Ultimate Recovery Formulae Book

Ultimate
Recovery
Formula
by
Logan Christopher

DISCLAIMER
The advice contained within this book is for educational purposes only
and is not intended for medical purposes. Please consult your
physician before engaging in any of the ideas found in these pages.
The author and publisher of this book are not responsible in any
manner whatsoever for the use, misuse or dis-use of the information
presented here.
All images, unless otherwise noted, are from my private collection.
They are reproduced here under the professional practice of fair use
for the purposes of historical discussion and scholarly interpretation.
All characters and images remain the property of their respective
copyright holders.

Ultimate Recovery Formula
All Rights Reserved.
Original Copyright © 2013 by Logan Christopher
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published by:
Logan Christopher
Santa Cruz, California
www.legendarystrength.com

Table of Contents
The Ultimate Recovery Formula
1
• Muscle Recovery and Soreness
3
• CNS Recovery and Burnout
5
• Injuries
7
Recovery Across the Body's Systems
8
• Circulation
8
• Lymph System
8
• Hormone or Endocrine System
10
• Nervous System
12
• Digestive System
12
How the Training You Do Places Demands on Recovery 14
• Intensity
14
• Volume
15
• Severity
16
• Frequency
19
• Novelty
20
• Individuality
21
• Exercise Selection
22
Training to Boost Recovery
24
• Light Days
24
• Circulation/Lymph
25
• Mobility
27
• Flexibility
28
• Conditioning
30
• Biofeedback
31
• De-Load
32

Nutrition Boost for Recovery
• Water
• Greens and pH Levels
• Macronutrients
• Hormones
• Antioxidants
• Anti-Inflammatories
• The Three Treasures
Lifestyle Boosts to Recovery
• Rest and Sleep
• Elevation and Inversion
• Heat, Ice and Contrast Bathing
• Massage
• Stress Levels
• Grounding
• DMSO
Mental and Energetic Boosts to Recovery
• Beliefs
• Electrics
• Hypnosis
Downloads

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Praise for Ultimate Recovery Formula
“I’ve watched all of the videos and listened to the recovery
hypnosis mp3 a couple of times after fairly taxing
bodyweight training sessions. Both times I’ve bounced
right back and trained the next day without any
difficulty. Yesterday I had a heavy weight session with my
personal trainer- these usually take me at least two days to
recover from before I’m ready to train hard again. Today
I’m full of energy and trained as if I’d had a rest day
yesterday. I think the hypnotic suggestions actually change
the whole mindset to recovery even if you don’t listen to it.
I find myself saying a lot of the things to myself on my
way back home from the gym which I think starts my
recovery right then. This is just great and I think it’s the
best thing (along with the Wizards of Strength DVDs)
you’ve released that I’ve read (I’ve read quite a lot!).
I’m looking forward to and expecting better progress
with my training going forward as a result of this
program. Thanks for putting this together. I don’t know
exactly how it works but it just does! I can bounce right
back from tough workouts and am progressing quicker
with my training because of it. I’m training 6 days a
week, twice most days now. “
-Kevin Green
“I love the Ultimate Recovery Formula because it’s quite
comprehensive and even discusses things that are not
Logan’s favorites. Thanks for that, it turns out that foam
rolling helps me. Since I’m doing several things from it, it
is of course hard to tell which ones are responsible for
what, but recovery is the goal after all. It all seems to be
helpful.”
-Dave Murray

“Your recovery program has revolutionized my attitude
and experience of what exercise and a recovery program
can be. I had never thought about how the earth and our
bodies are electromagnetically charged. Now that I’ve tried
your program, I’m a believer. The first afternoon I tried it, I
was feeling pretty fatigued. Then after practicing the
technique explained in your program and doing the
relaxation meditation as best as I could recall (I do not own
a mobile electronic device) for about 20-25 mins., I was
very surprised at how relaxed, refreshed and tranquil I felt
afterwards. Not only has your program changed how I
recover but also my whole outlook on exercise. Exercising
isn’t exercising anymore. I’m actually enjoying getting to
be outside and experiencing the fresh air and moving my
body in strengthening ways in a much more healthy and
energizing environment. Thank you so for enriching and
expanding my horizons of how to work towards a healthier
and happier life.”
-Kim Rangel
“I love the Ultimate Recovery Formula because I truly feel
it is helping me recover faster and better tap into the
mind body connection. As you know, this is huge for us
athletes. The results I’ve seen from applying this
information and listening to the audio are complete
relaxation, rejuvenation, and overall feeling good about
what I am doing. Again, this is an incredibly helpful tool
and I really am on board with the recovering as hard as you
are training concept.”
-Tanner Gers

The Ultimate Recovery Formula
“You must work as hard at recovery as you do at training.”
– Dan Gable

If you want to become good you need to take this on as a belief
and something you practice regularly. With any form of physical
training you are tapping into what you can do. Fatigue and even
exhaustion set in. In all cases the physical training isn’t what
makes you stronger. Instead it is the rest and recovery after the
training that does it. Without proper recovery you will not get
results from your training.
Everyone is looking at better ways to train, but how many people
actually seek to optimize their recovery? Even with the best
workout program in the world, if you can’t recover from it, you’ll
get nowhere. If you think of training and recovery as two sides of
a coin you’ll see that you absolutely need both to get results. Thus
as you work harder at training and spend more time in doing so,
you must balance that with recovery as well. And in this book
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we’ll be discussing a multitude of ways of doing that.
“There’s no such thing as over-training.” - Dan Gable
I believe that what Gable meant by this is that if you do the right
things there is no overtraining. Obviously you can get into an
overtrained state. But too much training isn’t really the problem, it
is more a lack of recovery. To put it another way its not over
training but under recovery. I would argue that you could handle
close to any amount of training if you were capable of recovering
from the same.
Dan Gable would train seven days a week, working hours a day,
and he was able to keep up with that.
There seems to be lots of debate about what overtraining actually
is. The definition I like is that if you’re not making progress from
workout to workout you’re overtraining, or better yet underrecovering.
Does this mean that you need to put a lot of time and effort in
your recovery? It’s different than with training. You’re going to
have to spend some time to optimize recovery but you can do
simple things that don’t add any or much time to your day. It
doesn’t need to be one hour of training to one hour of recovery. In
fact, if you think of sleep as recovery time which is certainly is,
you’re already doing more “recovery time” than “workout time”.
So instead of thinking of making these equal in terms of time or
effort, just work to optimize both.
There are three main areas of focus in recovery.
1. Muscle Recovery and Soreness
2. CNS Recovery and Burnout
3. Injuries

