A
few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a talk on recovery and training for
speed to a group at Active Running training for the Around the Bay 30km race.
ATB is the oldest annual running race in North America having begun in 1894.
Here are my thoughts on recovery.
Recovery
was a great topic for me to discuss for a couple reasons. Firstly, I had to
have a conversation with one of my clients about it only a couple weeks before
so the topic was fresh in my mind. Secondly, recovery is something that I
ignored for most of high school much to my detriment. While I was in great shape
I often performed poorly because fatigue masks fitness.
Shortly
before I entered my final season of high school XC my mom found me a used copy
of Lore of Running 3rd
edition by Dr. Timothy Noakes (it’s now in its 4th Ed.). What a
great find! After reading the same information month after month in magazines I
was beginning to think I knew everything there was to know about running.
However, LOR had 800+ pages on the science of running and great anecdotes too.
What
really stood out to me was the part on overtraining. This was a term I had
never heard of until then. I always thought the harder the training the better.
But as I looked over the list of symptoms and discovered that I had experienced
most of them I knew things had to change. But, rather than continue on with how
to spot overtraining – which is a poorly defined term – I’d like to discuss how
to maximize recovery.
In
order to maximize recovery one needs to think about recovery on a daily,
weekly, monthly, yearly, and even a multi-year basis. All of these are useful
for recovering both physical and psychological qualities. Training hard is
important, but all your gains occur while you’re recovering.
If
you’re one of the fittest people on the planet then you’ll focus your training
on the Olympic Games and have years where you’re training harder and with more
specific training versus other years training relatively easier and focussing
on more general physical qualities. Most of us aren’t ever going to be at that
level, so we can step back to thinking about yearly recovery. Yearly recovery
involves taking one or two 2-4 week blocks during the year where training is
reduced or eliminated or one engages in other fitness modalities. Something
like this isn’t necessary for the general fitness enthusiast, but is a must for
a competitive athlete. On a monthly basis recovery can take the form of an
unloading week every 3-6 weeks where the volume and/or intensity is reduced.
Not all my general fitness clients train hard enough to need these, but they’re
great for working on exercise technique.
The
most detailed part of the talk involved weekly and daily recovery. Weekly
recovery involves harder and easier training days as well as complete rest days
or even switching to a different activity. What we want to be aware of is providing balance to the autonomic nervous system. For those of us who enjoy
training for the endurance sports we need to perform some high intensity
activities that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. These activities are
also great for stimulating growth hormone and testosterone production while minimizing
cortisol production thus improving or maintaining body composition and aiding
in recovery. For those who enjoy speed and power sports you need to perform
some low intensity activities that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous
system.
Daily recovery involves focussing on nutrition, sleep, and relaxation. When we work out exercise causes breakdown on muscle tissue and temporarily decreases fitness. It's during the recovery period where all the results occur.
For
nutrition focus on eating whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, and lean
protein and drink plenty of water. While older sources have deemed it a must to
eat a meal within 15-60 min after exercise recent research is beginning to show
that good nutrition over a 24 hour period is much more important. So, if you
ate a large meal a couple hours before your workout or competition and you don’t
feel hungry right after you don’t have to worry about getting in an immediate
recovery meal. On the other hand, if you ate well before your workout/competition
or you have multiple workouts/competitions that day eating a meal immediately
after would be a wise decision.
Sleep
is also very important. Most often 8 hours of sleep a night is recommended, but
some may need more or less. It’s important to experiment. While sleeping the
body moves in and out of light and deep sleep (REM) with each cycle lasting
approximately 90 min. Waking up in the middle of a cycle leaves one feeling
terrible even if the total length of sleep was fairly long. One of my runners
recently mentioned that he had been going to bed 30 min earlier, but it had made
him feel worse. Play around with sleep lengths to find the optimal length of
sleep. Naps are also great! Usually sleeping for 10-20 min will leave you feeling
rested, whereas 30-45min might leave you feeling terrible. Also, to aid in
getting to sleep quickly it’s beneficial to turn off all electronics 30-60 min
before bed. The blue light from television and computer screens stimulates
wakefulness due to its effect on the pineal gland. I’ve downloaded F.lux onto
my computer, which reduces the amount of blue light my computer emits at night.
Other recovery modalities that you may find useful are ice baths, massage, foam rolling,
and the use of compression wear. A study from a couple years ago also showed
that focussing on diaphragmatic breathing for 45 min after exercise increased
the hormone melatonin, which is often taken by individuals as a sleep aid. My
favourite recovery modality is foam rolling, which has been shown to decrease
delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
In
conclusion, recovery can be enhanced through eating whole foods, getting lots
of sleep, massage/foam rolling, taking ice baths, wearing compression wear, and
taking recovery periods. Good recovery is necessary for maximizing performance.
Stay fit,
Jonathan Pratt
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