Since recovery has been an ongoing concern with my training I have developed this preparedness matrix. I go through it before my first workout of the week every Monday.
The reason I use Monday versus every training day is because if I measured myself on Wednesday or Friday I probably would not count myself as ready to lift. Presently, I am just barely recovering by each session. There is autoregulation built into my program so if I'm not at my best, there's still wiggle room.
I also chose Monday because Sunday is a recovery day. There is no active conditioning or weight training going on. I will do various hot and cold therapies, at least 30 minutes of foam rolling, usually a casual walk, as well as something to relax my mind such as meditation, yoga nidra, or some breath work.
Often, I will feel pretty banged up on Saturday from the culmination of the week's training. Then as I slowly work through my recovery on Sunday, I'll feel awesome by the afternoon into the evening.
There's no need to go into each part of the matrix. All the sections are pretty obvious. I don't know that I could tell you that it would ever prevent me from training. And like I said, a lot of my program is autoregulated by percentages.
What this does is force me each Monday to see if I'm doing everything I can to have each of those working parts as optimal as I can get them. Usually everything is an 8 or above. When that's the case, I just keep on trucking. However, if something is at a 7 I'll dive deeper.
As an educator a 7 out of 10 would get a grade of a C, average. Average is not terrible, but it's certainly not something I am striving for. A 7 will cause me to take a look at what happened over the course of the previous week.
The reason I’m doing this is because I feel great. The reason I feel great is because I have not been ignoring signs. If my back is a 7 and I ignore it and plant my feet on the floor while benching or deadlift, that 7 can go to a 4 in the snap of a finger. So I adjust.
I have experienced such debilitating pain from my back. In particular, a few years ago I remember tears streaming down my face while I was cutting my lawn going over bumps on the tractor. I clearly remember avoiding signs that my back was getting worse but ignoring them so I could stick to my written out plan and numbers.
So if my sleep hits a 7 or lower I want to critique why and come up with a plan. Do I need to change my sleep position? How’s my sleep hygiene? If my mental state is slipping, do I need to do more meditation, journaling, practice gratitude, etc. Just dig into that toolbox.
I think at this point you get the picture. The whole idea is to check yourself before you let things go too far.
