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Recovery Principles
"Sometimes it's harder to do nothing" and sometimes it's even harder to stop doing what's causing the issues, ironically.
Recovery simply is getting out of the way and letting your body do what it does best. Nowadays we are taught so many things that actually prevent healing and cause scar tissue (ice, anti-inflammation, etc) that we actually hold the body back from doing what it needs to do heal.
Inflammation is how the body heals. IT sends blood to heal the tissue. If you stop it with ice and piills, how is the body going to do it?
Below are my principles for optimal recovery that you can immediately begin implementing. These are not things you start doing after you're hurt or tired. These are things you adapt and do as much as possible so you recover optimally at all times.
- Sleep in complete darkness. Use blackout curtains. You want your room pitch dark and quiet as possible with only natural sounds like wind and birds outside. Keep windows slightly open for fresh air flow. Keep room as cool as you can handle. Your body will sleep better with the temperature around 65 F. It's preferable to keep the room colder and use more blankets as opposed to a heater. Go to bed early and rise early.
- All technology shut off and away as far as possible from you. Unplug WIFI router, printer, and anything else that emits a Bluetooth or WIFI signal. Also I wouldn't have anything plugged in in your room like a tv, light, or smart device. Phone in airplane mode is a must. You can use a wakeup app like Gentle Wakeup that will wake you up with nature sounds as opposed to a stressful alarm.
- Go for walks barefoot in Nature. This can be on sand, dirt, grass, or any other natural ground. The best is near a ocean, stream, or lake where you can get the water on your feet as well. Walk slow and keep tension in the feet with toes retracted. A dip in the cold ocean or hot sauna can also be very helpful for recovery and optimization.
- Epsom salt bath for your feet or lower body is also key for fascial recovery. 1 cup for your feet and 2 cups for your lower body. Rolling out adhesions as much as possible until they are gone is important as well. Heat is vital for any injury.
- Every 12 weeks or so, you should try to get 7 days of complete rest. This means no training and no fascial work. I know it's hard to do nothing, but the fascial work we are doing is inducing heavy neurological stimulus and needs rest.
- Eat dinner early. Eating later in the night will prolong digestion into the night and disrupt proper melatonin secretion. Aim to have dinner at the latest by 6PM, preferably 4 or 5PM.
- All artificial light at night is turned off. Use blue-light blocking glasses from Ra Optics, Blublox, or Lucia Eyes. You can start with the cheap Dewalt red glasses linked in the Gear Topic. Try to block even those little LED lights on TVs and outlets. They will harm your circadian rhythm despite being really small.
- Organic clothing & bedding is very helpful in allowing your body to relax by having natural fibers on your skin and not harmful synthetic petrochemical material. I like this brand PACT.
- Mouth taping while asleep is a simple way to increase your parasympathetic activation (your rest and recover mode) during the most important part of the day, your sleep. Mouth taping reinforces correct nostril breathing and jaw posture while asleep and stops mouth breathing and snoring. All you do is rip off a small piece and put it on your lips to close your mouth and take it off after you wake up. I use this tape.
- Go get a foot massage or full body massage. Relax. Do the Standing Meditation.
- Last but arguably most important, Meditation. This is literally how you cheat code life. More restorative than taking naps. 10-15 minutes in the morning and in the afternoon/evening. Put on some 432 hz music and lay flat or put your feet up. I do it unclothed in the sun if I have the opportunity. Just breathe in and out through the nose and let your thoughts drift by like the clouds above.
Having pain, injury, or bruised up?
- Look at the level of your athleticism. Keep up the Peak Harmony training. You can push through discomfort but not pain (in the exercises).
- Has your Inner Furnace work been slacking?
- Are your adhesions at 0?
- Think about if you have a previous injury not fully healed remaining dormant causing problems elsewhere.
- Work on the pandiculation work to see if you have some unconscious muscle tension in the hamstrings or calves for example.
- Have you been sitting a lot?
- How long has it been since your last 1 week rest? Have you been overdoing the fascia work?
- Has your sleep been good?
- Any new stressors in your life?
- Are you wearing cushioned modern shoes?
What to avoid
You see ice, pills, or even braces mask the symptoms (the pain) but prevent true healing. This creates more injuries in the future and more business for doctors, physios, and medication companies.
Full body cold thermogenesis has positive benefits but acute ice packs on the "pain" is where scar tissue and long term dysfunction in the connective tissue is created.
