Stronger with Don Saladino

Episode: Recovery Is a Skill: How to Stop Burning Out and Start Progressing
Date: October 21, 2025
Host: Don Saladino
Guest: Dr. Jordan Shallow

Episode Overview

This episode of "Stronger" dives deep into the often-misunderstood world of recovery in fitness and life. Host Don Saladino welcomes back Dr. Jordan Shallow, a chiropractor and performance coach, for a practical discussion about why recovery is more than taking casual rest days. The conversation covers the balance between stress and adaptation, the "stress bank account" analogy, the true roles of nutrition, sleep, and hydration, recovery myths, and how to make recovery a skill that sustains progress and longevity. Listener questions highlight real-life challenges—like navigating ACL surgery rehab and active versus passive recovery—and the episode is packed with actionable insights for anyone seeking to get stronger not just in the gym, but in everyday life.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Recovery (04:43-08:31)

• Misconceptions: Recovery is often reduced to just taking a day off or using the latest wellness trend; it's actually much deeper and starts with programming and understanding your total life stress.
• Active vs. Passive Recovery:
  • Listener John from Idaho asks if it's normal to feel worse on full rest days without activity.
  • Dr. Shallow: "The stiffness you're feeling on your rest days is a culmination of the sympathetic drive on your training days." (05:33)
  • Prolonged stress—mentally or physically—can cause your body to "cash out" when you finally stop, resulting in fatigue or malaise.

2. The 'Stress Bank Account' Analogy (08:31-15:10)

• Every workout is a withdrawal; sleep, food, and lifestyle are your deposits.
• "Recovery starts with exercise programming, and programming starts with a detailed history...what is our bank account for stress?" – Dr. Shallow (09:44)
• Understanding allostatic load (your ability to tolerate stress and adapt) is critical—what you can “afford” is unique to your life.

3. Personalizing Recovery & Programming (10:55-15:37)

• Example: Two clients—one a military operative, one a paralegal—had very different subjective stress loads, despite assumptions about their jobs.
  • The military client needed MORE training to adapt, while the paralegal needed LESS, due to hidden life stressors.
  • Quote: “That was my perception of his stress, not his perception of his stress.” – Dr. Shallow (13:10)
• Takeaway: Your stress, adaptability, and recovery needs are unique to YOU.

4. Measuring Progress: Performance as a Proxy (15:37-18:46)

• Don: "Are you getting stronger? Is that skill improving?" (15:37)
• Not all progress is about adding weight. Skill improvements, improved form, or endurance also signal adaptation.
• Dr. Shallow: Skillful lifters need careful exercise selection—“If I give them a leg press, a hack squat, a back squat...and they’re redlining each one, we’re accumulating way too much stress per unit effort.” (17:10)

5. Exercise Variability and Recovery Strategies (18:46-21:05)

• Swap high-stress lifts for lower-impact movements without lowering intensity, e.g., a split squat with a dumbbell instead of a loaded back squat—keeps subjective effort high but overall stress within budget.
• Build variability to allow some tissues to recover while others work.

6. Deloads, Cardio, and Real-World Plates to Spin (21:05-25:43)

• Dr. Shallow: Recovery isn't always about taking "deload weeks"; it's about modulating volume (de-volume), not just intensity.
• Cardio/endurance capacity is often the first to wane if ignored during breaks; prioritize it on vacation or low-exercise periods.
• Quote: “I need to know which plate is spinning slowest, because if that one falls, the rest of them fall.” (21:05)

7. The Fundamentals—Sleep, Nutrition, Hydration (26:56-32:00)

• Missed meals or sleep have a much bigger impact than most realize.
• Anecdotes about elite athletes (e.g., bodybuilder Nick Walker: “I haven’t missed a meal in five years”) hammer home the point that consistency in basics beats trendy recovery hacks.
• US military research found just two extra hours of sleep drastically lowered the rate of stress fractures in recruits—policy was changed as a result.
  “...the single, far and away, most potent variable. The second they did that, all the stress fractures pretty much went away.” – Dr. Shallow (30:46)

