All of us have some form of stress in our lives, and some of us deal with it better than others, but today, I would like to talk to you about how life stress can impact how you recover from your workouts.
Even though many of us use working out and exercising as stress relief, we need to consider how stress can impact how we recover from our workouts and affect our future workouts.
Stress accumulates…
Most of us know that job issues, money issues, relationship issues, sleep issues, and other things that happen in our lives can cause stress. When many of us get stressed out, we look to our workouts to help decrease our stress levels, but you must understand that our workouts also cause stress.
Even though we consider workout stress a “good” type of stress, it too adds to the total amount of stress we are dealing with each day.
Stress slows recovery
I have found that if I am stressed from life and still train hard, it takes longer for my body to recover than if I have a hard workout on a day when my life has little stress.
When I noticed I was having some issues recovering from my workouts, I started to look at external influences such as work, food, sleep, and water intake.
After finding that my nutrient intake, water, and sleep were almost the same day-to-day, I started to look at what else could have impacted my recovery and muscle soreness. Even when my workouts were virtually identical, I wasn’t recovering the same on some days as others.
I then noticed that a bad day at work or an argument with my wife or son the day before would make my body sore and drain my energy, whereas, on the day after a less stressful day, I was fine.
Maybe dial back your workout intensity
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t train if you have a stressful day or feel lazy, but you can adjust your workout level based on your stress level. For example, if you usually do four sets of each exercise, drop it down to three. If you run five miles, maybe only run four. If it’s a really stressful day, have a play day at the gym and do what you feel like doing instead of sticking to your hardcore scheduled routine.
I know we all like to push through our workouts, even when our mind or body might be dealing with other issues, but sometimes, you will gain more in the long run if you keep your overall stress levels in check.
Please leave a comment below and let me know if you have noticed how stress impacts your workout recovery.