I've coached a lot of "cyborgs," as I call them.
Clients that just execute their training and nutrition perfectly for months on end.
They're are hyper-organized, high-achieving, no excuses men and women.
They push their workouts hard.
They hit their macros with surgical precision.
But sometimes they still they don't see results...
The mental and physical effort they're putting in.
Just to see lackluster results.
And sometimes no results at all.
"What's the point???"
Why is this?
Are they eating hyper-inflammatory foods?
Are they doing too much cardio? Too much weight lifting?
Have hormonal issues?
Maybe.
But the biggest factor?
RECOVERABILITY.
Recoverability is the body's ability to recover, specifically your recovery should be twice as high as stress stimulus (training, calorie deficit, reverse diet, are all nutrition/training factors that will cause body stress).
Which leads to adaptation.
Butttttttttt...
...the body doesn't just get stressed from training and nutrition.
It gets stressed from, well, stress.
More specifically:
Lack of sleep or poor sleep
Chronic stress (stress that lasts after 5pm and into the evening)
lack of NEAT (non-exercise movement)
Your breathing mechanics (short/chest breathing vs. deep belly breathing)
Poor bedtime routine
How you handle life stresses (do you obsess over them and it consumes your mind?)
Traffic
Air quality
Social life
Relationships
And the list goes on...
Is your perfect adherence to your training and nutrition a band-aid to your shitty recovery?
Are you overwhelmed with the list above?
Most likely.
What's the one low hanging fruit?
The easiest thing you can start with that will give you the biggest benefit?
SLEEP.
And more specifically, shutting off electronics after 6pm especially phone and tv. Making your bedroom a restful sanctuary. And creating a bedtime routine (brush teeth, bath, read a book, lights out).
It's the simplest thing you can do.
But will also be the hardest.
Think of how many reps you've done with shitty sleeping structure?
20 years worth? 10 years?
We're getting reps in the other direction. And it's going to be tough.
Any change will.
But how you feel when you wake up in the morning.
YOUR RESULTS OF LOSING 2-3 POUNDS PER WEEK.
Your mental clarity and energy levels.
They will all thank you.
When I was in college, we used to say that nothing good happens at the bar after 12pm.
It's the same thing with your emails, texts, tv, and other stressors.
Train hard. Attack your nutrition hard. But recover harder.
-DC
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