that good feeling like oh, I'm so glad I went did that but In reality, they may not get the results that they want from that because if you're going to the gym to Make a body composition change, right reduce body fat or build muscle And you go there and that's your goal But then you're going there because you got all this stress And then you do like an intense workout to give you that temporary spike that gives you a temporary feeling of relief In reality though, you weren't doing as much good for your body as you you thought you were doing and so I think it's important that you you're paying attention to both like say my client is recovering really well And that is their answer. Okay. It's not that big of a deal But if we're in a plateau and we're not recovering really well And then I know that they're doing all the stress and I know that they're also punishing themselves in the gym Now I have something to like use is like, okay Well, if you were seeing good results and you did that every every once well, probably not a big a big deal But if I've got you and you're stuck in this hard plateau You're complaining about being sore all time And then I also know that you're using your workout to try and you know Not think about your wife that you hate or not think about your job that you hate And that's probably what level are you right now? Right, right? I think that's a good way to kind of figure that out to that Right. No, that's a very good point. All right. This next one is um This one was relatively common with newer clients, which is they weren't meeting their nutritional needs In other words, you need resources to repair Heal and adapt that means that you know, you could send all the your body could have all the plans for repair All the plans for adaptation, but if it doesn't have the the building blocks, it's not going to do anything So can you negatively affect your recovery because your calories are too low? Yeah, in fact, that's one of the number one things to look out for when you're on a diet where you're cutting your calories is Am I recovering? I can't recover because my calories are so low Not enough protein that was a big one especially with my female clients where they just they weren't getting enough protein You know, they were like 40 grams a day. It was really really low So I'd have them bump it to 80 grams or something like that which still isn't super high But it's twice as much as they were doing before and all of a sudden they're like man I could recover much better. I feel so much stronger I remember a buddy of mine back when I used to train in jujitsu He would come in and he kept complaining about his joints and how sore he was getting And so then I said, you know, do you mind if I ask you about your nutrition because you know I'm in the fitness space and so we talked and he was a He was vegan. So I said, you know, sometimes it's hard to get Enough protein when you're eating a vegan diet You mind if I ask where you get your protein sources and he wasn't supplementing with protein I said, well, why don't you try a vegan protein powder and take it post workout and just see how you feel And I remember he came back and he was like, dude, it's like magic He's like I'm recovering so much better You're you just wasn't getting the the adequate amount of protein that his body needed to recover for what he was doing So I think this is actually why people a lot of times feel like protein powders are so magical It's why the the the space is is it's so big and why efficiency is there a lot Yeah, because there's people that man, I tell you what when I start taking my protein shake I start seeing and they they attribute it to the protein shake But in realities, it's just because they were Underconsuming eating the chicken breast. Yeah, they exactly if they would have just went and had, you know Eight ounces more of chicken breast every single day instead of the shake They would have felt the exact same results And so I think it's important that you understand that because I agree This is the this is the number one thing personally for myself I've talked about on the show before that You know, I just gravitate towards carbs or I could easily meal skip the size of my body I need 200 grams of protein give or take It's really easy. I can go on a day and hit 90 grams of protein like and and do that Chronically for a week two weeks straight And so this is actually the first place that I go because I'm pretty good at being aware of like my day to day stress If I didn't get very good sleep how to back off the workout But if I notice I'm really sore and I'm not recovering very much It's almost always I'm under consuming protein and I need to bump that Well, I feel like too in my my own personal experience and also Training coach and a lot of athletes like they handle this piece of it like terribly Because of the fact that they're moving so often and You know, there's so much high demand physically all the time And it's almost the sense that they could consume anything and it's not going to have that much effect on them personally but like having Including a lot of inflammatory foods and and you know a lot of process type foods and you know Simple carbohydrates and things that you know, their body might be reacting to like Putting them in a perpetual state of inflammation. That's something you're going to keep fighting You know throughout the next day. It's going to affect the way you sleep. It has this cast-kitting effect I remember talking to I think it was rob wolf is a good friend of ours And he was this is when the continual glucose monitors were You know becoming a thing And he was explained to me how he was observed he observed in in someone that they would get a stronger insulin response From an avocado than they did from a cookie. Yeah And he was like this is so strange and then you realize well they they have an intolerance to the avocado So when you have an intolerance to a food, which is an analogy an allergy is a much more extreme But this person had an intolerance their body looked at this avocado and mounted an immune response what it did is it mobilized sugar out of the liver Spiking sugar in the blood causing a rise in insulin. So this is a bit of a extreme example, but if you're eating foods that your body is Not digesting well Not processing well. That's a stress. It's another stress on your body So rather than