Warm Up and Recovery

I get a lot of questions about what to do before playing a sport. I rarely get asked about what to do afterwards, which is equally as important. We seem to have forgotten the recovery aspect of using the body. I guess this is not surprising as we are a culture of go, go, go. Coffee, workouts on lunch breaks, more coffee. Constant stimulus. Remember, the body is always seeking homeostasis (equilibrium). When it gets tipped off the scale too often, we get break down. This is where injury occurs. If you want to improve performance, you do want to apply the right amount of stimulus, but then you must allow for recovery to keep injury at bay and to excel. This is called the hormetic effect. So let’s dig into how to approach this.

For a warm up, think active. Static stretching is probably not ideal. You want to break a sweat, and get some blood pumping. At rest, blood pools towards the gut, especially after a meal. If you get cold after a meal, this is why. As you start to use your limbs, more blood gets pushed to the periphery of your body. Think about what movements you are going to use for that sport, and make sure you are doing something that is specific to it. Let’s take golf for example. Golf, like many sports, is highly rotational. So you should include something in your warm up that is actively rotational. Sports like hockey and lacrosse that require a lot of stick handling place high demands on the forearms. So you should find an exercise that gets blood pumping to the forearms. 

Here is an example of how to actively warm up your forearms:

Many people think of sports as being good for your body. And it is, in some regards. However, you’ve placed stress on your body, particularly the muscular system. Metabolic waste is left behind. This waste is mitigated by your lymphatic system. This system is similar to your vascular system. The difference is that the vascular system has a pump; your heart. The lymphatic system does not have a pump and relies on muscle contraction to push the waste product through the system. 

So for recovery, again think active. At least immediately after exercise. Light movement is best. Going for a walk, bike, or a swim works fantastically. This is also the time to do your soft tissue maintenance. That could be using a massage gun, foam rolling, getting a massage, etc. If you like to stretch, this is probably when you want to do it.

Here is an example of a way to self massage the adductors:

There is a great quote from the music industry, “silence is just as important as sound”.

This relates to recovery in that the way you spend your down time can be equally important. Whether that is reading a book, walking in nature, working on a breathing practice or meditation, ice baths/saunas; these are all fantastic practices to incorporate into recovery. These all stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Put these principles into practice and you’ll certainly excel. Can you just play a sport and not do any of this? Sure, but expect decreased performance and increased risk of injury. 

Become Dynamic: The Hormetic Effect

Is intense exercise good for you? How about red wine? It’s good for the heart, right? How about fasting? Are ice baths good? Deadlifting is bad for your back, especially those Jefferson curls. When you look into the hormetic effect, you’ll see why there is so much confusion around these conversations. 

Whenever I hear that a relationship between a dose and a response has a U or J shaped curve, I immediately think it is due to the hormetic effect. Recently, I wrote a blog on the equation for adaptation: Stress + Recovery = Adaptation. Hormesis, or the hormetic effect, focuses on the stress component. It is described as a dose-response to an environmental stressor. It is characterized by a low dose stimulation and a high dose inhibition. 

Some examples of hormesis include: 

-exercise

-intermittent fasting

-hypoxia

-radiation

-cold immersion

-phytochemicals (depending who you ask)

-Jefferson curl

Let’s take fasting as an example. We did not evolve to always be in a fed state. Fasting will trigger ketosis (burning fat for fuel), and reduces insulin levels. However, you can’t fast forever and you will reach a threshold where it’s damaging and eventually deadly. 

This scene where Westley outmatches Vizzini by simply having a tolerance to poison, is a perfect example of hormesis.

Exercise is the same; we all know the benefits of strength and conditioning, however too much exercise can lead to rhabdomyolysis; a breakdown of muscle tissue. This segues well into another topic; how to use hormesis to our advantage. Humans are inherently resilient, but with the right training, we can become even more resilient. The person who never has worked out a day in his life, and suddenly decides to train heavy 6 days a week may run the risk of injury or rhabdo. However, if you want to train with that intensity, you can build up your tolerance to it.

Hormesis is a disruption in homeostasis. Homeostasis is your body's ability to maintain a balance. If you just sit on the couch, homeostasis is not perturbed and all is well. However, if homeostasis is never challenged, its capacity to handle new stress is not improved in any way. That’s why the couch potato injures his back when he has to travel and lift luggage overhead in the plane. 

“A Ship in Harbor Is Safe, But that Is Not What Ships Are Built For”

We should seek to improve our resiliency. However we should do this in an intentional and intelligent way. That means not doing the weekend warrior thing. If you want to play a sport, you should train for it. If there is a specific movement such as the Jefferson curl that you want to perform, you have to train for it. It’s the person that hasn’t trained who suddenly decides to play basketball that tears their achilles. Or herniates a disc with a Jefferson curl. That means progressive loading with consistency.

Despite mounds of evidence, the concept of hormesis is somewhat controversial. The opposing model is the linear model. A linear model would suggest that something is either good or bad for you, and more of that stimulus would create more of a response. This is a philosophical discussion and an important one, because it changes the recommendations for health and even policy changes. 

Perhaps it’s human nature to place things in boxes (good/bad), or a lack of understanding of the hormetic effect. I contend that it’s this idea of a linear model that leads to advice to stop playing your sport, stop exercising, and basically stop enjoying life. We know that life is more nuanced than this. This is why research can be so confusing. You can find evidence that red wine is good for the heart, and also find evidence that it is bad for the heart. Is this not just more evidence of the hormetic effect? 

I personally like the idea of preconditioning. This is the intentional practice of graded exposure to a certain stressor so that when the time comes, you are physically and mentally prepared for said event. This is why on my recent trip to Brazil, I decided to swim through this frigid waterfall. Cold water immersion is not about decreasing inflammation (debunked), it’s about building resilience.

Now I don’t think a one time swim through a waterfall is going to make me more resilient, but if I’m always seeking challenge over the course of a lifetime, I believe that I’ll be harder to kill compared to the person that shies away from anything risky or uncomfortable. That’s what it means to become dynamic. 

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS CONTENT…

Check out our Cultivating Resilience Program. It’s all about becoming antifragile.

What you get when you enroll in the crash course:

1. A 2 week course with daily emails on mindset, nutrition, mobility, strength, breathwork, and physiologic flexibility.

2. Access to our private Cultivating Resiliency facebook group.

3. Voxer access to Dr. Chris through the duration of the course.

4. A hand-picked list of 6 book recommendations, 7 podcasts, 13 relevant articles/blogs, 10 relevant YouTube videos, 31 mobility drills, a free protocol on muscle strain, links to measurement tools we use, and some gear we recommend. 

5. A PDF outline on how to do exposure training (cold/heat) correctly.