The Best Post Meet Recovery Ever!

We always talk about taking a break after the meet to let our bodies recover. For those of you who follow this advice, you understand why. Those that do not implement this will understand one day. For me personally, when I finish a meet I don’t have motivation to even get under a bar to move a bunch of weight. I had my battle and either won or lost. This time after the meet is to either lick my wounds and figure out what went wrong or enjoy the success and allow repairs to be made to my body (because there was damage done). Following my most recent meet, my recovery was completely different and I think it aided me more than it ever has before.

Mental Focus

This past meet took a toll on me mentally and it was hard for me to shake. This was the first time I decided to take a trip right after a meet. I figured it would work well since I would not be occupied with intense training. Not only was it a “trip” it was an international trip which I have never done. This caused a bunch of mental variables that removed my focus completely from powerlifting and training. One could say it was the complete opposite end of the spectrum from training. I was not worried about working out, food measurements, and prepping for a heavy or light training day forcing myself to bed early. What I was worried about was making my flight on time, did I have my passport, what this trip was going to be like!

Physical Demands

Training for powerlifting causes me to create poor habits over time when under heavy loads. I begin to walk with a waddle due to my inability to keep my posterior pelvic tilt fixed and keep from externally rotating. The ironic thing is, I walk like this because it is the most comfortable but it doesn’t actually fix anything. One could say it’s making it worse. In real basic terms, I could not even walk properly.

So tucking my tail and walking without a waddle was a large focus during this trip. It took so much focus because it actually hurt to walk properly. To give you an idea of this “struggle,” when I was visiting Japan we averaged walking 5 miles a day; that’s roughly around 15,000 steps. I am not going to lie, when I start addressing my compensations, other areas begin to hurt because I was guarded and locked into a poor position for so long. By the end of the 5th day, I could physically feel my strides and hip position were better, my waddle was decreased and I felt much better… JUST BY WALKING!

So after finally returning from my trip, (and the additional recovery from jet lag), I think this was the best post meet recovery I have ever experienced. I am ready to get back to training with weight. I can tell my base needs a lot of work and hopefully will fix more lingering mechanical issues along the way.

Remember, you cannot out-train recovery, and you cannot sustain maximal strength 365 days out of the year, so look into taking a break after a meet and enjoy what we have been blessed with on this earth.