A friend of mine passed on a fantastic article by Andrew May about applying the principles of recovery for elite athletes into your everyday life. 

One of the principles was getting quality sleep 300 nights a year (or an average of six nights each week). "Quality sleep" means you wake up the following morning feeling totally refreshed and recharged.

Gulp! What a wake-up call for me! I'm more likely to get proper sleep for only 65 nights out of 365!! So, that's at least one principle I'll be working on!

A summary of the principles are as follows:

• 1 Holiday or Off-Season
• 3 Mini Breaks
• 30 weeks of 100 recovery points
• 300 nights of quality recharging sleep (gulp!)
• go SLOW every day

​Download the full article here.

Which recovery principle will you be applying? Post your comments below.

As a dance instructor, I'm a obviously a massive fan of dancing.

I dance because I love music and I enjoy moving my body to music. I love the freedom and the self-expression - I'll frequently be joyfully dancing around my kitchen and living room to a song on the radio! It's a great opportunity to play and stop being so serious.

After I dance, I feel energised, and I'm always in a good mood, no matter what kind of day I had! I find dancing is a fantastic stress-reliever for me as well. 

This blog post was inspired by an article I came across "Why Dance for Fitness: Here are 9 Reasons".

Why do you dance? Post your comment below!