As an athlete, every week I have one full recovery day during which I barely move. I mean, full-on couch potato. But on Wednesdays, I have an active recovery day. This means no running or impact, but lots of stretching and strengthening the little muscles that help with injury prevention. I don’t think we talk about the importance of this enough! It doesn’t matter at what level you are training, or how strong and in shape you are. If you keep getting injured or are dealing with chronic pain, it ultimately makes all your other progress worthless. I have listed my routine that I follow during an active recovery day; hopefully, it can be helpful for you too!
Morning Routine:
- Wake up, 3 minutes of planks with hip mobility, and a couple of minutes of Psoas muscle release and foam-rolling out my feet.
- Take a quick walk around the neighborhood to shake out any lactic acid and get some fresh air. If the weather isn’t great, I do my “morning flow” workout just to get my body warmed up and moving. You can find an example of one I do here.
- I slip on my Vionic sandals to make breakfast, or I go get an Erewhon breakfast burrito if my body is craving something hearty.
I really try to get a good muscle/full-body shakeout of some sort first thing in the morning because my Thursday/Friday workouts are usually the hardest of the week and I don’t want any leftover soreness or tightness hindering my performance! When I’m done, I go through my foot and ankle strengthening routine which is very important to me because I injured my foot a couple of years ago—it’s what taught me the hard way to take active recovery seriously. You can read the story behind that here and find a video similar to my own routine here.
I then finish the rest of my chores for the day, try to relax with my yoga toes on, and finish with 5-10 minutes of core work, some foam rolling, and an Epsom salt bath!
Overall, the key takeaway for me on active recovery days is making sure I don’t walk barefoot on my hardwood floors and always wear a supportive sandal or slipper. When I didn’t do this in the past, it really hindered my ability to recover from injuries and I now use it as a prevention tool. Please find the links below to items that I use during my recovery.
Psoas tool link: https://amzn.to/3Pck3cb
Yoga toes: https://amzn.to/38haLLz
Band for ankle strength: https://amzn.to/3FzcI1Z
Foam roller: https://amzn.to/3FAww52