Recovery: A Major Key to High Performance

“The gap between your best and worst performances are narrower than everyone else’s” Damian Hughes defining high performance.

I used to admire talent. Incredibly smart people. Folks gifted with speed and jumping ability. Or those that were naturally strong. 

Now, I’ve come to view high performance as consistency. High Performance is the slow play; it’s long term. It’s the ability to show up for your love ones and colleagues day in and day out.   

Talent is overrated. The ability to be pretty darn good every day is what I value most.

I’m ashamed. I never thought much of sleep, nutrition, and self-care. I thought they were tools of excuse makers. Work hard, play hard was the motto.

Sacrifice and a relentless work ethic are prerequisites for high performance. Rarely will you witness a lazy and incompetent person in those spaces. With the arena filled with hard workers, the advantage lies in recovery. 

A big misconception is that recovery is simply rest. In the majority of cases, recovery is active. This is a process that is frequently challenging and uncomfortable.   

Lebron James’ Recovery
To help illustrate the rigor of recovery, Business Insider wrote a story documenting Lebron James’ 48 hours between NBA finals games in 2015. Here are some highlights:

• Immediately following the game he drinks, “a carefully prepared combination of water and carbohydrate-rich recovery fluids.”
• Next, he takes an ice bath which he describes as “borderline torture.”
• On the flight: He continues drinking fluids.
• He has a “carefully planned meal of high-quality protein and carbs to flush the toxins and lactic acid to jump start the healing process.”
• Still on the plane he receives electro-stimulation to keep his muscles contracting. 
• After landing at 6:30a, he heads home for sleep.
• By 1pm he’s back at the training facility to ride the stationary bike and begin contrasting hot and cold baths.
• He then heads back home and meets with his trainer and they do treatment, massage and rehab lasting four hours. 
• Here is a link to the full article:   Lebron’s Recovery

Sure, Lebron has amazing genetic gifts. He is speed and power personified. However, his most amazing accomplishment has been his sustained excellence. To be a tip of the arrow performer in any profession, let alone the NBA, for nearly 20 years isn’t accomplished with genetics alone. I believe his commitment to the recovery process has been his ultimate ninja skill. 

This article isn’t about Lebron James. If you really want to nerd out, study a MLB pitcher’s recovery process following a start. Game day is easy, it’s the other four or five days in between outings where the magic occurs. The same discipline is found in any major sport. Everyone is working ridiculously hard; the competitive advantage is how effectively they recover. 

Dispelling Myths
It is easy to minimize the professional athletes example with: “I don’t have the money, time or resources to do that.” While there is merit to that rebuttal, I believe we all have the ability to be more intentional. It’s also possible to point to legendary athletes and executives of the past who abused their bodies and still achieved amazing success. The likes of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle come to mind. For their immense talent, there’s little argument that both men would have been more consistent, over a longer time span, if they would have taken recovery more seriously. 

How Can We Apply Recovery?
I understand that the majority of people in this community are not elite athletes. However, recovery is critical in everyday life: 

• You leave work exhausted: how do you recover for the next day?
• A complex team assignment was completed: how do you recover so you are prepared for the next challenge?
• You complete a hard workout: how do you recover to ensure you remain active instead of sedentary for the next several days?

Recovery For Parents
For Lowrie and I the moment we wake up it’s on! We have four kids to get ready for school. We both work. Then there is preparing meals, getting kids to activities, showers and bed. It is easy to get swept away in the hard work and fail to recover. We often feel selfish to work out, eat healthy, and sleep. Can you relate?

Parenting is a grind. Recovering allows us to bring our best self to each other, our kids, and others.

Conclusion
To live a high performance lifestyle we have to be different. That means not just focusing on hard work, but instead being intentional with recovery as well. 

Let’s narrow the gap between our best and worst self this week!