Recovery Workouts: Good, Better, Best

Anyone who is focused on training hard to achieve specific goals through weight training, sport play, conditioning or a combination, is going to need to be smart about planning in some recovery sessions.

An appropriately planned recovery session will take a body (and mind) that may feel somewhere between achey to awful and leave it feeling markedly improved.

I like to use a recipe for good, better, best in terms of recommendations for these types of sessions.

***Oh, and it should be noted that for the scope of this post I'm only mentioning actual movement for recovery. Other components that must be considered are: sleep, nutrition, hydration, etc.

GOOD

Everyday chores can be a part of a "Good" recovery session... mopping is one of my favorites (I'm so serious).

Get out and move! Go for a walk, ride a bike, mow your lawn, take a yoga class, etc. This type of light activity will get blood moving and thus a little recovery for your body. This is an adequate option for people who are relatively new to exercise or who only train 1-2x/week but find themselves quite sore, lethargic, or achy in the following day or two.

BETTER

To be a little more precise, we want to take the body through some full range of motion activities. This helps stretch out the muscles and move the joints dynamically while also getting some light conditioning work.

Activities in the Better category could include a dynamic warm-up, followed by some light strengthening exercises, and finished off with 20-min or so of light aerobic work. This is appropriate for recreational lifters and athletes.

BEST

For the competitive athlete there is not much time to waste. The more advanced an athlete, the more it becomes necessary to find an experienced coach to help aid in every aspect of their physical preparation (and recovery!).

Daily training sessions mean recovering as quickly as possible is crucial to continued improvement and success. In the instances of professional athletes or those who like to train like them, you will want to get a very specific recovery plan tailored for you through the intense blocks of competition or preparation. This will generally include:

• soft tissue work via massage or SMR
• breathing drills
• dynamic stretching
• light prehabilitative work
• 20-30 min of HR zone aerobic work via a combination of traditional biking, jogging, etc and things like light medicine ball tosses, and calisthenic work
• explosive weight lifting movement (just a few sets and reps here, folks)

Using heart rate to efficiently manage either performance or recovery is the way to go for serious athletes. Here is a session that I conducted on myself. While this might not fit a usual "recovery" protocol, for me that's what this session was. You can see fairly even peaks and valleys staying within the zones I wanted to train that day.

This graph shows my heart rate variability during the same session shown above. You can clearly see the exactly inverse relationship that HRV has with HR through a training session by comparing both graphs.

When possible, Best recovery sessions should take place on a day when no other training is scheduled. However, for elite athletes who may be competing several times a week and practicing in between, a workout like this should be placed the morning after competition and before practice. It will require minimal energy and serve to wake the body up and reenergize it before practicing.

Any of the above options should to be tailored to fit the individual's needs, but these are the ingredients for a successful recovery!

Overtraining Part 2: Correct and Avoid It

In the last post, we went over some symptoms of overtraining. If you found yourself nodding along in agreement, then today’s post is certainly for you. If not, well, it’s still beneficial to read this to ensure you don’t end up nodding in agreement in the future.

To clarify, overtraining is, loosely, defined as an accumulation of stress (both training and non-training) that leads to decreases in performance as well as mental and physical symptoms that can take months to recover from. Read that last bit again: M.O.N.T.H.S. Just because you took a couple days off does NOT mean your body is ready to go again. The time it takes to recover from and return to normal performance will depend on how far into the realm of overtraining you’ve managed to push yourself.

Let's delve into recovery strategies. Of the many symptoms that can appear, chronic inflammation is a biggie. Whether that’s inflammation of the joints, ligaments, tendons, or muscles, it doesn’t matter; too much inflammation compromises their ability to function. (A little inflammation is ok as it jumpstarts the recovery process.) Just as you created a training plan, so to must you create a recovery plan for healing after overtraining.

Step 1: Seek to reduce inflammation.

How?

- Adequate sleep is imperative! As in, go to bed BEFORE 11 or 12 PM teenagers-that-must-awaken-at-6AM-for-school. (Subtleness is not my strong suit.) Conveniently for us, our bodies restores themselves during the night. They release anabolic hormones (building hormones) such as growth hormone (clever name) and sleep helps reduce the amount of catabolic (breaking down) hormones such as cortisol. Since increased levels of coritsol are part of the overtrained symptom list, it would be a good thing to get those levels under control!

- Eat whole foods. Particularly load up on vegetables (such as kale) and fruits (like berries) that are rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. Apparently Gold Milk has those, too and, according to Jarrett, helps him sleep. Bonus! Lean protein sources like fatty fish, chicken breast, and leaner beef (grass-fed if you can get it) will not only help provide the much-needed protein for muscle rebuilding but also will supply  healthy fats that also help reduce inflammation.

- Drink lots of water. Water helps the body flush toxins and damaged tissues/cells out and keeps the body’s systems running smoothly. Water also lubricates your joints, which if they’re beat up already, the extra hydration will help them feel better and repair more quickly. A good goal is half your body weight in ounces of water guzzled.

Step 2: Take a week off

You’re muscles are not going shrivel up, lose your skill/speed, nor will your body swell up with fat. Take 5-7 days and rejuvenate. Go for a couple walks, do mobility circuits, play a pick-up basketball game… do something that’s NOT your normal training routine and just let your body rest. Remember, the further you wade into the murky waters of overtraining, the longer it will take to slog your way out.

Step 3: Learn from your mistakes.

While you’re taking your break, examine what pushed you over the edge. Was it too high of a volume and/or intensity? Was it too many days without rest? Was your mileage too high? Are there external factors you’re missing? Were you were stressed out at work/school, not sleeping enough, or maybe you weren’t eating enough or the right foods to support your activity. I’ve learned that I need 2 days of rest per week, any less than that and my performance tanks.

Step 4: Recalculate and execute.

When you’re ready to come back, don’t be a ninny and do exactly what you were doing that got you into this mess in the first place. Hopefully, you learned from your mistake(s) and gained the wisdom to make the necessary changes to avoid overtraining in the first place. Here, let’s learn from my mistake:

I overtrained; and I mean, I really overtrained. I had all the symptoms (mental and physical) for months and months. I was a walking ball of inflammation, every joint hurt, I was exhausted mentally and physically (and, decided to make up for my exhaustion by pushing myself even harder.) I ignored all the warning signs. This intentional stupidity led to my now permanent injuries (torn labrums in both hips, one collapsed disc in my spine, and two bulging discs). The body is pretty resilient, but it can only take so much. I ended up taking four months off, completely, from any activity beyond long walks. (That was terrible by the way. I hated every minute but knew it was necessary.) When I did come back, I had to ease into it. Very. Very. Slowly. Even then, I think I pushed it a bit too much. It took me almost 2 years to return to my normal physical and mental state. (Well, outside of the permanent injuries. Those I just work around now.) Learn from my mistake.

So how can we avoid overtraining? Here are simple strategies:

1. Eat enough and the right foods to support your activities.

2. Take rest days. Listen to your body. If you need to rest, rest. If you need to scale back your workout, do so.

3. Keep workouts on the shorter side. Avoid marathon weight lifting sessions (trust me). Keep it to 1-1.5 hours. Max. Sprint sessions shouldn’t exceed 15-20 minutes.

4. Sleep. High quality sleep should be a priority in your life. If it isn’t, you need to change that.

5. Stay on top of your SMR and mobility work. I wrote about SMR here and here.

6. Train towards specific goals. You can’t be a marathon runner and a power lifter. Pick one to three goals (that don’t conflict with each other) and train towards them. You can’t do everything at once.

Armed with the knowledge of overtraining prevention, rest, recover, and continue in greatness!