Time to Recover? (Part I)

Recovery is essential to progress in your training. Without recovery, you won’t really go faster when you want to.
Recovery implies some sort of damage, breakdown, trauma or exhaustion. You’re recovering from something caused by hard training. It sounds good. But what does it really mean “to recover”??

I like to break recovery into three categories.

1- Short term –
This is before, during and immediately after a long and/or intense workout. Actually, recovery begins before the actual workout. Here, it’s mostly about nutrition and what you consume in the few hours prior to hard training. Start to take in complex carbs and maybe some simple sugars, and H2O, of course, before and during the workout, and again within 30 min to 1 hr. immediately after it. You’ve probably heard all the talk about rebuilding damaged muscles, etc.. Good stuff. That’s how they get stronger. What is often overlooked, often at a high cost, is the role a good warm-up and cool down play in recovery. Getting a good warm-up and cool-down will minimize the damage from a highly intense and/or long workout. It will also make it easier, and more beneficial.

2- Medium term –
One to two days after a very hard and/or long session; This is a very important type of recovery to help prevent plain old hard training, and over-reaching, from sliding into over-training while you’re pushing your limits. Is it smart to do hard, breakthrough workouts on consecutive days? No. Usually it is not. Especially if your overall fitness level is still rapidly increasing, i.e. starting from a lower level. You likely need a recovery day or two. These recover days need to be built into every week, and do only recovery workouts, aka easy ones, on these days.

Long term –
Last is the recovery week and off-season. These must be built into any annual training plan if progress is to continue. Every third or fourth week, there needs to be about a three to five-day period of reduced intensity and volume. These are hard only because they require patience and discipline. Sometimes its hard to hold back. Don’t wait too long to train hard again, but BE SURE you’re ready. How do you know? It takes trial and error for each individual athlete, but common signs are: reduced soreness, higher energy levels, good sleep, eagerness, and no feelings of fatigue starting out a session. These periods are as important as hard weeks. (See: “The ‘Off-Season’ “)

Some examples of good methods will follow. But please, don’t do a recovery workout unless you are actually recovering from a harder training stress. Otherwise it is a waste of time.

Coach Bill