Workout: Lower Body and What I Like to Call "Active Recovery."

-          Warm up thoroughly

-          Deadlift 4x6

-          BB Bench Press 4x6

-          DB lunges 3x8

-          BB Bent rows 4x6

-          Push Ups 3x15

-          Cable Lat pull down 4x6

CORE:

o   Front plank 3x45 seconds

This workout is intended for beginning or moderately experienced lifters, although it can also facilitate growth in advanced lifters. I realize that deadlifts are not a simple lift and could end up being very difficult for beginning lifters. However, it is such a critical lift for overall fitness and health that over everything else, the deadlift is the most important lift for a beginner to learn. Proper deadlifting will benefit more areas of the body than any other single exercise. From the ankles to the top of the head, deadlift is beneficial. Above anything else in the weightroom, the deadlift should be mastered. Here is a really good instructional video on how to deadlift I found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqHYfpYEi2A. As soon as I can I'm going to film a ton of instructional videos and upload them to youtube. Then I will be linking them to the exercises I write in my blog. So that will be soon!

What is Active Recovery?

"Active Recovery" is my own unique term referring to the activities and methods used during recovery periods in order to maximize strength and muscle growth. Recovery periods are times between workouts in which the body is resting and rebuilding muscle. These periods are most commonly seen as down weeks, and off days. It is also important to realize that time between consecutive daily workouts is also a recovery period, particularly the time spent sleeping between workouts.

Everybody who lifts regularly has heard of overtraining. There are a lot of misconception surrounding it, however. Like that someone should only lift a particular body part once in a week. This is an incomplete statement because although in can be true, in most cases it is not. There are many different contributing factors that finally manifest into overtraining. Very rarely, if ever, will someone overtrain only because of lifting too much. When properly fed and rested, it is unreal what the human body is capable of adapting to.

Overtraining will only occur as a result of being overly stressed out. Overly "catabolic" would be the more technical term. There is only one instance in my lifting career in which I overtrained. This time in my life was extremely stressful. It was the second semester of my senior year in high school. On top of being stressed about graduating, I had also just had my first hip surgery and was going through a really lousy break-up with my now ex-girlfriend. So I was anxious about my future with graduating, physically weak because of my surgery, and depressed because of the break-up. This all accumulated into a very difficult time for me. The only way I knew to really feel at piece was by lifting weights. So I worked out Monday through Thursday for at least two hours. Over the course of about three months I became the smallest and weakest I had been since my sophomore year of high school. But why did this happen? I wasn't training stupidly. At the time I was following a typical body-builder routine (this was before I started to exclusively design my own workouts), lifting one muscle group once a week. The fact is, regardless of whatever workout program I did, I probably would have overtrained anyways. I had simply become way too stressed and did not have the knowledge as to how to relieve this stress. I thought that working out as hard as I could would relieve all the stress I was under, when in actuality it was adding even more stress. This is because on top of all the emotional and mental strain I was under, my body was also working to recover from damaging workouts.

Muscle is not built while you are working out, it is built while you are resting in between workouts. Active recovery is made up of focusing one's energy on releasing stress and resting the body. This allows for the nervous system to recuperate and the muscles to repair themselves, as well as for the mind to take its necessary rest. My problem when I was overtraining was not that I was working out too much, it was that when I finished working out, rather than resting, my body became even more stressed from everything else that I was dealing with. This resulted in my nervous system becoming totally fried, which made it so that I couldn't think straight anymore and so that my body wouldn't function. It is the combination of all the stresses placed on the body while few or no stress relieving actions are taking place that will result in overtraining.

Then what are stress relieving actions? They take the form of anything that is going to facilitate the recovery of your body. They promote the reduction of catabolism and encourage anabolism. That is the technical way to say it. Anabolism is the opposite of catabolism and is associated with the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, while catabolism is associated with the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. Proper diet is a huge factor in your body recovering. A bad diet will only stress the body further. Good supplementation is also helpful. Whey protein will help speed recovery; L-Arginine is especially helpful in hastening recovery. Being hydrated is huge as well. Alcohol and smoking are significant inhibitors of recovery. Regular smoking is always bad for you, and regular drinking should be done with strict moderation. Getting drunk will completely negate any possible benefits of exercising.

As far as actual activities go that will facilitate recovery, the methods I use most are: walking, yoga and meditation. These are all extremely effective. Walking for an hour everyday, not only on off days, is an extremely effective stress reliever. With yoga, I do not have the knowledge to describe all the good that it does for someone's body. In my personal experience however, there is no better exercise for relieving stress than yoga. And any man that says yoga isn't manly has never truly tried yoga. It takes intense focus and strength to be done well. The same goes for meditation. People who have never tried meditating will knock it, but if you actually try it with an open mind, it can be extremely beneficial. Meditating doesn't have to be sitting cross legged with your thumb and middle finger touching, like everybody pictures. I will generally meditate laying in bed with the lights off before I go to sleep. All it takes is giving all your mental and physical focus to relaxing your mind and body for an extended period of time.

Lastly, getting quality sleep is critical in recovering well. Sleeping is when the body does its repair work. I always try to get at least seven hours of sleep at night. I heard once that sleep before 12 is more restful than sleep after 12. I don't know if this is true for sure, but I have noticed being more rested when I go to bed early and wake up early.

Doing these activities during resting periods will drastically benefit your overall fitness. Physically, mentally, and spiritually you will be better off. With these techniques implemented, it becomes very difficult to overtrain. It it important to still give your body the time it needs to recover. I personally like to do a down week after every four weeks that I train consistently. Also, I never work out on the weekends. With these rest periods and recovery techniques applied, the body is capable of extremely intense training regimens.

So let's review. The body will recover faster, function better, and feel better if..

• you have a proper diet and
• you are hydrated

With proper diet, supplements truly are unnecessary, that is why they are called supplements. However, faster recovery, and better functioning can be further facilitated with proper supplementation.

Exercises that will improve recovery time include:

• Walking
• Yoga
• Meditation

And the last thing involved in active recovery is...

• Getting good sleep every night

 Applying all these different methods of active recovery will benefit your overall health in countless ways.

Thank you.