Micro Recovery - Macro Recovery

Micro Recovery VS. Macro Recovery (Part 1)

Travis Mental Fitness, Strength Training Comments

Side note to start: In part 2 I’ll show you exactly how I’m implementing this in my physical and mental training.

The names “Micro Recovery” and “Macro Recovery” hit me at 3:13am while lying in bed and luckily I recorded a voice memo about it.

What is Micro Recovery?

Micro Recovery deals specifically with the short recovery periods between intense activities whether it be mental or physical (or both). And more specifically how much you understand about the time you need, why you need it, and how to effectively get back in a peak state.

What is Macro Recovery?

Macro Recovery deals specifically with the extended periods between intense activities whether it be mental or physical (or both). And more specifically understanding the time you need, why you need it, and how to effectively get back in a peak state.

WHAT? That’s almost exactly what you said for the Micro Recovery! Well yes, but… Micro Recovery deals with short recovery periods (like seconds to sometimes hours) and Macro Recovery deals with the extended recovery periods (like a day or more).

Two Analogies

These two analogies that “should” help, and give you something more to think about..

Training / Workout Analogy
  • Micro (physical) Recovery: During training…. How quickly do you recover between sets / exercises?
  • Micro (mental) Recovery: During Training…. When your brain says, “Holy crapanoly, that was stupid hard”, how soon are you ready to go again?
  • Macro (physical) Recovery: In between training sessions… Do you recovery fully? Do perform at your best in your next workout? ie. If you squat on monday and Thursday, are you fully recovered by Thursday, and does Monday’s training effect any of your other workouts?
  • Macro (mental) Recovery: Are you able to analyze your mental state between and just before your next training session? If you destroy yourself today, are you going to be able to walk into the gym with the right frame of mind and train with the same intensity as yesterday or better?
School / Learning Analogy
  • Micro (physical) Recovery: How did/does your physical state effect your transition from subject to subject during a day?
  • Micro (mental) Recovery: How did/does each session/class effect your learning in the next class during day?
  • Macro (physical) Recovery: How did/do your activities (nutrition/sleep/etc) between days effect the next day’s sessions/classes?
  • Macro (mental) Recovery: Are you ready to learn new information again the next day or are you overwhelmed with the previous information? Have you retained what you learned from the previous session?

Did this just come out of thin air? Sorta. My brains won’t shut off and random things sometimes pop in from months back. This idea was spawned by a book.

NOTE: Just to be clear, as a preface… These are my interpretations of what I read from the book I reference below. I am not saying this is what the author believes.

Recently I read a book named “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin. Without going into a ton of detail in this post, let’s just say he was as good or better than Bobby Fisher in the world of chess. BUT… He also became a world champion in Tai Chi Chuan.

I learned heaps from his book and it’s made a big difference in my training, but the biggest thing was how Josh combined his mental and physical training. He describes in detail his journey becoming a world champion mentally and physically and how he combined the strategic mental aspect of chess with the physical aspect of Tai Chi and vise versa.

Stay tuned…. In part 2 I’ll be giving examples from the book, and explain how I’m implementing this into my training.

 

Image credits:
http://musc.libguides.com/comstudents/anatomy
http://uphe.org/air-pollution-health/the-brain/