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Muscle Recovery and Soreness
Most people focus on the muscles in their training. Especially
anyone looking to build bigger muscles, like bodybuilders, or
anyone who is interested in how they look, this is going to be the
primary focus. When you work out, typically afterwards, you
have some form of muscular soreness. This is known as DOMS or
delayed onset muscle soreness. It usually takes a day or so to
come on and then the soreness can extend up to beyond a week in
how long it lasts.
We’re going to be talking about some different things that will
speed up the recovery from DOMS and also what you can do to
avoid getting it. It can be avoided for the large part with certain
ways of training.
Some people look at their training as, “If I’m sore after my
workout, I had a good workout.” While this is a sign of muscle
damage, it isn’t necessarily a sign that you’re going to make
progress. Thus, seeking muscle soreness isn’t the best thing in the
world. It can be used as a helpful indicator but it shouldn’t be
looked at as the main factor in your progress.
You could get really sore from workouts and not make progress
from them. You can do workouts where you make great progress
and there’s no soreness involved. Still DOMS is going to be a
factor in what we’re talking about with recovery.
What contributes to more soreness?
Doing something you haven’t done before, or in a long time. Any
muscle that is used in a way that it hasn’t been working will tend
to get much more sore than if you have been using it for that
function. This is why if someone jumps into training and goes
hard they end up very sore. Sometimes even to the point of not
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being able to workout again for awhile and thus killing any
momentum they could have had. Much better to ease into what
you’re doing.
Another factor is more volume and/or frequency. The more work
you do the more the muscles are working, and thus the more
damage that is done, causing more soreness. This is related to the
above point as well. If you’ve been doing a move but then do a
workout with ten times the volume of that move you’re more
likely to become sore from it. But if you’re use to that ten times
volume then you won’t be sore from it. You'd even be less likely
to get sore from an increase in volume from there, because your
muscles are use to more work in general.
Going to failure, close to it or beyond it, tends to lead to more
soreness than if you keep your training easier. This is especially
true when combined with more volume. Several sets going all out
tends to get you more sore than a single all out set. And how use
to this type of training matters as well.
There is some individuality at play as well. Certain exercises tend
to lead to more or less soreness for some people.
Although the focus has been on muscles, this is similar to
connective tissues as well. With tendons, ligaments and even the
bones you’re going to have recovery time. You won’t feel
soreness in these areas the same way as you do with muscles,
though with the right kind of training you certainly could. Its
more of a whole area soreness feel, including the muscles, but
much more than just them. These tissues take longer to recover
because of less blood flow, as in the case of injuries. But they're
also tougher tissues, so its harder to make them become sore. In
general, you don't have to focus too much on how they're
recovering, if you pay attention to everything else. They'll take
care of themselves.
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CNS Recovery and Burnout
A much more popular area of recovery discussed by trainers these
days, and not so well known by the general public, is the idea of
recovery and stimulation of the central nervous system or CNS.
This is a very important part of recovery. The fact is you can have
completely recovered muscles but if your CNS is fried you won’t
be very strong. But the reverse is not true. If your muscles are
very sore but your CNS is primed then you can work through the
pain and still be very strong.
When overtraining I would say the focus is more on the CNS.
Yes, you can overtrain your muscles but that is typically much
easier to avoid then the CNS. Taken to extremes, CNS burnout
can lead to lots of health problems, like lowered immunity, poor
sleep and more. The body has gone into overdrive where it can’t
handle it so you definitely want to avoid this state of central
nervous system burnout.
What contributes to taxing the CNS?
Maximum effort lifts and exercises tend to be take more nervous
energy than exercises that are not as difficult. This is both in the
max intensity, as in the percentage of how much you can lift, and
the severity, as in how much effort you put forth.
Multi-joint compound exercises tend to be harder than isolation or
small movements. Squats and especially deadlifts will tax the
CNS more than curls.
One area that may be a bit different is the hands. Since so much of
the brain is at use when operating the hands, over-working in this
area can lead to overtraining as well. This is a problem many
trainees run into when they first get into hand strength. It doesn’t
seem like a big deal to put your full effort into a bunch of reps
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with grippers, as it certainly isn’t as much effort as a max squat or
deadlift, but it can be almost as hard on your CNS.
The negative portion of a lift tends to be more draining on the
CNS as well, which is why people often caution you against
doing too much negative only training. With negatives you can
handle supra-maximal loads which is probably the main reason
they’re more taxing than regular lifts.

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As with muscle soreness, too much volume and frequency can
lead to CNS burnout. You can certainly do all of the above and
properly recovery from it if you do it right, the problem occurs
when too much or too often is done.
Injuries
Injuries are a bit of a separate area. Hopefully you don’t have any
injuries but many people happen to have them. If we’re talking
about recovery, we can also talk about recovery for injuries. If
you’re injured that is also going to hold back the training results
that you can get, and the progress you can make.
Many of the steps in this book can be applied to recovering
injuries, just as they can for general recovery, although there are
certainly additional steps that can and should be made. I would
also recommend you check out my course, Chronic Injury
Solution, if you need more information on that to help with
chronic injuries.

http://thinkandgrowstrong.com/chronic-injury-solution/

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Recovery Across the Body’s Systems
When we’re talking about recovery, it occurs across the whole
body. But it’s helpful to separate that out into the different
systems in the body. These all play into each other because that’s
how the body works. But just by looking at these different
systems, we can gain some insight into different areas we may
want to focus on.
Circulation
This has to do with your blood flow. This is going to have to do a
lot with the muscles themselves. When you’re working out a
muscle, energy is being expended, waste products are being
produced which need to be carried off, and nutrients and oxygen
need to be brought to those muscles. The blood caries red and
white blood cells, oxygen, carbon dioxide, glucose, proteins and
more. Thus having your circulation working great is a huge part
of not just recovering, but is important in the workout itself.
If you have poor circulation your body is going to take longer to
recover. One of the reasons that injuries become chronic is
because of poor circulation in the area. Thus one method of
speeding up recovery is to do things that increase circulation.
Lymph System
The lymph system can be thought of as part of the circulation
system or as something different. The blood supply has a pump,
the heart, in order to keep it moving. The lymph does not, even
though there is more lymph present in the body than blood.
Without a pump it is muscular movement that is required to get
the lymph moving. For this reason lymph moves slower than
blood.

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Like blood, lymph carries nutrients and moves waste products to
lymph nodes where it is filtered out. It is at least as important as
blood circulation for recovery and health. Having proper
movement of lymph is critical for the immune system. In fact,
I’ve heard it said that if your lymph was properly circulating at all
times you would never become ill. Thus ensuring proper lymph
movement is going to help with recovery.
Hormonal or Endocrine System
Hormones play a huge part in your recovery. If your hormones are
working really well, you’re going to be able to recover quickly
and completely. If your hormone system is performing poorly
then you’re going to recover at a reduced rate, if at all.
With poor hormones you’re going to hit that overtraining mode
very easily. In fact, too much training, if you don’t take care of
proper recovery, can really send your hormones into a nose dive.
These things can act in a downward spiral so if you are suffering
from one problem, you can send everything crashing down, which
then makes it harder to recover from that.
Cortisol, the stress hormone, is important and necessary, but when
there is too much of it, your health and recovery will be
compromised. Keeping this in control with lifestyle factors and
not too much training for what your body can handle is important.
Other more beneficial hormones like testosterone and human
growth hormone need to be optimized in order to have great
recovery. Training itself usually helps boost these hormones, and
there are other methods that can be used as well. There are
differences between men and women but the basic ideas written
above are true for both.

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Nervous System
The nervous system has already been discussed in some detail.
When the lay person thinks about strength, all they think about is
the muscles involved. The muscles contract and that’s how you
exert strength. That is one aspect of strength but there’s so much
more. We’ve also got the wiring from the brain, through the spine,
through the nervous system, through the muscles themselves. If
that’s not working properly, if that’s not optimal, you’re not going
to be able to exert that strength. That’s another important level.
At the end of this book we’ll be tapping into your nervous system
directly through the electrical energy system in the body. This
especially will serve to optimize your CNS and boost recovery.
Digestive System
When talking about the digestive system there are a number of
components which include what we eat and drink, how we
assimilate that nutrition, and elimination. This is how we get
nutrition into our body, which then needs to go to the cells. Not
just the muscle cells but also the brain, nerves, tendons, bones,
lymph, blood, organs and more. Everything in our body needs
nutrition.
Just because you eat something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re
getting the benefits of it. Health problems like gut permeability
mean your body can’t properly assimilate many foods, which also
leads to an over-burdening of toxicity.
This system is critical to absorbing the nutrition we need, and also
eliminating various toxins in the body. This will play into all the
other systems in the body. With great nutrition, proper
assimilation and eliminations, your recovery will be much better
than with any of those compromised.
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How the Training You Do
Places Demands on Recovery
Before we get into ways that we can boost your recovery, it is of
the utmost importance to look at how you structure and do your
training and how this will place demands on your body to recover.
We’re going to focus on these seven different factors: intensity,
volume, severity, frequency, novelty, individuality, and exercise
selection.
Intensity
The scientific use of this term means what percentage of your
exercise max are you doing in any given time? The more intense
an exercise is, the more it’s going to take for your body recover
from it. If you’re doing 100% intensity, meaning you’re maxing
out, that means that generally you’re going to have to put forth a
full effort to do it. Now there are times in your training that you
can hit a new PR, which will actually be 105% of your previous
intensity. This is because as a percentage it is based on previous
bests. Thus here you can actually go 110% on occasion.
Sometimes you can do 100% intensity easily. Other times it takes
everything you've got. When using this term it is not about the
effort you put forth. For that I like to use the term severity, which
is described later. Intensity by itself doesn’t necessarily mean that
much, it’s just one contributing factor on demands of recovery.
One story that illustrates this well I got from Bud Jeffries,
regarding building up to his 1000-pound squat. This is a very
large load and was more than 100% intensity based on his
previous max. This was also very severe. He said it took him six
weeks to fully recover from that effort. Was it his muscles that
took six weeks to recover? No. Even with something like that, it’s
not going to take more than two weeks for the muscles to recover.
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But the central nervous system, to put forth that Herculean effort,
that’s what took so long to recover. Did that mean he couldn’t do
any sort of training? No. But to really feel like he was fully back
in action took that much time.