recovering really well, your body now is dealing with these foods that are causing bloat or constipation or diarrhea or acid reflux or Inflammation and so it's taking away from your body's ability to repair and recover. I 100 percent. This is me personally I 100 percent recover better when I eat my carbohydrates from gluten-free containing foods 100 percent I can actually get away with eating gluten for a little while before it starts to show up in terms of my digestion But the first thing I notice is I get sore more often And it's because my body's just more inflamed because I have a mild intolerance to gluten now this next one um, I feel like one, uh, it's getting worse two, uh I think that if you've checked all the boxes like you're listening right now and you're like, you know, I'm good I do that. No, I do I hit my protein take and you're I'm asleep and you're listening right now But yet I'm still having a hard time This is the next area and I always by the way, I like to check all these boxes first before I send somebody in this direction to Possibly go get your blood work Let's start to look at your hormones last night. We had, uh, dr. Ran in our, uh, mind pump hormones Forum and this was like a major conversation and he says, you know Sometimes like our our test levels and our estrogen levels isn't enough to tell the whole story and that it's important That we're also finding out from the the client their feedback like hey, I'm Sore all the time my energy levels are down, but it says my test level is somewhat normal It's like your hormones could be off and you still not be in a dangerous place And if you've checked all these other boxes, you're doing all the other things we're talking about This very well could be the reason why you're not recovering. Yeah hormone and balance issues tend to feel like this it tends to feel like At a at a nowhere like wait a minute. This is really weird Nothing has really changed all of a sudden Uh, I'm losing muscle. I'm gaining body fat very easily. My energy is kind of low This is very very strange like what's going on like I have a friend who Um got got her thyroid tested and found that she was creating too many antibodies and she had all these strange Unexplainable symptoms and she's like I'm doing all these things right and I feel like I'm rested But my body's just not responding That's that can sometimes point to hormone imbalance issues And so what you could do is you'll get tested and you by the way you want to go to a Hormone specialist because a hormone specialist. This is way more complex than looking at the range This is what I've learned recently by through working with regenerative and sport medicine That's the company that we have affiliated with that does this kind of stuff Is that if you it's not just about looking in the range because you can look at a range Just give an example of like testosterone range for men It'll start at 300 nanograms per deciliter I think is the that's the way that the unit of measurement as high as a thousand right so You could be 305 And they'll and you're within normal range right you could be 900 and be within normal range So it's not it's much more complex of that It's looking at all the hormones and relationship to each other and then of course the types of symptoms That you're exhibiting. So if you're like man, I am so tired all the time Then they look at your testosterone like well, you're 450. So you're low, but you're not at a range How's your sleep? Oh, I sleep, you know, I got a newborn. I sleep three hours a night Okay, let's look at that first. Let's work on your sleep first Or if like I man, I get nine hours of sleep every single night. I wake up exhausted I don't know what the heck is going on. Okay. It might be your testosterone It might be that's what's going on and they'll look a little deeper So if this is if this is something you want to look into this is not our expertise We're fitness expert not hormone experts Then I recommend you go to I think it is mphormones.com or my mp letter mphormones.com and then you can Ask more questions about this. All right. So this last one is last for a reason And that's because of all the things that we talked about This contributes the least to your body's ability to recover. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a role And it can't help but it won't fix your recovery issues If your recovery issues are because of all the things that we talked about, okay So this can give you a little bit of an edge And that's about it. And I think that that the next thing that we're talking about which is supplements It's cool to use when you're doing everything right and you're pushing your body and you're kind of, you know Up against that line right you keep pushing up against the line So you want a little bit more of a buffer so you can continue to train really intensely And there are certain supplements that have been proven to enhance recovery again It's not going to fix poor sleep. It's not going to fix poor programming or a crappy diet But if all those things are good and you want to push your body a little harder But you're kind of on that line then they can kind of help and the first supplement is creatine creatine's Easily the most studied ergogenic supplement around there's thousands of studies many of them peer reviewed Double-blind placebo controlled. It's safe. It's effective. It's actually healthy. They're now recommending it to Older populations. It's good for the brain and the heart not just your muscles does make you stronger And it does Help your mitochondria function better Gives them more energy so that you can speed up the recovery process Now I want to go back to the creatine one because originally creatine was really promoted as like Energy and building muscle has it more recently been You know attached to recovery and speeding up that process because I that wasn't always like that, right? No, but that's part of the reason why it helps you build muscle So it amps up muscle protein synthesis, right? So that's where your body takes the protein And turns it into active tissue or utilizes it for let's say building muscle Which is the thing that we're trying to do or repair muscle creatine supplementation increases ATP In the body ATP is the one of the primary sources of energy for Most all of your cells or if not all of the cells and when you have more ATP That protein synthesis cycle