Recovery Is a Skill: How to Stop Burning Out and Start Progressing

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Oct 21, 2025

Dr. Jordan Shallow, a performance clinician specializing in recovery strategies, joins the conversation to explore recovery as a skill. He discusses why rest days can sometimes feel worse, emphasizing active recovery vs. complete rest. Shallow highlights the importance of sleep, nutrition, and hydration in performance. He provides insights into exercise programming and how small choices can enhance recovery. The chat wraps up with a Q&A on safe recovery post-ACL surgery, offering practical advice to navigate high-impact activities.

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ADVICE

Choose Active Recovery When Needed

If rest days make you feel worse, prefer active recovery over complete inactivity when training hard.
Use movement to mitigate sympathetic drive and ease accumulated training fatigue.

INSIGHT

Programming Is The First Recovery Tool

Recovery starts with exercise programming, not gadgets or hacks.
Determine your allostatic load to know how much training stress you can tolerate while progressing.

ANECDOTE

Client Stories Show Different Stress Budgets

Jordan compared two clients: a paralegal and a military operator with opposite stress capacities.
The military client thrived on more frequent training while the paralegal needed less volume.

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Dr. Jordan Shallow returns to the Stronger with Don Saladino for part two of their conversation. In his first appearance, Dr. Shallow unpacked the science of pain; this time, they get into recovery.

Together, Don and Jordan break down why some people feel worse on rest days, the difference between active recovery and complete rest, and how lifestyle factors like stress, nutrition, hydration, and sleep all shape performance. They share practical strategies to avoid burnout, program smarter training, and understand when recovery is truly needed versus when it’s an excuse.

The conversation also covers myths around recovery “hacks,” why exercise programming itself is the foundation of recovery, and how even small decisions, like hydration, food quality, and sleep, open or close big doors for progress.

To close, Don and Jordan take a live Q&A from listener Emy, tackling how to approach recovery after surgery (like an ACL repair) and how to safely return to high-impact activity.

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