Another interesting phenomenon related to intensity is that the
size of the load impacts recovery, regardless of intensity. What
most people find is that the load goes up, even as you’re getting
stronger, it still will take more time to recover. This is a general
rule of thumb. In fact many times when you hit a plateau or start
over-training, by switching from three workout a week to two for
example, you’ve added more recovery time and the progress
begins again. Remember that none of these factors are the end-all
of training by themselves but must be looked at in comparison to
each other.
Volume
Volume is how many reps and sets you do. There’s an inverse
relationship between intensity and volume, meaning as one goes
up the other has to go down. Different training plans are going to
have either more of a focus on intensity or more of a focus on
volume. Both of these play into how much recovery you need.
If you do just a max, which is intensity, then that’s typically going
to take more out of the CNS. If you try to max out every single
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day, that’s going to lead you to overtraining quite quickly in most
cases. In general, volume has more of an demand on your
muscular recovery. Remember that these are rules of thumb and
not written in stone.
A related factor to volume is density. This is the amount of work
done in a period of time. While some training systems build their
progression around this, like Escalating Density Training from
Charles Staley, it is related to volume, since typically the goal is
more volume in the same or less of a period of time. Density
plays into recovery in similar ways as volume which is why I
don’t have it in a separate category.
To sum it up, more volume means more recovery work is needed,
especially for the muscles.
Severity
This is a not a widely used term but one I like to use to distinguish
effort from intensity. The problem with intensity is that people use
it to describe different things. The scientific use of the term was
describe above as a percentage of your maximum lifting ability.
But confusion comes when people say, “That was intense.“ In this
manner they’re usually describing how much effort it took to do
an exercise. It can be a light load (low intensity) but done for
many reps, and thus take lots of effort (more severe). As I
mentioned above a new max PR is often times severe, but it can
be done easily at times as well. A lot of times, maxes are really
hard to do but it’s not always the case. Thus there is no correlation
between intensity and severity, and no correlation between
severity and volume. Severity is all in how you train. You can do
a bunch of volume and there can be little effort involved. You can
also do lots of volume and it can be the toughest thing you’ve
ever done.

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Severity is going to be a huge aspect of your recovery. There are
two main models you can work with in your training. If you want
more details on this, check out my book, The Master Keys to
Strength and Fitness. This is very important for training and
recovery and it is not explained by most trainers. But the
confusion about it stops gains for many people.

http://legendarystrength.com/master-keys/
First, there’s the Effort Model. This is just a broad category and
there are many different ways of doing it. There are training
methods that are focused more on intensity like working up to a
max in every lift each time. There are ones that are focused more
on volume, for instance, German Volume Training. In both of
these, and many others, the point is to work as hard as you
possibly can. Thus the severity is very high
When you do this you’re going to need more time for recovery.
Recovery time goes up because you’re putting forth all this effort.
In order to recover from that, both from a muscular level, as well
as in the nervous system, it takes more time. The problem with
this model is, for many people, they don’t actually take enough
rest time. Then, after a few weeks of training, they’re going to end
up plateauing. Often times if they try to push through it with even
more effort they end up hurting themselves. Lack of recovery
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compounded by more effort can and does lead to injury.
Crossfit, HIT, training to failure and are all excellent models of
this. Think about death sets, AMRAP's, negatives or forced work,
all sorts of things in order to get more effort out, in order to really
force those muscles to grow. The idea here is “No pain, No gain”
or “Give 110%” or “If you‘re not working hard enough, you
won‘t get results.”
This model can certainly work. The thing is that it places much
higher demands on recovery. In doing so, you may need to take a
week off or more between training that body part. Dru Patrick, a
phenomenal athlete and Bench Press World Champion, in his
training model, is taking about ten days to sometimes almost three
weeks between training his legs again because he puts forth a
tremendous effort. He actually made sure there is enough rest
time so that when he comes back, he is stronger and able to do it.
This is one model.
The other model is what I’m going to call here the Everyday
Model. It doesn't necessarily have to be every day training, but is
far more frequent. Again there’s a whole bunch of methods to do
this. Pavel Tsatsouline’s Greasing the Groove would be one
example. Frankie Faires’ Gym Movement is another one. With this
model, you can end up doing a good amount of intensity. You can
end up doing a good amount of volume but there is little severity.
You’re not trying to put forth much effort. In fact, you’re trying to
keep things easy all the time.
There is a common maxim in training that you have to force your
body to adapt. The keyword being force. But this is not true. Your
body adapts whether effort is used or not, as long as its done in a
progressive manner.
In doing some version of the Everyday Model, it’s not going to tap
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into your muscles nor your nervous system quite the same way.
Thus, you don’t need to spend as much time recovering. You can
come back and do the same thing every single day. In fact, more
frequent training is an important component. There is still going
to be some demand on the muscular and nervous systems, so you
can’t get away with no recovery time at all. It still needs to be
properly balanced, but it is much less than with the Effort Model.
I tend to follow this model a lot more because it goes in line with
biofeedback training. I also like to train more often because
training to me is fun. The Everyday Model becomes more
necessary with exercises that are more skill based as well, like
kettlebell juggling, handstands and acrobatics. For these reasons I
typically train in this manner.
Both models work, given the proper recovery. You have to find
what works for you best. Understand you’re going to play with
the recovery you do either way. And by boosting it using the
methods in this book you should get better results either way.
Frequency
This was discussed in part above but here are more details on it.
How frequent are you doing your workouts? A lot of trainees like
to split their workouts into different body parts so that they can
train every couple of days, but it takes them a few days or a week
to come back to the same body part. I'm not a big fan of splitting
my body into parts. A lot of what I do is full body although there
is changing up of focus on different movements.
Are you doing that once a week? Are you doing that every ten
days or two weeks? Are you doing some sort of training every
single day? This is a huge factor in your recovery. If you come
back and do the same thing day after day and you’re doing it with
severity, then that’s a sure way to lead to overtraining and injuries.
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The infomercial popular Insanity workout is sure to break you if
you do it long enough. Why? Because it combines severity and
frequency in high levels of both, which is a recipe for overtraining
and injuries.
Remember no factor exists in a vacuum by itself. It is all in how
they relate to one another. If you’re doing a whole bunch of
frequent training but you’re keeping it easy, then you can actually
do that. If you’re doing infrequent training you can get away with
more of the other factors and get good gains.
Novelty
Any time you do some sort of new training, whether its something
you’ve never tried before, a new variation, something you haven’t
done in a long time, or a new higher amount of volume, what ends
up happening? You typically get really sore from doing it. The
reason is you’re body is not used to this training stimulus and thus
will usually end up being sore.
Now as I said near the beginning of this book, muscular soreness
is not something you want to be seeking. If it was, doing
something new every training session would be the best way to
go. But its not. There are much better ways to make progress than
doing a new exercise in every single workout.
Understand that this is on the muscular level. Here’s the cool
thing about novelty. Anytime you do something new, it actually
seems to boost your central nervous system. New movements
seem to give the nervous system some juice, not take away from
it. Of course if you take a brand new exercise you could still run
yourself into the ground doing a whole bunch of effort and
intensity and volume. That would drain your central nervous
system as well as leave you very sore. But if you do just a little of
something new, your body hasn’t acclimated itself to it, and it can
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actually recover your nervous system to some degree.
This is why in many training systems people recommend to take a
week off or a de-load week. Sometimes the same exercises are
recommended in a reduced volume or intensity format. But lots of
time something different, like playing sports or completely
different exercises, is recommended.
To sum up, there are two ways to look at novel stimulus.
Anything new will tend to tap into your muscular recovery quite a
bit more but can also actually aid in recovery of your central
nervous system.
Individuality
Every single person is different in certain degrees. Some people
find, for whatever reason, one model works a lot better for them
over another. Another person may find the exact opposite. This
could apply to any factor of training covered here, and also all the
recovery boosters we‘ll be discussing. All these factors are going
to have to be taken into account with your body, your physiology,
your biochemistry, your mindset and everything else that goes
together.
Just like two people can’t eat the exact same way and get the
exact same results, you can’t train in the same way and get the
same results. Part of this is going to be genetic. Your genetics
play a role. I don't like to focus on it since you can’t actually
change your genetics. Sure, you have epigenetics which can
influence how your genes get expressed, which is what we doing
by training, nutrition and mindset, but there are still some genetic
factors outside of your control. But if you can‘t control something
there‘s no point in worrying about it. Focus on what you can do
instead, which is everything that we’re covering here.