speeds up a little bit So you get a little bit of a faster. That's what it is because of the the recovery process of the ATP and ATP Is that it's contributing to the process of recovering because it's got more of that energy It could then recover at a faster rate. Yes. It also increases intracellular fluid So what you'll notice when you take creatine is you may gain initially a couple pounds on the scale and people like oh It's waterway. It is it's not bloat by the way bloat is outside of the cells Inside the cells fluid looks good. It's like a pump is kind of like that, right? So muscles look a little fuller a little tighter But increasing intracellular fluid improves nutrient delivery improves waste removal Reduces inflammation. So that also helps speed up the the process of recovery Another one is ashwagandha. This is very heavily studied herb. It's been in uh in Used by for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine Um and ashwagandha new this whole class of supplements. Yes adaptogens like it's interesting to see how they can Kind of balance everything out. Yeah, western medicine, right? But eastern medicine has been using this stuff forever for a long time ashwagandha is a stress recovery uh supplement and it's the first one of the first uh Supplements that will get recommended to you by an Ayurvedic practitioner. Would you if you're into a lot of stress Would you classified as like the king of adaptogens? Would you would you would you that's probably ginseng? I don't put ginseng up here though because People can react very strangely to ginseng. I'm one of those like if I take ginseng It makes me like really hot and feverish and not feel so good ashwagandha, um, I have yet I think if you have a really bad intolerance or an allergy to nightshades Maybe you don't do ashwagandha But I have yet to run into a client or somebody I recommended to who who didn't feel some kind of a positive Effect from ashwagandha better sleep and it helps your body utilize cortisol a little bit better Um, so you get more energy. It's really really good Rolio rhodiola is another one rhodiola is more of a stimulant It's actually a good replacement for caffeine for some people That's been shown to speed up recovery protein powder. If your protein's low, that's a big one man If you we just talked about that earlier, that's probably the to me That's the first one like even though it falls in the supplement category and in the real truth is it It's not the protein powder. It's that you're low on your protein That's just a quick and easy way to do it. So if you're somebody who chronically misses your protein intake Then simply taking a shake every single day could be game changing for you. Yeah Mushroom supplements are big now too. Although they've been used forever like cordyceps is one of my favorites That one, you know, that one got um a lot of news. I think it was the I want to say that the 2000 Chinese Olympic team. Yeah, the the swimmers were crushing and they said, oh, it's cordyceps Who know if it was cordyceps? Maybe it was some exotic anabolic surge But uh people started diving in the research. Yeah and cordyceps does improve Recovery and it improves vo2 max and stamina in particular. So for people who want more stamina Work capacity. I've recommended cordyceps to people who DM me who do like physical labor jobs So I'll say try cordyceps and they notice that they are, you know, better heat tolerance and they can work longer So that's kind of a cool supplement reishi, uh, which I hope I'm pronouncing right. It's r e i s h i This is another, you know, kind of adaptogenic type uh supplement But here now here's the problem with some of these herbs and stuff is that you got to find good sources Um, uh four sigmatics the company will work with with the mushroom based ones. They're the best by far I haven't yet to find a mushroom based supplement company that comes close to the the stringent You know quality control that they have with their products And then there's this last one that I love because I brought this up. I think the first time on the podcast like seven years ago six years ago Now it's exploding all over the place So I do want to give do a little a little clarity around the supplement. Okay, so this particular supplement's called ecti sterone and there are Uh other types of sterones that are similar like turquester own very similar to ecti sterone These are Insect hormones that's making it's round right now too. By the way, I've seen that all over the place both of them Right, so they're insect hormones. Literally. It's a hormone and insects that gets them to molt But it's also something you find in plants And it has this very interesting effect in humans where it gets you to build more muscle And recover faster and it gets you leaner and yes, it does work It's been studied and it does work. You got to find really good stuff. The problem is this you grow an ectoskeleton Yeah, that's a problem. You start to grow other legs a bug No, it actually stops working after about 45 days. You notice that you don't get this effect anymore It's a very short lived kind of product and uh, but you definitely notice it when you're on it Sorry, we have no affiliate. We have no companies that We can promote and and I'll say probably a good 50% of the stuff out in the market's garbage So it's really poor quality control again It's not going to fix poor sleep bad diet bad programming now that stuff But if anything's good, this is one of the supplements that you may notice when you take it now that being said I do want to express that they're not quite sure how it works They think it's mediated through the estrogen receptor, believe it or not, which makes me Want to avoid recommending it to women and all the studies I've seen have been done on men So I wouldn't recommend it to women because I don't know what the potential Effects can be with women, but with men it seems to be all good So there you have it All the stuff you can do Or the reasons why you're not recovering and some of the stuff you can do to speed up that process Look, if you like our information head over to mind pump free.com and check out all of our Free guides on fitness and fat loss nutrition and guides on personal training Again, it's mind pump free.com. You can also find all of us on instagram So justin is at mind pump justin. I'm at mind pump sal and adam is at mind pump adam