on the fifth day of Christmas , my coach gave to me active recovery day . All right , you're gonna get a little bit of a break today physically , but we're gonna try to rest and rejuvenate and recharge so we can go in and crush next week . All right . So rest and recovery day , all right . So I'm JT , your high performance mindset coach , running coach .
Welcome to day five of the fitness challenge , and today we're gonna talk about the importance of rest and recovery , with some gentle stretching or rest days . We're not gonna be doing nothing , we're not just taking the day off , but we're going to just do a little bit of work , just not gonna be a strenuous .
So what we're gonna do today we're gonna focus on , we're gonna do a little foam rolling routine . There's a 10 minute foam rolling routine that I use often off of YouTube , so you have that there for you .
You got 20 minutes of yoga with Adrienne , just a recovery type yoga , and then I want you to go on a 20 minute minimum , 20 minute swift walk and then a five minute guided meditation .
So it sounds like a lot , but all in all , you're probably doing maybe 50 , I think it's 55 minutes of work , a minimum If you want to increase your walking or you want to do more yoga , that's totally up to you , but these are some recovery techniques that I like to use and this is what I program for a lot of my runners .
So recovery day actually has some movement . So focusing on recovery is often overlooked , but active recovery day is just about having some gentle movement to help your body recover and this will rejuvenate you and just kind of like keep the stiffness from from setting in the soreness . Recovery days are essential because this is where you get to repair your body .
You know when you're running and you're doing all the weightlifting , you know you're causing micro tears and creating micro tears in your muscles and you're putting a lot of strain and you're taking up a lot of energy . You can only get stronger from the recovery . So recovery is training . We say that again recovery is training .
I know so many people and I used to think that if I wasn't doing something , then that was horrible , okay , and that and I was doing something wrong . By not doing something , your body cannot repair itself unless you slow down .
So this is a way that you still get to move your body , get to focus on some flexibility , get to work on the mind a little bit alright .
So you know , skipping active recovery days can ultimately lead to burnout , can lead to injury , overuse , injuries , and it can hinder your performance progress because you've never allowed yourself time to slow down your recovery . So you know , foam rolling helps you with your muscle recovery .
It's the poor man's massage , so it's called , but foam rolling is great because it's a great tool . If you don't have a foam roller , you can get them anywhere . You get them at the dollar store . I've seen with the dollar store for like five bucks . But you should have a foam roller in your kit .
And yeah , that's simple routine 10 minutes can really work out a lot of stiffness and soreness in your whole body . Then you're gonna do yoga . That's gonna improve flexibility , reduce the stress and you know that yoga is good for your mind and your body .
And then the walking is just gonna boost some circulation in your body which enables you know that blood circulation enables your muscles to repair . And so this is your challenge for today is to do the routine . So you got a foam roller routine 10 minutes yoga with Adrienne for like 20 minutes , swift walk minimum 20 minutes and then a five minute meditation .
So this is your mindset minute Meditation is so incredibly important and this gratitude meditation it's only five minutes . It's time to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work that you've done and it enables you to kind of clear your mind . And what I love about you know gradation or or or . Well , that's it . That's it .
It's a gratitude meditation gradation I'm creating new routines here . What's great about gratitude meditation is that it's it's you know gratitude enables us to it's scientifically , studies have shown gratitude has scientifically . Let me start the whole thing over again . Good grief , I don't edit this podcast so you get to hear my screw ups .
That's all good , right , all right . Gratitude meditation has shown that there's been significant my goodness . You can obviously tell that there's no AI here . You'll always get me . I hardly do any editing at all and I have these , like I have some cognitive challenges sometimes and my brain just gets kind of foggy from time to time .
It's kind of always been that way . It's gotten worse with COVID . So I'm having a moment here . Work with me here . Gratitude meditation is incredibly important and the gratitude component . Research has shown over and over again that gratitude amplifies your happiness .
It reduces stress , it can mitigate depression , it improves your sleep quality and it just makes you feel thankful . It just makes you feel better . Happiness can only be found in the present moment and when you're in deep gratitude . When you're in legit deep gratitude , you're not going to experience other negative emotions .
But you have to slow down in order to experience it . And oftentimes we've developed these habits of just go , go , go and never slowing down .
But when you can slow down for a minute , be present with yourself and in the moment and be grateful for what you have , when you're dealing with anxiety and you're worrying about the future , you're living in another time zone . When you're depressed and thinking about all the things that have happened to you in the past , you're living in a different time zone .
You're in the past , when you're grateful and you're in the moment . You're living in the present , experiencing true happiness . And this five-minute meditation will ground you and bring you there , and it's something you can do anytime . Something you can do anytime . You don't just need this meditation . You just sit in silence for a couple of minutes .
So many different ways to do this . So take the time to reflect on what you appreciate , what you're grateful for , especially in the season of giving and the holiday spirit , and just you know , I want you to think about .
You know what you're grateful for for this year , how you're closing out this year , and so this is a great way of thanking yourself , your body and your mind for all that you do . It's a way to just rejuvenate yourself , your mind and your body . So that's what this whole routine is about today .
It's about rejuvenation and recharging the batteries so you can crush it on day six , which is tomorrow . All right , so that's it for today . Do hard things . Make someone smile . Keep getting after it . If you've gone this far , I just encourage you to keep going and appreciate you . Do hard things .