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In addition, a huge individual factor will be what have you
become used to? The reason Dan Gable was able to train really
hard seven days a week was he built up to doing that sort of
volume. He built up to training really hard so that his body was
habituated to being able to actually recover from that demand and
frequency. If you build up in the intensity and the volume of what
you do, you’re going to be able to handle more.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t limits. Or that you couldn’t get
better results with less. Like we talked about, as the loads get
bigger, regardless of how intense they are, the body is typically
going to need some more time to recover from that. But to some
degree, many people will find they can get by with a lot more
volume if they build up to it. Other people can’t really do a lot of
volume. It just doesn’t work for their body the same way.
In the end everything discussed here must be tested by yourself in
order to find what works best for you.
Exercise Selection
Different exercises tap into your recovery in different ways. One
example is doing negatives. Negatives work on both the muscular
and the central nervous system, quite a bit more than the positive
portion of a rep. So if you spend time just working on negatives,
you have to be careful that you’re not tapping into your recovery
too much. If you try to do heavy negatives every single day, that’s
a sure way to end up burning out. You can do just positive
portions of an exercise and that may not get you as sore.
Earlier I alluded to a deadlift being more demanding than the
squat. Why is that? With the squat, you typically start at the top
then lower yourself down. You get that stretch reflex which makes
the positive portion, the harder portion, easier to do. It sort of acts
like a warmup for the body and nervous system. With the deadlift,
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you’re pulling it straight from the ground. You have to generate
all that power, all that strength, from nothing, and that tends to tap
into the nervous system a bit more.
In discussing this with Bud Jeffries he said he was able to work
up to quite an intense squat for him on a daily basis, but he
couldn’t do the same thing with the deadlift. It hit the body
differently. I would add to this that the hands have to work harder
in the deadlift which may also play a role.
So your exercise selection will play a huge part in recovery. This
also works on an individual basis. Certain exercises work better
for one person than another. Part of this will have to do with your
build but there are many other factors too.
To sum up, all seven of these factors work together. Look at your
training plan, or what you’ve been doing lately and analyze it for
each one of these factors. Then look at your recovery. How do
they seem to stack up or balance with each other? Also look back
to past times in your life when you found even more progress. If
you have old workout journals they can be a gold mine for this.
Analyze these factors and your recovery back then, to see if you
can find modifications you can make now for better recovery and
progress. Next we’re going to move on to specific things to do
with your training that will help you to recover better.

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Training to Boost Recovery
Now that we’ve covered how your training plan affects recovery
in an overall way, we can discuss specific methods and ways of
training that can boost your recovery. Most training will take
recovery, but some of the things here can help to speed it up.
You don’t have to do every one of these things, in fact, that
probably wouldn’t work too well. As with everything else
experiment to find what works best for you.
Light Days
Light days can be done in a couple of different ways. Often
people will use half or a slightly higher amount of weight than
they normally do and go through the workout using that. It is light
in comparison to your normal working weights, thus the name
light day. Another option is to use the same weights but cut the
volume in half or thereabouts.
In either case this takes on more of a skill practice flavor than
working hard to force the muscles to grow. It aids in circulation
and keeps you working on the movements, but without causing
you to need to recover more. For this reason a light day should
actually accelerate your recovery and progress, instead of hinder
it.
Another method of doing light days is to do something different
than your normal training. Whatever it is, the principle is the
same. It should be aiding in circulation, often mobility and
flexibility are involved as well, thus aiding in recovery.
Remember that novel stimulus helps support the CNS. But if you
set out to do a light day of training and become fatigued and later
sore from it you’ve just tapped into your recovery ability more
instead.

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Personally, I don’t really like light days in the sense that they’re
discussed here. Even though I keep things easy most of the time, I
don’t like to just artificially work with lighter loads than I usually
do. I’m still seeking out progression with every single exercise
that I do. If I’m not seeking progression I get bored.
But light and heavy days do work well for a number of people.
Another model is to have light, medium and heavy days.
Circulation/Lymph
This may seem paradoxical but some movement is better than no
movement for recovery. While you do need sleep time, moving
your body is going to help support your recovery more than
complete bed rest.
By doing a light day, you are increasing the circulation in the area
being used. Getting circulation into those muscles is going to help
them recover by removing waste products and supplying
nutrition. As discussed earlier, movement also stimulates the
lymph system.
One of the simplest things you can do is go on a walk. Walking is
great for health in many ways, one of which is to increase
circulation of blood and lymph. As I work in my home office each
day I even setup a treadmill desk so that I can be moving more
than just during my time in the gym. Sitting all day, whether in an
office, your vehicle, or on the couch watching TV, isn't the best
thing to do for your health all the time.
The best training tool for working on the lymph system is a
rebounder or mini trampoline. By bouncing up and down you’re
squeezing every single cell in the body. It’s different than just
jumping on normal ground since the trampoline serves to rebound
you. It’s an impact on the body you can’t get in other ways.
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Spending a few minutes on this each day could certainly help with
recovery.
You can also work with neurolymphatic reflex points. These are
specific points on the body, similar to acupressure points, that
work as reflexes that get the lymphatic system moving. Use your
fingertips to press into these areas and massage them around. If
they’re sore you likely need it.

Courtesy of Touch for Health (www.touch4health.com)
When using the chart of the previous page, each point does
correspond to specific meridians and muscles. If you want to you
can work the specific areas as needed, or just cover as many of
the points as needed.
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Mobility
Mobility exercises are doing movements like wrist circles, elbow
circles or shoulder circles. What are they for? Well, it is
movement once again it is stimulating circulation. But that’s not
the main purpose. You’re also getting the synovial fluid moving in
the joints themselves to keep them lubricated. Synovial fluid is a
viscous fluid that is used to reduce friction in the bones in the
joints. Joints don’t have a direct blood supply, so it’s the synovial
fluid that both nourishes the joints as well as rids them of waste
products.
This is an important aspect as far as injuries are concerned. If you
have any injuries, you’re going to avoid going into pain, but work
on getting the area as mobile as you possibly can. The desired end
result is to have full mobility in all areas of your body.
Mobility can also be used to tap into the nervous system. This can
be used to help with many injuries and pain, as well as to boost
performance instantly. For more information on this check out ZHealth.
Another form of mobility training is the myofascial mobility that
Bud Jeffries came up with. In doing this, you’re working to
unkink the fascia in the body as in myofascial massage.
http://strongerman.com/myofascial-mobility/
Is mobility work something you should do every single day?
There are some different opinions on this. One is that if you have
full mobility of all your joints and do that every single day than
you’ll never lose this ability. It’s hard to argue with that logic. But
on the flip side do you need to train it every day in order to
maintain it? Probably not. Once you have it, you can keep it with
less work.

