sunday coffee vol 10: Active vs Passive Recovery + 8 ways we can feel more energetic and less sore

A few weeks back, I mentioned the time I got one of the worst injuries I’ve ever had - a high-ankle sprain suffered while playing basketball.

It hurt like a bitch, and it sidelined me from sports + any lower body exercise for almost a full year. It really sucked, but like with all things, there was a silver lining in it - it forced me to prioritize recovery.

Before the injury I was lazy about recovery. I’d go 110% in the gym, then leave and act like the work was done.

I’d lazily ‘stretch’ (aka I’d sit there in a forward fold on my phone for 5-10 minutes), then I’d go back home and get ready to go out drinking with my friends, staying out late, dehydrating myself, and ultimately getting terrible sleep.

Shocking that this didn’t work very well, no?

It didn’t matter a whole lot when I was 21 - but after a few years of this, my body started to show signs of damage.

Scar tissue build up in my joints led to a lot of pain + discomfort when lifting, poor mobility in my hips and ankles from years of neglect while I got bigger and stronger, and a number of other small issues.

The high-ankle sprain FORCED me to take time off and start to think about recovery from a more proactive stance. Once I started dedicating time + energy towards it, the same way I would with a workout, I started to feel so much better.

My shoulders didn’t hurt, neither did my ankle, and I began to enjoy pain-free lifting again for the first time in a while.

Prioritizing recovery has not only helped me heal from painful past injuries, it’s saved me from new ones too that I wouldn’t have seen coming, and the pain that would have come with them.

Prioritizing recovery helps us to:

Okay, but how do we prioritize recovery?

Below we’ll discuss some methods you can start to incorporate today, but first, let’s discuss the difference between Active and Passive recovery.

Active vs Passive Recovery

Think about this for a second: you just finished a killer workout, so you head over to the turf to do some cooldown stretching.

You can do 1 of 2 things:

Which do you think would lead to better results?

Obviously option 1, which is an example of Active Recovery.

Option 2 on the other hand, is an example of Passive Recovery.

And yet, so many people treat recovery passively and choose option 2 everyday.

Recovery happens naturally because our brains and bodies are pretty amazing, but there are a lot of things that we can do to help ourselves recover better.

Here are 8 ways you can start recovering better today:

1) Active Stretching

Incorporating daily stretching into your routine has a ton of benefits. Aside from enhancing our flexibility, it improves blood flow, reduces muscle stiffness, lowers the risk of injury, and promotes relaxation.

As we noted in the example above (Active vs Passive recovery), you should aim to be intentional about which muscles you stretch and why. Really focus in! Even a quick 5-10 minute yoga flow when you wake up is a great way to work this in.

2) Quality Sleep

Sleep is hugely important for our recovery, I’ve linked a previous newsletter here where we discussed 5 ways you can improve your quality of sleep today.

That being said, another point I wanted to address is to sync your body with your circadian rhythm as best you can. Our circadian rhythm is built on our ancient relationship with the sun and the light it provides us. To stay in sync with it, we want to both wake up and go to sleep with the sun.

Getting just 10 minutes of sunlight in the morning helps our bodies regulate here, so that we’re tired and ready for restorative sleep at the proper time. This also aids muscle repair and cognitive function.

As the name implies, our sleep has a rhythm to it. Try going to bed and waking up at the same times each day and watch how your body responds.

3) Cut Out Alcohol

Alcohol can be fun, but when we’re shooting for optimal recovery, it’s something we definitely want to cut out.

Alcohol disrupts deep sleep and leads to dehydration, affecting muscle recovery and overall well-being. If you’re drinking before bed and you haven’t been sleeping well, definitely give this a try for a few nights and check out the difference.

4) No Caffeine 10 hours before bed

This one ties back into #2 - improving your sleep. Caffeine is an adenosene blocker, making it harder for us to feel tired when we consume it.

By stopping our caffeine consumption 8 hours before bed, we can still enjoy the effects and improved focus in the morning, while giving it enough time to run through our system so that it doesn’t affect our sleep.

If you’re interested in learning more about caffeine in general, check out this Q+A podcast Dr Andrew Huberman did on it. As an avid caffeine user, it answers pretty much all my burning questions.

5) Hydrate Smart

Hydration helps with all of our bodily functions, such as:

It’s not just about drinking enough water though. Here are some tips we want to focus on to make sure we’re well hydrated at all times:

6) Get Bloodwork Done

This one can cost a bit more depending on your insurance, but I wanted to throw it in here anyways because it is SO helpful.

Regular bloodwork can help us with problems in the here and now as well as help us prevent problems down the road. It gives us a look into the innerworkings of our body, and things we may not see or detect on our own, like imbalanced hormones, nutrient deficiencies, and more.

7) Use Wearables (bio-trackers)

If you’re taking your training pretty seriously and you’re looking to have deeper insights into your personal health, biotracking devices like Oura, Whoop, Garmin, Apple Watches and more, can be super useful.

You wear them regularly while they monitor things like your sleep, recovery, and readiness - giving you actionable insights into your personal health data.

This can help guide your training decisions so that you can train + recover well consistently.

I’ve been both a Whoop user and an Oura user and I am a HUGE fan of both tools.

8) Icebaths (cold-therapy)

Icebaths, a type of cold therapy, have been shown to have a # of recovery benefits.

Recovery happens naturally, but if we want to perform at and feel our best, we should start playing an active role in it as soon as we can.

We went over 8 ways you can improve recovery and overall readiness. These are:

Give some of em a try today, your body and mind will thank you for it.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Dane