Recovery?

Sunday is usually my first yoga practice of the week....it's the day after my longest and hardest kettlebell workouts on Saturdays. In addition to having my own 8-9:00 training I teach/lead 2 hours of swings and snatches, maybe one private session, and then I end my Saturday morning with one last 45 minutes "Learn to Swing" class.....no yoga (ya think?) So, I look forward to my first practice of the week when I get to start all over again.

Yesterday was different....not that I haven't ever taken a Sunday off, I have, but I never felt good about it. My obsessive, probably fear based, habit of training too much won't let me take a day off from doing some kind of physical activity.

I get asked this question all the time, "Can I train kettlebells everyday?" To which I always answer "no", and then I add "if you could then I would!". Recovery always has to proceed adaptation.....adaptation is the effect you are trying to achieve. The effect is a change in ability, more sets/reps/weight, or a change in quality, more muscle/body composition change. Everything you do in the gym has an effect, you want it to be a positive effect, not a negative effect. The basis of overtraining is doing "junk miles" that do not make you stronger and fitter it makes you weaker and less fit.

.....back to yesterday. I hadn't planned on taking the day off but I got busy doing stuff around the house that took priority and I was "on a roll"..... I can't tell you how many times I talked myself out of, then into, then out of, then in to, whether to go yoga practice. I finally came to this conclusion. Recovery.

What is recovery? I'm looking for the deeper meaning of recovery because at first glance recovery seems like kind of a negetive state of being. I usually think of it as having to overcome something unwanted. Recovering from illness or alcoholism/overeating, etc. I don't relate it to a positive.....maybe that was part of the problem.


Training, the physical act of training, is the beginning, the start of change, and recovery is the finishing touch. I started to think about what it would feel like to let my body finish doing the work I so consistently ask it to do. What did I think I was in a hurry to get done? This is where my feelings of fear had to be looked at head on.

I feel like I'm in a hurry to be all the things I think training does for me. Stronger, leaner, more fit, more capable of the skills I practice. Being, or training for, all of those things is fun and rewarding unless it makes you feel bad. Bad because you think you should be doing more. Bad because you feel like it's not enough. Bad because maybe you don't believe you are already where you are supposed to be....in the process. Enjoying the process....

Recovery is part of the experience, recovery is part of the process. Recovery is part of the reward. Recovery means trust and relaxation. I'm already where I'm supposed to be, there's no rush....there's no rush, enjoy the process...it's magic.