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Here is what I personally do and would advise. If you don’t have
full or close to full mobility, work to attain it. Once you have it
you can find out how much you feel you need. Experiment with
different methods and moves to see different effects they can
bring. On days we’re you’re sore you may want to increase the
amount you do.
In general doing mobility work will not require any recovery time
except in extreme cases. If something like your thoracic spine has
been immobile for years and you start moving it, you may need
some recovery time. Of course if you did thousands of reps of a
move that could require some recovery too. But in general most
mobility will only serve to boost recovery, not require it.
Flexibility
Many people stretch before every workout. This is believed by
some to prevent injuries or increase performance but this may not
be the case. It may be required in instances where extreme
flexibility is required like in high-kicking martial arts or
gymnastics, but not for average workouts. And in all cases
dynamic stretches, where you move into and out of position, seem
to prove better than static stretches as far as performance and
reducing injuries is concerned.
Some people stretch after every workout. This can aid in recovery.
One way this helps is that it also works on circulation. This is the
same purpose as stretching on off days. Light stretching also feels
good, which is why people tend to do it.
This is in contrast to stretching where you’re seeking to improve
range of motion. This is often harder work and painful to some
degree (as in unpleasant, rather than a pain of injury). This
requires recovery rather than helping to aid in it. For example if
you’re trying to gain the splits, trying to increase your range of
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motion the day after heavy squats where you’re sore is not the
best time. It will hurt more and cause your recovery time to be
longer if you go through with it. But light stretching, like walking
or mobility, could help.

I think the reasoning of many people is that they did a bunch of
work in contracting a muscle, so that they need to even it out by
stretching it. But if your training has you working through a full
range of motion you won’t really need to do this. In fact, strength
training can be used to build flexibility if its done in the right way.
But flexibility is like mobility training in many regards. How
much you need will depend on your goals. Its not something that
always needs to be worked on. As with everything else find what
works for you.
For me personally, I don’t do much stretching unless there is a
specific flexibility goal I’m going after. If there is, then I’ll do
specific work on it. If it will aid me in doing a certain movement
I’ll do drills to help get me there. But other than that I feel I have
enough flexibility for the majority of things I need to do, thus I
don’t need to specifically work on it. My training takes care of
keeping me flexible enough in general. And for recovery, other
things serve to help with circulation so I don’t regularly do
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stretching.
Much of this training for recovery and more is covered in my
How to Feel Like a Billion Dollars Course. There's lots of energy
work, mobility and flexibility training. You can check it out at
http://feellikeabillion.com/
Conditioning
Some people make the mistake of only doing strength training
and never working on their endurance. That’s fine if you just want
to push your strength levels up to the max. But you may even find
your strength is held back and your recovery certainly will be if
you do that.
With conditioning work you can tap into your recovery in a big
way depending on how you do it. The same factors of intensity,
severity, volume, frequency, etc. all play into this as much as with
strength work. But at the same time some level of conditioning
seems to aid in better recovery.
By improving your conditioning, you’re improving your
circulation system. This works on many levels. You’re moving, so
the blood and lymph is circulating. Your breathing hard so the
lungs are taking in more oxygen and expelling more. You’re
sweating thus toxins are being released through the skin. The
heart is working better, getting stronger, to continue to keep the
circulation system working well.
This does need to be balanced with everything. If you’re
conditioning all the time you‘ll have to recover from that. But you
do want to have great conditioning in order to support even better
recovery. This can be done as little as once a week, doing some
sort of intense conditioning.

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I’ve found anaerobic training to be better for a number of reasons.
One it can be tied into strength so you can build both of those at
once. Secondly, anaerobic training translates into aerobic
capability but not vice versa, beyond a basic level. Thirdly, it
takes much less time to do a series of sprints rather than running
for miles. And it’s even been shown that long duration aerobic
activity can cause heart problems rather than making it stronger.
Sprints, jumping rope, circuit training, kettlebells, handling odd
objects and many more options can serve to build the desired
conditioning. Also be wary that these can tax your muscular
system just as much as specific strength work, so it needs to be
balanced in your training plan.
Biofeedback
I listen to my body for my training and for when I need to take a
day off. Since everyone is individual, it makes sense that you
should listen to your body on what you do. Training plans are a
great place to start with when you begin training because you
don’t know how to listen to your body. It takes some skill and
practice in order to be able to do it properly. You may think you
are doing it but you’re really just hallucinating because you
haven’t really figured out what it takes in order to listen to your
body. By following training ideas you’re going to build a
foundation from which you can begin to better judge your body’s
feedback.
But you can quickly get into doing this with the proper methods.
There are different forms of testing that allow you to short cut the
whole process. I have a whole course if you want to go far with
this called Beyond Biofeedback at
http://thinkandgrowstrong.com/beyond-biofeedback/
This works well with the Everyday Model that we talked about
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earlier. You don’t use a whole lot of effort in this training. Why?
The body doesn't like to exert itself. It strives for homeostasis.
And remember when you listen to your body you can make
progress without much effort. Every factor discussed, intensity,
volume, severity, frequency, can all be tested and guided by your
own body’s feedback.

There are some older methods, of using this. For instance, taking
your pulse every morning when you wake up. Once you get a
baseline of your waking pulse, if it’s over ten beats per minute
higher than that on any given day, that’s a sign that you’re
overtraining and you need to take things back a notch.
Your body is your best tool to know when you need to recover
more and when you can train more. But you need to properly
calibrate this tool in order to get the information.
De-Load
De-loading is similar to light days. A lot of people find this works
really well for them. This does go more with the Effort Model. If
you work really hard for three to five weeks in a row you’ll
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follow this by taking a de-load week. This is a week where some
people will rest completely, not go to the gym at all, not workout
or anything. Some people will do something like play some other
sports to get that novel stimulus effect going. Some people will do
light days where they’re working with half the weights they do.
These are three basic ways of de-loading.
This allows your body to catch up in its recovery, to be able to get
back to a fresh state so that you’re then able to push the limits
again.
It doesn’t work so well with the Everyday Model. Because you’re
going easy, you don’t really need that extra recovery time. Since I
follow this model and my biofeedback I find that de-loading just
doesn’t seem to work for me. Taking a week off, I tend to not
come back stronger. I feel like I need a day or two to break back
in to my workouts in order to get back to the point where I was at.

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Nutrition Boosts for Recovery
What you consume plays a big role in recovery. If you were to
workout and then sleep, but ate nothing you obviously would not
become stronger. Thus by working to optimize your nutrition you
can also optimize your recovery.
Water
The majority of people alive today do not drink enough water.
Water is needed for every system, every organ, every muscle and
every cell in your body. If you want to recover better, you need to
make sure you have an ample supply of it.

And it’s not just about the quantity of it but the quality as well.
What happens with water is the molecules of H2O are going to
bunch together in different formations. If you have low quality
water, the molecules tends to bunch up in large formations where
there are 20 to 30 molecules. In our cells, these huge molecules
can’t always pass through the membranes or get where they need
to go. What this means is that just because you’re consuming
enough water doesn’t mean every cell in your body is getting it.
Better quality water, often called structured water, is going to
form its optimal shape of water, which is hexagonal. This means
there are six molecules of water all joined together. This is the
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ideal shape. These are able to get into our cells to hydrate
everything better.
What I personally like best is fresh spring water. In fact, I collect
mine from Mt. Shasta in California when I can. Check out the
website www.FindASpring.com to see if there is a spring located
near you. When you collect from the source you often find the
most fresh and pure water available. Its water as nature intends it,
rather than being processed in a variety of ways.
If you can’t get that, a good quality filter is good, although that
doesn't necessarily structure it properly. Using the north field of a
magnet may help.
General recommendations are between half and a full gallon per
day. Bigger people need more, as do more active people. If you’re
sweating you need to be sure to consume more as well. I would
recommend for most athletes to drink a gallon a day. If you’re a
much smaller person, you could do less. But measure it out and
actually drink it. Most people, myself included, think they’re
drinking more than they actually are. When you measure out a
gallon and bring it with you, you realize how much that actually is
and how little you may be drinking at all times.
Another thing you can look at is what color is your urine as it’s
coming out of you? Typically, it would be dark in the morning but
throughout the day, it should be close to clear when it’s coming
out. That means you actually have enough water in your body that
all the toxins and waste material isn’t just collecting up. You need
to continually ingest a lot of water throughout the day.
Remember the importance of circulation. Without proper
hydration your blood cells clump together and lymph doesn’t
move as well. If these systems aren’t flowing than your muscles
can’t get rid of waste or acquire nutrition as well as they could.
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Greens and pH Levels
This is a tip I got from Travis Stoetzel. He liked to add a green
powder in his water and sip on that all day. On top of being
nutritious it is alkaline. He said he felt this really helped boost his
recovery. Every cell and system in our body has a different level
of pH it needs, but in general people tend to be too acidic.
I like Healthforce Nutritionals Vitamineral Green and
Sunwarrior's Ormus Greens. There are a number of great
companies out there. But not all of them are created equal.