When I say pills I refer to NSAIDs (Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs). Sadly we are taught to fear and attack inflammation. Yes chronic inflammation is not desirable, but acute inflammation to heal bone, muscle, and connective tissue is the body working.
If you need a knee or ankle brace then you're not ready to be playing. The body will use this as a crutch and acquiesce to the "support" creating weakness in the long run. Taping your ankle for a championship game is one thing but relying on tape is another. Become built different on the inside instead of relying on the external.
What does this mean?
It means you need heat. You need nourishment. You need increase your energy production. You need to help your body not hold it back.
Inflammation is how the body regenerates tissue.
Dr. John Bergman
See Injury Care in Appendix for more
Schedules
Now many will ask about their schedules and want to know how to implement the work into their respective weeks. It is your job to figure this out and ask specific questions.
You should not be posting your whole schedule and asking others to figure it out for you. Use all the knowledge here and in the respective programs (which have sample schedules) to adapt all the fun to your unique schedule.
Now keep in mind that these are general guidelines. Most of you will have team schedules, match days, travel, and even lockdowns to deal with. Use your best judgment to set up a schedule that works best for you. Ask questions!
Entangled Warm Up
Now the primary goal of a warmup is to... get warm. I know that sounds revolutionary, but I see too many trainers attempting to "activate", stretch, or even go right into contact play.
We want to get blood flowing in the body. We want energy and nutrition circulating. A barefoot walk around the pitch followed by a rolling of the arch is recommended. Then with the boots on, a 1-2 minute two leg hop can get you going pretty good. You can do the beginner stance if your ankle stiffness needs work.
Then jog 2 laps around the pitch to slowly get the body warm. After that you can just mess around with the ball, juggle, and feel your body. After which, you can get in a rondo with teammates.
After a rondo with teammates, that's usually when the starters should begin their dynamic warmup. I would avoid any static stretching before matches and stick to actual movements.
You can use any pandiculations you like in the locker room before going out to "limber" up from the car ride there.
Standing meditation in the lockerroom is useful too before putting on your boots.
Morning & Evening Routine
A man is the sum of his habits
The amount of actions you can stack together into routines, the more you will achieve on a daily basis. This will add up over time and lead to great sums of progress.
Morning Routine
Now because the time the sun comes up changes depending on the time of year, I generally have adapted two different variations of my morning routine, but are basically the same things in a different order.
Winter Variation
Wake up ~30 minutes before sun comes up
Fix your bed
Lay down on ground, put headphones in, and meditate for 15 minutes.
Get outside, get walking, and get grounded.
Sungazing for 15 minutes atleast.
Add Wim Hof Breathing as you wish before Breakfast.
Summer Variation
If the sunrise is really early then switch and walk first to sungaze, and do meditation routine after there's somewhere you can lay in the sun.
Evening Routine
So for me, the evening is a time to unplug, relax, and read. Here's what I might do a few times a week:
Once 9PM hits, get a epsom salt bath ready, candles on, and soak while reading my book. Phone on airplane mode. Fall asleep around 10PM. When I set my alarm on my phone, I set some relaxing 432 hz music to play for 30 minutes to help me fall asleep.
Other nights I might watch an interesting documentary or something football related while layiny down. All artificial blue and green light and flicker is blocked of course.
(This already assumes you know I'm doing everything else Inner Furnace related)
Doing some somatics and a walk is good to do after dinner to settle in for a relaxing evening. You can also do a few minutes of deep belly breathing laying on your back on a yoga ball sprawled out making an upside down U shape with your body.
It's important to set boundaries for yourself and set aside time for you. This is exactly what these routines are meant for. Shut out everything external, go into you, and cross the abyss.
In general terms, the more consistency you add to your days the better. The human brain likes rhythms and will get more done that way. More things will be added to these routines as I add more modules to the course and finalize my experiments.
Post-Surgery Recommendations
Surgery is a traumatic experience for the human body regardless of what we're told. Your body is being opened up and things are being cut, trimmed, moved, and even taken out. Your fascia is being literally cut open to get to the bone or ligament. They don't and are not capable of repairing such a holistically interwoven system.
The cascade of hormones, neuromuscular responses, and potentially cringe reflexes when the anesthesia is injected is hard to quantify and generally ignored by surgeons and doctors alike. Surgery is great for acute injuries like car accidents and leg breaks, but for chronic injury not so much.
