Recovery and Mobility

Recovery aids are vital to consistent progress and minimized downtime due to injury or too much stress on the body. The first object I used is an exercise ball, in which I'd lay on it facing upwards, and would do a bridge basically with the ball underneath, and it stretched my spine in a way that I couldn't ordinarily. A little further down the road, I researched more 'mobility' aids, and found four items that I came to purchase: The Stick (the least useful), Theracane, Stretch-Out Straps, and a Foam Roller.

The Theracane is shaped like a large candy cane, and it has a few knobs in which you use to hit pressure points. It is foremost a back recovery aid - useful for the Traps, Lats, Pecs, Triceps, Delts, and Glutes. The Stretch-Out Straps are the least innovative. It's simply a seven-foot long piece of material with loops for your wrists and ankles. I bring it to the gym every day to use between and before sets when my body is feeling a little tight. I mostly use it for Shoulders, Lats, and Pecs.

Lastly, the Foam Roller is without a doubt my favorite, and the most useful. I roll all of the larger known muscles twice a day. This eliminates DOMs, grants mobility, and gets you in gym faster and better feeling than you would without rolling. Some people use PVC pipes to foam roll. Others say that they can't roll certain spots like the Lower Back. I haven't found any part of body that can't be rolled. That said, I have found too much Foam Rolling to be a drawback. I typically only roll a muscle one to three times, and that's all that's needed to keep it mobile.

A product I recently came across, which I have not purchased yet is called Voodoo Flossing. It is a seven-foot strip of latex rubber that you wrap around any joint in which inflammation is occurring. My elbows are in dire need of compression due to the volume of benching I perform. I'd also love to use it on both knees, ankles, and forearms.

Similar to the mobility tools, a hard surface to lay on is essential. Laughably, your average person tries to attain the most expensive, softest, most comfortable bed you can find, whereas I've found a hard surface is far more beneficial. In fact, I sleep a floor. Too often my back or neck wouldn't feel right after waking from sleeping on a soft surface. You'll also find that when laying on a hard surface, certain positions aren't possible because it hurts too much. Think of laying in those positions on a soft bed, where you don't even realize it's hurting you until the next morning.

An extra benefit to sleeping on a hard surface is that it's not tolerable for 9-12 hours, and neither should you sleep that long. I like to rise at 0500-0600, and I do so without the aid of one of the most stressful things in the world - an alarm clock.