A simple look at what changes in the body as we get older, why recovery (not training) is where the real work happens, and how to support it.
If you've noticed it takes longer to feel right again after a big surf, a long run, or a heavy session at the gym, you're not imagining it, and you're not doing anything wrong.
You're training the same way you always have, but the soreness lingers a day or two longer than it used to. The energy takes a little more time to come back. Two hard sessions close together feel harder to bounce back from than they did a few years ago.
It's incredibly common. And once you understand what's actually going on, it stops feeling like something's wrong with you, and starts feeling like something you can work with.
Recovery isn't the rest at the end. It's where the work happens.
Here's the part most of us were never taught: training doesn't make you fitter. Training breaks the body down, just a little. It's in the hours and days afterward, when the body repairs the small amounts of damage and adapts, that you actually get stronger, faster, more resilient.
So recovery isn't the reward you earn after the real work. Recovery is the work. It's the half of the equation where the training finally pays off.
And as we get older, that repair process genuinely changes. The body still adapts beautifully, but it tends to take a bit longer to do it. Muscle repair slows, soreness sits around longer, and the cellular "engines" that power recovery (your mitochondria, the part of each cell that makes energy) become something worth looking after rather than taking for granted. None of this means slowing down. It means recovering more deliberately.
First, the unglamorous stuff that matters most
Before any therapy, there are a few things that move the needle more than anything else, and they're free:
- Sleep. For most people, it's the single biggest recovery lever there is. More than any gadget or treatment.
- Protein and carbohydrate. The body needs the raw materials to rebuild.
- Managing your load. Often the answer isn't training harder, it's giving the body enough room between sessions to actually adapt.
- Hydration. Often underrated. Every repair process in the body depends on adequate hydration, and exercise, saunas and sweating all increase your fluid requirements.
And one honest note: if your pain is sharp, sudden, or tied to a specific injury, that's a conversation for your GP or physio, not something a recovery routine is meant to replace.
Once those foundations are in place, this is where supportive therapies can earn their spot.
Where red light and oxygen come in
Two of the tools we use at Breathe. are full-body red light therapy and mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy (mHBOT). Here's what they're actually doing, in plain language.
Red light is a bit like recharging the battery of your cells from the inside. Specific wavelengths of light reach the mitochondria (those little energy engines) and support them in doing their job. Research on red light around exercise points fairly consistently in one direction, less muscle soreness afterward and lower levels of the markers your body produces when muscle is broken down, though results vary with dose and timing, and it isn't a replacement for the basics above.
mHBOT works on a different lever: oxygen. Resting in a gently pressurised chamber while breathing concentrated oxygen lets more of it dissolve into your blood and travel deeper into your tissues than normal breathing allows. And oxygen is one of the raw materials the body draws on to repair and restore itself.
Used together, they're designed to complement each other. The red light helping to prime the body, the oxygen reaching deeper, which is why we tend to pair them as a recovery combination rather than two separate things.
Which is why how often matters more than how much
This is the whole point, really. Recovery is something you practise, not something you do once. The people who get the most out of it are the ones who make it a regular, low-effort part of their week.
It's exactly why we built our memberships the way we did: around a weekly rhythm rather than a one-off visit, so regular recovery is simple and already part of your week.
For most people training regularly, Momentum is the natural starting point, two combined Red Light Therapy and mHBOT sessions a week at $150. If you're in a heavier block, Optimise steps that up to three a week at $210. There are also three Red Light only options if that's where you'd rather begin. All memberships run on a three-month minimum term.
What it looks like in practice
Pete has been coming in regularly for a while now, fitting sessions around his training. We asked him to talk us through what that actually looks like.
If this sounds like you
If you've been pushing through and wondering why recovery feels harder than it should, come and have a chat with us. We'll talk through where you're at, what you're training for, and whether this is the right fit.
Book a session · Ask us a question
If you'd like the longer version of the science, we've written a fuller piece on how mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy works.
Reviewed by Jason, Breathe. Studios.