Chlorophyll is another option. Chlorophyll and our blood are the
virtually the same. They are centered around a different nutrient.
In our blood its iron, which you’ll find in the hemoglobin which
causes the red color. For chlorophyll, its magnesium. Several
people have reported that this helps with endurance in addition to
recovery. Experiment with it for yourself.
Magnesium is also a very important mineral that most people
don't acquire enough from their diet. Among its hundreds of other
functions it is used in relaxation of the muscles. I like to use a
transdermal magnesium spray that I use after I shower each day.
Another option is to take a ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, which is a
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very alkaline substance, mixed with water on a daily basis.
Macronutrients
The majority of the food that you consume is going to play a huge
role in your recovery. There are three different macronutrients,
carbs, protein, and fat. Different people are going to need different
levels of those. Here is a place where you really should
experiment with yourself. I find that I’m a mixed type. I seem to
prefer fat as my primary fuel source but I do best on a close to
equal mix of all three. Some people are going to do much better
with more protein and fat. Some people are going to do much
better with a lot more carbohydrates. You have to find what works
for you.
One thing you want to look at, because most people probably
don’t get enough, is more protein. If you’re strength training
generally more protein is going to help you recover better. Is one
gram per pound of body weight necessary? Probably not. If
you’re trying to add muscle more protein certainly helps. As far as
maintenance, half a gram per pound is likely sufficient. But you
can do more protein. It usually doesn’t hurt. (The myth that
protein hurts your kidneys is still around, though that was only
ever shown to be a problem is some people that already had renal
failure, not healthy people.)
The thing about protein, and any food really, is its not just what
you consume but what you actually assimilate, that is what your
body can use. If you have a whole bunch of low quality processed
crap, especially a lot of the protein powders that are out there
which are very low quality, your body is not actually going to be
able to use that very well. Contrast that to something that’s highly
absorbable, more bioavailable, and you can get by with less.
In addition to this you may look at some other methods to boost
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your digestive processes like taking enzymes, probiotics and
Hydrochloric Acid (HCl).
Hormones
What you eat is going to affect your hormones. Now of course
you could take hormones. If you’re a much older man, talk to
your doctor about testosterone replacement, that can work out
great and that will be huge for your recovery, if you need it. The
reason people take steroids is it boosts up their ability to recover.
Its not that it makes them stronger, but that they can grow faster
from their training.
Now I don’t recommend steroids at all. There are more natural
things you can do that will boost your hormones. For many
people though, hormone replacement therapy may be a viable
option for their health. Lots of older people say they don’t recover
as well as when they were younger. This is one of the main
reasons why. When in doubt get blood testing to find where your
hormone levels lie.
Just by optimizing everything else, optimizing your strength
training, optimizing your sleep, optimizing your nutrition, all that
is going to pay into your hormones as well. So often times getting
your hormones in working order is in your control without
replacement.
There are some specific supplements, like pine pollen available at
www.SupermanHerbs.com, that you can also take that may help
boost it in a much more natural manner. The tinctured form is
even more powerful for this effect.
Antioxidants
Some people mistakenly believe that because they’re doing
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strength training or some sort of workouts that they don’t need as
good of nutrition. Yes, you can look really good by working out
and not eating well, but to be healthy, you’re actually going to
need more nutrition because training itself is a stressor on the
body. You need the proper nutrition in order to respond to that
stressor.
Because training tends to cause oxidation in the body, you need
antioxidants. This can come from your food supply like green
leafy vegetables and many fruits, especially berries. I like cacao
or raw chocolate which is a very powerful antioxidant. Coffee and
tea can be a good supply as well. And then there are many herbs
with lots of antioxidants, as well as many supplements. By having
more anti-oxidants in your regular diet your body is better able to
handle free radicals and they’ll aid in recovery.
Anti-Inflammatories
Anti-inflammatory nutrients help to calm inflammation in the
body. Working out by itself should not cause undue inflammation,
but injuries almost always have inflammation as one of the
problems. With chronic injuries there is chronic inflammation.
But that’s not all. Inflammation is a big factor in aging. Thus
making sure you have a regular supply of nutrients with antiinflammatory effects will help you to become healthier.
One anti-inflammatory, which a lot of people report that helps
with recovery, is fish oil. The omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA,
have a host of beneficial effects in the body. It’s good for the
central nervous system and brain health. It’s one of the
supplements that I recommend pretty much everyone take. The
important factor is your ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fats. Omega
6 fats, found in grains, most nuts and seeds, and vegetables oils,
are inflammatory. You need some of them for your health, but
most people get far too many from a processed diet.
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You can get omega 3’s in vegetarian form from flax seeds, chia
and hemp. But that is in ALA form which must be converted to
EPA and DHA. According to research most people don’t convert
it at very usable amounts.
You can get various nutrient tests to see where you’re at, because
if you are lacking in something, that means your body is not able
to use that component because it doesn’t have it in supply. Then it
can’t handle whatever function it has in your body. Everything is
going to play in the recovery so getting proper testing will help
you to know what you need.
Some other anti-inflammatories include the spice turmeric.
Another option besides fish oil is krill oil. Almost always found
with this is the antioxidant astaxanthin.
The Three Treasures
The three treasures comes from the Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In this model you have Jing, Qi and Shen. In English terms, Jing
is your primal essence. This is the foundation of your energies. Qi
is your everyday energy. You get this from food, breathing and
from water. If you expend all your qi and don’t have any left then
you will tap into your jing. But you want to avoid doing this
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because basically when you’re out of jing, you’re dead. Shen is
spirit. On the surface this may not seem to be important for
recovery. But there are some herbs that are said to be shen
stabilizing to help to balance emotions, so these can actually be
great for reducing stress levels, which will play into recovery.
But the main focus here on herbs is qi and jing. With qi herbs,
these are ones that can really help boost up your energy. A wellknown one would be ginseng. However, the ginseng you find in
most places is of very low quality as its immature. You want to
get ginseng that is at least three years old. Otherwise, it’s too
young and doesn’t quite have the same effect. And the older the
better. My favorite qi herb is Polyrachis ant extract. It’s actually
more powerful of a qi herb than ginseng itself. If you take some
supplements that give you some energy right before your
workout, that’s great because you can use that energy that that
supplement may provide. You can work hard and long and you’re
expending your energy, but then you have this extra energy from
the herbs to help support you. Thus you use qi and are not tapping
into your jing.

Now with the jing herbs we have two different categories. You
have the yin and the yang. Most people will think that for working
out you want the yang, male, aggressive, driving force. And you
do. Great herbs for this purpose includes deer antler which has
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been in the news lately. The yang herbs typically will help support
the hormones.
Of course, we’re talking about recovery here so our focus would
want to be on the yin jing herbs. I did an interview with top
herbalist George Lamoureux a long time ago and he was saying
that this is really where you want to focus. This recovery
component that can be provided by yin jing herbs are going to
help support you.
For these purposes you have He Shou Wu, Rehmannia, Goji
berries and more. A cool one I played with a little bit is
Dendrobium. This is usually used in a tea form. It’s known as
healer’s tea or honeymooner’s tea because it’s such a fast-acting
yin replenisher.
For more information check out www.SupermanHerbs.com. Even
if you decide not to go buy our herbs I recommend you learn from
the Chinese system, as well as about other great herbs throughout
the world. These superior herbs are going to do much more than
just the average herbs that people take.
Supplements are great and they’re used to supplement your diet,
to fix those imbalances you may have to correct. But the tonic
herbs, these offer benefits you can’t find anywhere else. They
help to get you to that superior level of health and that superior
level of recovery as well. By adding in these herbs, you can really
take your abilities to a whole other level.

