Understanding the process of recovery
To understand the importance of recovery, it’s imperative to appreciate the process that the body goes through as a result of training. Training is the manipulation of stressors to bring about targeted changes to the body, as it strives to cope with the stress it goes through stages until it reaches a point to what is known as supercompensation. To get there the body goes through some form of stress from training and depletion of the body’s energy stores creates a state of fatigue (see depletion). It then recovers, energy levels and preparedness to perform return back to baseline levels (see restitution). It then goes through a heightened state of energy levels and preparedness. At this point, performance would be at a higher level than normal (see supercompensation). Lastly, from the peak of supercompensation, there’s a decline back to baseline levels if there is no new training stress applied.
The figure above, from Zatsiorsky & Kraemer (2006), shows what happens during and after a training session. The horizontal line is the athlete’s baseline level of preparedness. The vertical axis and curved line characteristics the changes in the athlete’s preparedness as a result of any workout (1).
Train your Recovery
Overtraining is a word that you will hear a lot within the fitness industry. Overtraining is pushing your body beyond its limits of recovery. Smart training will allow you to smash every training week, prevent injury and keep your body from reaching fatigue. In the competitive field athletes regularly spend anywhere between 3-5 hours (sometimes more) training a day. Whilst the motto ‘nothing replaces hard work’ is valid, I believe that training hard is fine as long as all the prerequisites are in place. Those who think they can train like an athlete without mastering the basics will fall off the bandwagon until it’s more of a priority.
Although recovery will differ from one individual to another you must recover well if you want to perform on a day-to-day basis. However, there’s a misconception, that just like training to PR a back squat, recovery must be trained. Never think of it as overtrained, rather under-recovered. You just need to recover smarter. Below are some hacks that I like to use to aid optimal recovery.
Tracking
Much the same as you would track weights lifted in the gym or calories for weight loss applications the same goes for recovery. Sometimes, I may ask those that I work with if they have used any of the following to help with recovery (see table). If the answer is no, then I will more than likely get them to participate in practices that have been scientifically backed to help with recovery. It’s super important not to underestimate the small things. Forgetting to spend quality time on yourself (more detail in pillars of recovery) may be the reason why you’re not making progress. However, if you start practising these recovery strategies, you’ll quickly see that you’ll be smashing training in no time at all!
Protocol |
Massage |
Ice baths |
Mobility |
8 hours of sleep |
Meditations |
Nutrition |
Compression garments |
Avoiding alcohol |
A tool that fits into this tracking category is wellness monitoring. It’s gold-standard stuff! It helps coaches to understand how athletes/clientele are responding to stress placed upon the body. Markers can be dealt with quickly to modify daily loads proactively and prevent injuries and overtraining. This helps to streamline the way a coach and athlete communicate. A peer review looked at performance markers for recovery. They found that those using performance monitoring did so to reduce injury occurrences (29%), to monitor the effectiveness of a training program (27%), for maintenance of performance (22%) and to prevent overtraining (22%). These findings pay a dividend to structure stress and finding optimal recovery (2).
Pillars of recovery
Sleep
Like it or not, you can’t repeatedly perform well if your sleep sucks. 5-6 hours a night just isn’t enough, nor is 7! If you are looking to maximally recover from bouts of exercise it's wise to be aiming for between 8-10 hours a night. A study focused on sleep deprivation in the adolescent population found that athletes who slept less than 8 hours each night were 1.7 times more likely to have an injury compared to athletes who slept 8 or more hours (3). Therefore, a strong correlation exists between sleep deprivation and longevity of performance. The importance of sleep on athletic performance can’t be overstated. Sleep quality can be a predictor of many variables and can affect mental and physical preparedness, that’s the reason why it should always be looked at first.
Nutrition
Many underestimate nutrition, I like to think of it more as habits and behaviours, these need to change first to get on the right track. This will ensure that you are fully recovered between bouts of exercise. However, of most importance is the absorption of nutrients, your nutrition could be spotless, but if there’s hardly any uptake of nutrients, it’s pointless! Gut health is massive if you are looking to recover well from life’s stressors. There’s a huge amount of digestive issues that individuals are unaware of. These range from sensitivities, bloating, constipation, IBS and even leaky gut. If you aren’t digesting your food your body is not absorbing the nutrients it needs to replenish and ultimately recover. So, if you think that you do have sensitivities with certain food groups or an issue with the uptake of nutrients, do your homework!
Another variable of significance is protein! Whenever I look at a food diary or change an individual’s macronutrients protein will always come up trumps. On the subject of recovery, it’s a must. For your muscles to repair and adaptation to occur protein intake needs to be sufficient. A study that took place in Stirling’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, found that to facilitate the remodelling of our muscle protein athletes should aim for ~1.6 grams per kilogram of body mass each day, based on increasing muscle mass. However, on the flip side, if there’s a restriction on calories protein intake should be anywhere from 1.6 and 2.4 grams per kilogram of body mass a day. Therefore, make sure you concentrate on protein first.
Lastly non-negotiable, cut out the processed food. If you put poor-quality food into your body don’t expect to do the things you want it to do well! I witness this time and time again and it's cringe. People showing others how to make food and it's straight out of a packet…that’s not normal. One thing that resonates with me is from a nutritionist called Stephan Guyenet, he has some simple rules that he likes to use with clientele and it's simply ‘work for your food’. For example, you have to chop and open fresh food to cook it, that’s just the basics, don’t forget it!
Managing Stress
When you are stressed, you are more than likely inflamed, possibly on the borderline of illness and it’s likely your recovery sucks. When cortisol levels rise and stay heightened your body doesn’t recover very well. Chronic stress from fatigue-seeking workouts such as CrossFit impacts the stress hormones. This can lead to the level of testosterone or estrogen decreasing over time, lowered immunity, problems with digestion, plateaus, regression, mood disturbances and generally a lack of spring in your step. To back this up, a study on elite male rowers looked at the effects of increasing training volume on performance, recovery stress and stress hormones over a six-day training camp. Results from a questionnaire (RESTQ-Sport) used indicated changes in stress hormones, somatic components of stress (fatigue, complaints and fitness/injury) and a decrease in recovery factors (success, social relaxation, sleep quality, being in shape, self-efficacy) at the end of a six-day heavy training period (5).
The key to it all is managing your stress, easier said than done! As with many things in life, it’s a process of managing these many things at the same time. That’s why when a routine is in place, it can make all the difference. These are some of my top tips for hacking stress;
· Get to bed earlier, 30 minutes more can make a huge difference.
· Get out in daylight/sun, vitamin D is massive, and low levels of vitamin D are linked to fatigue.
· Don’t aim to try and give 110% in every workout, it’ll crush you. Program active recovery each week and de-load when needed to maximize benefit.
· Schedule hours in your day which are just for you. Taking time out will do you some good.
· Most importantly, talk about the issues that cause stressors in life. Having a strong network that is willing to listen is important!
Self care