When you lifted a lot the day before and really taxed your muscles, they will be sore the next day and that’s a good thing. When you do it right, you really do need a day to recover those muscles. I’ve been doing a lot of weights and cardio, so today needs to be a light day. I have a few favorite routines that I like to use for a light day. Usually I’ll focus on stress relief and flexibility. I’ll go in order of required energy, because sometimes you want a little more or less.
- power yoga/pilates – MTV Yoga/MTV Pilates, Trainer’s Edge: Long & Lean
- dance -New York City Ballet Workout or various belly dancing
- exercise ball stretching – Balance Ball videos from Gaiam
- kundalini yoga – Dance the Chakras or anything else by Ravi and Ana, also try Shiva Rea and Maya Fiennes
Foods for Recovery & Muscle Building
Rather than thinking of muscle foods like a body builder and eat a processed “protein bar” and bagel right after a workout, I think of ways to always be supporting tissue regeneration with by getting a lot of protein from different sources to cover all the amino acids. These are the true building blocks of your body! Getting protein from one source every day, like chicken or whey is not good enough. Instead try:
- a variety of fruits and vegetables for lots of living water and various amino acids!
- greens, sprouts, broccoli
- quinoa, oatmeal, wild rice (can be sprouted)
- spirulina, chlorella and sea vegetables
- snap peas and sweet peas
- beans & legumes
- soaked/sprouted nuts, seeds
- almond butter, cashew butter
- hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkins seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds
- almond milk, hemp milk
- goji berries
- avocados, figs, & coconut all provide essential amino acids
- Sunwarrior protein or Garden of Life protein- both are raw and vegan!
You’ll hardly ever find one place recommending all of these protein sources. I use mostly raw and occasionally cooked vegan protein sources- sometimes I bloom (soak) wild rice and sometimes I cook it, for instance; same with beans. These are just the ways I get protein now after experimenting on my own and combining information from a lot of different sources because that’s how it makes sense to me. What works for you? What are your favorite ways to get protein?