I recommend avoiding surgery as much as possible, but when you have to in a situation like a full ACL tear (there are new non-invasive techniques under research) or an Achilles tear, then we can do our best to help the tissue recover and do fascia work while even while immobile.
What to do
I recommend the traditional therapy with your club physio to help rehab from the effects of the surgery itself (not the acl tear). It's their job to get full muscle size and range of motion back.
Then we can begin very light Peak Harmony Training work alongside along with massage long Epsom salt heat baths, and wrapping the afflicted joint in raw butter, raw meat, and hot damp thick towels.
In this scenario because it is such a devastating effect was put on the body (surgery), it is necessary to "treat the symptoms" but of course we can't forget about the root cause of the injury as well.
Laying Exercises
- Merely hold tension in place and visualize the body interconnected and spiraling into itself.
- Try small movements with the legs and hands with tension. Go in circles. This can be good to do while in the bath.
Sitting Exercises
This assumes you can bend your knee to 90 degrees.
- Pick up a marble in each foot behind the second toe and do a pendulum swing (flutter feet forward and back in small motions opposite to each other. Which means one forward one back.) 2 minutes and rest.
- You can do something similar but just a figure eight on one foot and then switch.
- You can do upper body push hands and towel twists while sitting.
Begin the Intro to Peak Harmony Training as soon as you can stand on your own body weight. A lot of walking will be very important for you, grounded in Nature of course.
Your Team Makes You Lift?
Now unfortunately we live in a world where weightlifting is pushed upon footballers regardless of their willingness. Politics, ego, and even money influences this control grid that trainers, physios and strength staff has over athletes.
There are scenarios where as a high valued player you can merely say "no" and your performances will protect you from any backlash. There are also ways you can talk your way out of it just explaining that the heavy lifting just "doesn't work for me" and you work with your own online trainer (Football Entangled).
Then there's the team aspect where it's important for everyone to be together doing all the work that builds chemistry. This is where it's good just to skimp by all the gym work but still be involved with team. Here's a few ways you can skimp by:
- Skip sets and take longer rest periods.
- Do less reps and lower weight.
- Convert whatever you're doing to an isometric where you just hold the movement at the end range of motion.
- For example, on barbell back squats you could not go down as far, do less weight, do less reps by just holding it for 30 seconds and rack the bar.
The Mid-Afternoon Nap
Now it does happen where we have to stay up late for training or matches and we don't get enough sleep as we'd like. Also because Entangled Athletics is so neurologically taxing, you'll often get very tired and need to sleep more (where all the growth happens).
What I like to in the warmer summer months is hop in the ocean and lay flat on the warm sand with a hat over my face and just drift off into a relaxing nap.
You can do basically do the same thing with a cold shower and then lay flat outside in the sun. Meditate to calming relaxing music. After 10 minutes turn over onto your stomach and put head to one side and close eyes.
If you're in a colder climate, you could merely nap after a long full body Epsom salt bath then go for a walk outside.
A meditation and nap can often be very restorative and vital in your optimal growth building the Performance Matrix. Make this a priority, especially if you're in season.
How to Rest during the Football Season
Every so often (~12 weeks) it is very important to allow the fascia system to rest and recuperate, but in the midst of a season we can't exactly sit out trainings and matches. So for 1 week (or more if needed) we'll do try the below.
Here's how to introduce a rest period during season:
- No fascia work besides standing meditation and grounding walk.
- Epsom salt float tank or full bath every day.
- Reduce "extra" football training like juggling, ball work, etc
- Simply rest as best as possible.
- Full Body Massage
A point I'd like to make is if you have lots of minutes under your belt in the season then don't worry that resting will reduce your match fitness. Most players often feel "unfit" because they're under-recovered not out of shape. All Inner Furnace work applies. Great transformations usually come while you're resting, not during the actual fascia work or training.
During this 1-2 week rest period within the season, you can also introduce a few nutritional changes to help your body rebuild and nourish the body with heavy doses of raw fat and raw honey.
- Combine raw unsalted cheese and raw honey in the mouth.
- Combine raw cream, raw milk, raw unsalted butter, raw eggs, and raw honey.
- Increase your raw unsalted butter consumption. You can do this with meat or using the lubrication formula.
If you're prone to easily adding weight, I'd tread carefully and consume in moderation just in this strategic rest period.