8. Measuring True Recovery (31:22-32:00)

• If you can’t keep your food, water, and sleep stable, you can’t properly assess whether your recovery tactics are working.
• Quotes:
  • “Performance is a damn good way to do it [measure recovery], but if your start line is moving every day...” – Dr. Shallow (31:29)
  • “Until we’ve standardized for these variables, you’re guessing at best.” (32:00)

9. Modality Myths & The Real Role of Recovery Tools (32:00-34:03)

• Saunas, cold plunges, red light therapy, foam rolling—they’re not magic bullets.
• Dr. Shallow: Uses modalities pre-training to prime focus, not for post-workout recovery per se.
• Quote: “When we talk about recovery, exercise programming IS recovery.” (33:58)

10. Real-World Application: Inventory & Flexibility (34:03-36:42)

• Recovery is an inventory of “ins and outs,” and requires constant adjustment depending on your life outside the gym.
• Small decisions—“5 pounds less or more,” or “8 ounces more water”—can make a huge difference.
• Memorable quote: "Small hinges open massive physiological doors. And sometimes it's the doors you keep closed that are the ones that help you recover." – Dr. Shallow (36:38)

Listener Questions & Practical Q&A

Q1: "Is it bad to never feel 100% recovered? Does striving for 'perfect readiness' create more harm than good?"

• Summary: It’s normal to feel some fatigue, and you shouldn’t expect to always feel 100% “ready.” In fact, constant striving for readiness can lead people to undertrain or get lazy.
  • “Sometimes a lot of times, we are just gritting it out and we’re pushing through.” – Don Saladino (08:55)

Q2 (37:04): "How do I physically prepare after ACL surgery to go back to high impact activities?"

• Dr. Shallow’s approach (37:18-41:31):
  • Rehab isn’t just about making the knee stronger.
  • Dig for underlying causes: hip and ankle mechanics, habits, or conditions that may have caused the injury in the first place.
  • Quote: “Whenever we injure anything, we need to understand that an injury is an equation: applied force greater than tissue tolerance.” (37:51)
  • Don't just increase tissue tolerance—also decrease the applied (damaging) force by moving better.
  • Work with a skilled PT or coach who can spot the “why” behind the injury and optimize return to sport.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On personalizing load:
  “That was my perception of his stress, not his perception of his stress.” – Dr. Shallow (13:10)

• On the basics:
  “Hydration, nutrition, sleep. It’s like, yeah, we can hear that in passing on a podcast...but when you quantify it...the performance depreciation and how little, how drastic and how little it takes.” (30:46)

• On progress:
  “Skill is way higher here. You really have to understand not only someone’s lifestyle, but you really have to understand the intensity that they’re coming in and doing that workout.” – Don Saladino (16:46)

• On recovery philosophy:
  “Exercise programming is recovery. It’s fundamental because that gives you the balance of what you can recover from or what you’re attempting to recover from.” – Dr. Shallow (33:58)

• On small changes and recovery:
  “Small hinges open massive physiological doors. And sometimes it’s the doors you keep closed that are the ones that help you recover.” – Dr. Shallow (36:38)

Segment Timestamps

• 00:58 Introduction to recovery topic
• 04:43 Q&A: Should rest days be truly passive/restful?
• 08:31 Managing allostatic load—introducing the "stress bank account"
• 13:10 Client stories: Perception of stress and individualized programming
• 15:37 Quantifying performance and recovery in the real world
• 18:46 Exercise selection and variability for recovery
• 21:05 Cardio, strength, deloads: spinning multiple adaptation "plates"
• 26:56 Nutrition, hydration, sleep as core recovery variables
• 30:46 Military sleep research and recovery science
• 32:00 Modalities (saunas, cold plunges), their place in recovery
• 33:58 Exercise programming as the foundation of recovery
• 36:47 Q&A: Handling ACL surgery rehab and the core equation of injury

Final Thoughts

This episode reframes recovery as a dynamic, skillful process that starts with your lifestyle, not just your workout. It’s about making deposits through sleep, nutrition, and hydration, learning when to push and when to hold back, and always personalizing your approach rather than copying endless online templates. Dr. Shallow and Don Saladino’s practical, story-driven advice ensures listeners come away not just informed but equipped to make better, stronger choices in the pursuit of progress—both inside and outside the gym.