Five top tips for rest and recovery
Some lessons learned from our Tend to your muscles September monthly focus.
You don’t have to be a pole dancer or aerialist to utilise some of these great tips for tending to your muscles. A long day in the office might leave you with some niggles in your back, or some stress on your mind which needs tending to too!
What we found out: rest and recovery is important. Rest means making sure you don’t do anything overly strenuous (i.e if you do four pole classes one week then go rock climbing on your rest day...that’s not resting). Rest might need to be planned! Don’t forget recovery. These are things you can actively do to help restore your body. Relaxation is part and parcel rest and recovery and is important for a million and one reasons too - see here.
Now for our top tips -
Treat your rest day like you would a training day.... plan for it! Planned relaxation may sound a little counter intuitive but for those of us who go go go, it's important! "....And if you tell yourself that you’re being unproductive, remember that you can’t function well if you’ve exhausted all your resources by never stopping to take a rest" (thank you Dr Goldsmith). Remember that rest days aren’t a ‘treat’ they are a ‘necessity’ – thank you Gracie Buntine.
If you’ve got the dollars, prioritise a regular massage. Think sports, deep tissue or thai massage.
Foam rollers and spikey balls, invest in them. We got great foam rollers from Kmart here, and No 1. Fitness here. You want a spikey ball that is not too soft, as you won’t feel it getting to work on those pressure points. We got one from No 1. Fitness here and it is great – not too soft but not too evil hard either. Other suggestions are tennis balls and lacrosse balls. Shakti mats are another do it yourself type body recovery option. There are great instructional resources online - foam rollers and spikey balls.
Eat well (everything in proportion), get good sleep, drink water and find ways to relax.
.Float tanks, steam/saunas, hot baths/spas, a morning shopping, sitting reading a book, catch up with a friend. Whatever it is that works for you and makes you feel restore.