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Lifestyle Boosts to Recovery
This section acts as a catch-all for other factors besides training
and nutrition. It has to do with how you live your lifestyle.
Rest and Sleep
Sleep is absolutely critical for recovery. All the working out in the
world won’t do you any good if you don’t sleep. That’s because it
is during sleep that your body rebuilds itself.
Resting can be something besides sleeping. This could be along
the lines of taking one or two days off of a week where you don‘t
train. On top of this it is good to not work. I know most people do
that during their weekends, but those with businesses tend to get
wrapped up into seven days a week of trying to be productive. I
know I have. But now I try to take one day off per week
completely from work and training.
Go back to the Bible. On the seventh day, God rested and I think
that’s a good idea of what you should do. Spend one day off
where you really don’t do a whole lot. I think it can be great for
your recovery ability as well as for your health. I’m all about
going out there and achieving things but you need to find the right
balance of action and recovery.
Time off is good, but once again the need for sleep is of prime
importance. I recommend that you get eight hours of sleep a
night. If you can do even more, all the better. I usually get
between seven and a half to nine hours of sleep a night. I
remember reading one study they did with Olympic athletes
where all these athletes did was, eat, train and sleep. They slept 12
hours a day and their recovery was through the roof, compared to
others. They were able to get phenomenal results. Now most of us
cannot sleep 12 hours a night. That’s just not a possibility. There's
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too much stuff to do but understand that the more sleep you can
get, the better you’re going to recover.
One other way to sleep that helps is to take a nap. I typically train
around noon or early afternoon time and right after that is a
perfect time for a nap. Many people are familiar with the power
nap, that is less than 30 minutes. This is great for energy. Even
more ideal is 60 to 90 minutes, as this allows you to do a full
cycle of sleep so you can recover during the day. This can help to
boost growth hormone even more and start the muscle recovery
process quicker.
An old saying from bodybuilding is “Why stand when you can
sit? If you can sit, you might as well lay down. If you’re lying
down, you might as well sleep.” This statement is all about
maximizing the rest you can do. If your life is built around
training you can truly take this to heart. If your life isn’t, then you
can still work to optimize your sleep and rest as best as you can.
Elevation and Inversion
This has to do a lot with the circulation of the body. By turning
the pull of gravity around circulation is aided in going the other
way. Paul Anderson believed that having the blood flow from
gravity in the legs was at least part of the reason the legs are so
much stronger than the arms, and thus he used inversions, like
handstands to build arm strength.
Elevation can be done in many ways. Simply raising your feet up
on pillows or against a wall works. This is actually a great way to
take a nap if you want. There are many other inversions like doing
a headstand. Tools like an inversion table, gravity boots, or a yoga
trapeze allow you to hang upside down completely. If you have a
stable pullup bar you can also hook your legs over it in a variety
of ways.
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You’ve probably heard of the RICE formula for injuries, which is
rest, ice, compression and elevation. What do all those things do
besides the rest? It’s really to bring the blood, the circulation, in
there to help clear it out and remove what needs to be done.
Heat, Ice and Contrast Bathing
Manipulation of temperature is a great way to really quickly amp
up the circulation in an area. Ice is going to send the blood away.
It’s going to lower inflammation. Heat is going to bring the blood
back. Going back and forth between the two will flood the blood
away, flood the blood back, bring the nutrition in, get rid of the
waste, and help support recovery. Just cold or just hot is useful
but I think the benefits are amplified by using both.
You could do this in your shower quite simply just by going back
and forth with cold water and hot water. If you have a pool and a
hot tub you can jump in back and forth between those two. The
classic idea is known as the Finnish sauna, where you have a
sauna and snow outside.

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I know a lot of people who spend time with grip training. To
speed up their recovery even more, they’ll have buckets of ice
water and hot water and go back and forth, dunking the lower arm
and hand into them. This works on a local level. This process is
also something that is useful with injuries.
Massage
Any sort of body work where you’re getting worked on can help
break up the scar tissue. Massage also stimulates the lymph
system and blood flow. You can also do self-massage. You can’t
hit all the muscles quite the same way but you can certainly work
on most areas of the body. This is can be great for injuries as well.
I’m not a big fan of foam rollers myself but a lot of people swear
by them. So you get the same sort of effect as massage except
you’re doing it yourself with some tools as well.
Just look at many professional athletes. They have to train and
they have to recover well so a lot of them will have a masseur on
staff so that they can regularly, even daily, get this in order to help
support recovery. Most of us don’t have that available but if you
can get a massage once a month or as often as you possibly can, it
can help.
Stress Levels
Understand that with training, you are placing stress on the body.
Now there’s a difference between eustress, which is good stress,
and distress, which is bad stress. Exercise is typically a good
stress but if you have a ton of other stress in your life then it can
lead to problems. Too much exercise can also turn it into a
problem.
In order to recover optimally, you need to have low levels of
stress in your life. Exercise, even though it causes physical stress,
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tends to relieve mental stress. Some form of meditation is one of
the best ways to lower your stress. This is also one of the benefits
of getting a massage.
The difference in how stress effects you can be just in the mind.
Changing your perspective so that the environment and other
people don’t effect you in the same way, is probably the most
important way to lower stress levels. As the saying goes “Nothing
is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” My favorite tools
for doing this are NLP and EFT.
So if you have less of other stressors in your life, that’s not going
to boost up cortisol, then you can focus on just the one good stress
in your life, exercise.
Grounding
This is an advanced tip that most people aren’t aware of. Getting a
real connection with the Earth itself by being barefoot actually
creates an electrical connection between you and the Earth. The
Earth basically has an unlimited supply of electrons. It will act as
one of the most powerful antioxidants in your body. It can push
off different electromagnetic frequencies. It will lower your stress.
Grounding improves circulation by making your blood cells less
likely to stick together. All of this increases recovery. This has
been studied with regular people and athletes.
And this one is completely free. If you want it, just go outside and
touch the Earth and do that for at least half an hour. Concrete is
conductive but asphalt is not. The best option is cold, wet grass in
the mornings as it is very conductive at that time. It’s great to do
this every single day, if possible.
The problem is I work indoors on the computer most of the time
as do many other people. I can spend time outdoors every single
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day, if I choose, but I tend to not always do so. The great thing is
there is grounding technology available. Through conductive
materials these plug into the grounding outlet in the wall. Then
you have a band to wear, a pad you can sit or stand on, or a sheet
to add to your bed. This allows you to get the benefits of earthing
throughout the day. Those are available at
www.LongevityWarehouse.com.

If you can, workout barefoot on the earth. Unfortunately most
gyms aren’t setup that way which is one more reason to workout
outside if possible. Whether you have these tools or not, after a
workout I recommend you spend at least a little time getting
grounded. I believe that by doing this you’ll lower any
inflammation in your body, and can reduce any wear or tear on
your joints and muscles that occurred while lifting.
DMSO
This isn’t really for recovery so much, but if you happen to
receive any injuries this is something to have on hand. DMSO,
dimethyl sulfoxide, is used as an industrial solvent. It is
commonly used for race horses, but is not “approved” by the FDA
for human use. But lots of research has been done on its benefits,
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it just one of those things in a gray area for political reasons. If
you’d like more information check out the book DMSO: Nature’s
Healer by Dr. Morton Walker.
You apply this topically to an area. Make sure the area is clean as
DMSO will drive whatever is present into your body. Wash your
hands and the area before use. DMSO can also cause a burning
sensation, and because it absorbs so readily many people can taste
it after use. But the benefits are worth it. This can help instantly
reduce inflammation and start the healing process and it works
really well. I’ve also had good success in using DMSO and other
topical treatments with a chronic wrist injury I had. I cover that in
full detail in my program, The Chronic Injury Solution.
Another option for chronic joint problems is to massage the
injured area with peanut oil for 15 minutes each night.

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Mental and Energetic Boosts to Recovery
Everything mentioned before may not be new information to you.
Some pieces may be, but the basic ideas like getting enough sleep,
water and nutrition most certainly aren’t. The whole purpose of
this training was to lay a foundation for this section. Without a
foundation this area isn't as powerful by itself.
Very few people focus on the mental and energetic sides of
training, and thus almost no one is using these to help improve
recovery. But by adding this in you can significantly boost your
recovery over “normal” levels.
Beliefs
Beliefs are huge. Let’s revisit the Dan Gable quote. “There’s no
such thing as overtraining.” That’s a belief. By having that belief,
because this is something he truly believed, he was able to train
really hard every single day and get away with doing it. Because
he didn’t believe there was such thing as overtraining, he was able
to get his body to believe that as well, in order to be able to
recover every single day. In order to do that he also held the
belief, “You must work as hard at recovery, as you do at training.”
Beliefs govern your behavior and actions. In Gable’s case these
beliefs made him work really hard in training and in recovery
with lots of frequency in both. All the information that we’ve
covered so far in the Ultimate Recovery Formula, those are
different actions you can take. If you believe you’re going to work
at recovery as much as you do at training, you’re going to do
these certain steps properly.
But there is more to it than just taking action. If you believe your
muscles need a week to recover from your workout, then what
happens if you work out at day six? You have that belief so even
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if your muscles happen to be recovered, you may, on a
subconscious level, go into that exercise and not perform as well
because you believe you’re not fully recovered from it. Or it may
take your muscles longer to recover because of the subconscious
signals to the different systems in your body stemming from this
belief.
In some of my other courses I’ve covered finding and changing
beliefs and how far of a reach they have in your training. If you’d
like more information contact me as that’s not something I sell to
the general public.
In this course you’ll find a hypnotic track that I’ve recorded
specifically to be done after any workout. By listening to this,
certain things are going to go into your mind on a subconscious
level to help improve your recovery even more. Your beliefs will
be transformed over time.
Think about this for a minute. If you believe that there’s no such
thing as overtraining or you believe that you can recover every
single day within 24 hours of your workout, imagine what that
could do for your ability to actually recover. What governs all the
different systems in your body? It’s your subconscious mind. It’s
the autonomic nervous system. So by transforming your beliefs
you can see quicker recovery than without them.
Electrics
It was the electrics that led to me coming up with this program. I
am enrolled currently in the Eden Energy Medicine Certification
Program because I want to go much further with the different
energy systems in the body and how these can be used for
recovery, for training, health, optimal life and more. This is an
intensive two year program that I am nearing completion on.

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One of the nine energy systems in the body is known as the
electrics. This energy system works with actual electrons and
protons with small amounts of electricity running through your
body. This is as opposed to the other energies systems, which
work with more subtle energies that can’t be measured as easily
with scientific instruments. An important thing to note is that the
energy systems all interact with each other, just like the
physiological systems in the body.
During one of our classes we were working on the electrics. In
one protocol a person holds the main electrics on your body for
half an hour to an hour. I was on the table receiving this treatment.
As I’m was laying there in a relaxed state, images began flashing
through my mind of myself being really strong doing many
different feats of strength. These were accompanied by powerful
feelings of being strong. It was only afterwards when I was going
back and analyzing what had happened that I realized the electric
system is tied into the central nervous system. It’s the electrical
impulses firing.
Earlier we talked about the CNS and its role in recovery as well as
CNS burnout. What was happening during the session is my
central nervous system was being recharged in a way I‘d never
experienced before. I felt the sensation that I was being plugged
in. With my training, because I do so much and am always
pushing the boundaries of what I can do, I feel like I’m always on
the verge of overtraining. Its finding the right balance between too
much and too little. And after this treatment I started feeling really
strong so I went out and tested it. The results verified what I had
been feeling which set me to thinking about how I could use this
and share it with you.
Now here is the unfortunate thing. This process requires a whole
bunch of preparatory work. There are actually some precautions
with it. It can be done wrong and cause some problems if you do
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that. It requires another person and a whole bunch of time. It’s a
really powerful process but for those reasons, I went searching for
a way you could do it yourself and it wouldn’t take as much time.
In order to tap into the electric system of the body, there are
different points on the body. These are similar to acupressure
points except they have to do with the electrics rather than the
meridians, which are a different energy system. The main two
points are in the back of the head.

Courtesy of Energy Medicine - http://www.innersource.net/
In the treatment I discussed, a person would hold those points and
they’re going to heat up to some degree. The important thing is
that you don’t want to disconnect from it when you do it. You
need to stay there until they cool off because it really is like being
plugged into an outlet. But while you can hold these points
yourself, it doesn‘t give the same effect.
Hypnosis
I decided to combine use of the electric system along with
hypnosis to super-enhance its effects. And I have to say the effects
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of doing this are powerful. That’s why I named this the Ultimate
Recovery Formula.
Take a rolled up towel and place it behind your head so you’re
going to have a little bit of stimulation of these different points. Is
it going to work the same? No. But if you get one tenth of the
benefit, you might as well do it. Could this be done without it?
Absolutely. But not only will this stimulate the points to some
degree but its comfortable to lay on.
That is one pair of electric points. We’re also going to be using
some different ones to be held throughout the hypnosis. One point
is the heart electrical. The other is Liver 12, located to the right of
the groin.

The left hand goes on the heart electrical and the right hand on the
liver point. When working with electrics, you use a fair amount of
pressure. You don’t want to be just lightly on the point like you
would do with some other points on the body. You need to press
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in. Even though you are told to relax as you do the hypnosis,
you’ll still want to maintain this pressure the whole time.
This is going to make sure that the electric field of the heart,
stronger than the electric field of the brain, is amped up. It’s a
deep connection between the root chakra and the heart, which is
not so much our focus here, but this is a way you can tap into the
electrical system yourself. By holding these points you can burn
away stress, and even scar tissue, while it also taps into the
nervous system.
During the hypnosis you’ll hold these points the whole time. And
there is plenty else going on. The first part of it is doing a certain
form of breath, working with energies of the ground that will
hook up different energy systems in your body as well. Then
you’re lead through progressive relaxation of the physical body.
That is followed by hypnotic language patterns, which may not
make a whole lot of sense when you hear them, but they’re
structured that way in order to deliver to your subconscious mind
certain messages. Then you’re brought back out of hypnosis. It
doesn’t take very long but it can have huge effects. I encourage
you to do this every single day after your workout.
The effects will likely generalize to some degree. That’s when
your beliefs become transformed by this process. But even then
the relaxation, energy work and electricals, and more would make
it worth returning to every once in awhile. I’ve been using it
myself and I always feel great coming out of it. Use that as one of
your gauges. How do you feel before going in and how do you
feel coming out? How well you do you feel you recover after
doing it?
In eight minutes you can combine hypnosis and energy work to
amplify your recovery. This can take it to another level on top of
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what you can do by following the basics covered in this book.
You put it all together and you will be following Gable’s advice of
working as hard on recovery as you do with training. And that
will lead to better training results.
Be sure to write me and tell me how it goes for you at
[email protected]. Let me know how it’s affected
your recovery ability and thus your training.

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Video and Hypnotic Track Downloads
You can download the accompanying videos and the hypnotic
track at the following page.

www.LegendaryStrength.com/ultimate-recovery-downloads/
Password: dangable
If you have any problems accessing your downloads email me
and I'll help you out.

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Other Books from Logan Christopher
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups
The Ultimate Guide to Pullups and Chin-ups
The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Squats and Pistols
The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Ab Exercises
Secrets of the Handstand
The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness
Deceptive Strength: Becoming Strong While Staying Small
Mental Muscle
Learn How to Back Flip in 31 Days
Advanced Bridging Course

For a full up-to-date list go to:

http://www.LegendaryStrength.com/books-videos/
Also many are available on Amazon.com