How Do You Manage Your Recovery?
- Coach Dave Mudek, MS
- Mar 23, 2017
- 5 min read
There are many theories on recovery from 1 full day off a week to no days off ever… Michael Phelps once said “I can’t remember a day I didn’t swim…” Another example is the hybrid approach that Coach Matt Dixon “the recovery coach” uses with his athletes which is 7-10 days of “on” training and 2-4 days of “active recovery” training. This is similar to the common approach seen by 2 weeks of on with 1 week off or 3 weeks on and 1 week off that is taught by Joe Friel in the Training Bible and universally accepted.
The end-state is that there is no perfect solution that fits all athletes. Recovery time changes for individuals depending on how their body responds to stress. The response to acute and long term stress is explained through the General Adaption Syndrome (GAS). GAS breaks down into “Alarm,” “Resistance” and “Exhaustion.” The best way to think about this is “Alarm” is the body’s reaction to stress along with initial recovery, “Resistance” is the adaptation of the body to better control or react to the stress (supercompensation). “Exhaustion” is when the body has depleted the ability to adapt to overall or consistent stress due to the accumulation of too much stress and is regressing back to the original baseline (exhaustion) or past the original baseline (death).
Athletes can break down how they likely react during the Alarm and Resistance phases using one of three models. Athletes must recognize that these reactions are specific to the stress at hand and applied using the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands (SAID) principle. SAID implies that the body adapts to the specific stresses over time IE a marathon runner, while very fit, will respond to a swim session very differently than a routine long run. The athletic adaption phases are: Untrained, Early Adaption, and Adapted and it is how we begin to find the right methods for our athletes at Triple Victor Coaching (3V Coaching).
Level 1 (Beginner) - During the untrained phase both acute recovery (muscles involved with the exercise) and full term recovery (physiological stress to the system) can take an extended period of time such as 3-7 days depending on the intensity of the workout. This is not to be confused with Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) or “second day soreness” which is the result of actual damage to the muscle and can take 3-4 days for pain to relieve and 4-7 days for acute recovery. During this phase it is common to ease into the activity and to use more recovery.
Level 2 (Intermediate) - In the Early Adaptation phase acute recovery may take longer, but full recovery is shorter. This is again because of the acute muscle adaptation is adjusting to the workloads of the specific sport and training, but the overall physiological systems involved are beginning to adapt to the process of training. During this phase care is needed to balance muscle fatigue of the workouts, while overall training stress may not be causing a need for deeper recovery supporting the common 1 day off a week in a balanced or daily undulating plan that supports acute recovery.
Level 3 (Advanced) - In the Adapted phase athletes must create a greater “Alarm” to the system to trigger further adaptation. This is commonly done through Functional Overreaching, but this isn’t the only tactic to train this level of athlete. In this phase acute recovery is quicker, as well as full recovery per a workout. The athlete however “stacks” workouts or takes on higher load workouts to create the greater “Alarm” phase in both acute and overall stress to the body due to the level of fitness and goals. Due to the accumulative acute stress and overall stress full recovery becomes greater. This is where you will see advanced athletes train for 10-21 of undulating days days with 4-7 days of active recovery depending on the plan and phase. Because acute recovery and full recovery is at it’s shortest level these athletes can achieve overall recovery by working out at very low intensities. In fact, these athletes have reached a point where the active recovery workouts provide more benefits to recovery than they cost in overall stress. These workouts result in increased blood circulation which helps with the removal of waste and delivery of nutrients to the fatigued muscles.
In the Adapted phase athletes must take care to avoid Non-Functional Overreaching (NFOR). NFOR is when athletes are not allowing the full recovery of the body during bouts of overreaching. Spending too much time overreaching will eventually deplete the body’s resources resulting in Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) and entrance into the Exhaustion phase of GAS.
For all three levels of athletes OTS is a real risk; not just something that occurs during NFOR periods; the risk is high during times of FOR training. An example is the Level 2 athlete that is recovering from acute stress properly, but not long term stress accumulation. This athlete isn’t trying to create an overreaching period, but is impacting their ability to recover and will eventually deplete their body’s resources resulting in OTS. The recovery period from OTS can last months and during this time period the body will suffer from hormonal issues, depleted resource, possible illness and injury.
Knowing these principles athletes can begin to better time their training phases and recovery within their training cycle. These key principles help to understand recovery timing when adding a new element such as heavy weight training in the Preparation (Base 1 & 2) phases or power building on the bike during the Competition (Base 3 or Build 1) phase. As an athlete you can be both at multiple levels of adaptation based on the SAID principle. It is also important to realize that GAS applies to acute stress and long term stress. For this reason it is key to understand each individual has a Global Stress Level. An argument with the spouse, could trigger the same hormonal release and stress reactions as a hard run; so plan accordingly and be flexible in your training.
About the Author
Coach Dave is a USAT, USAC, HRV Performance, and IRONMAN Certified Coach who has been coaching triathletes since 2016. Coach Dave believes an athlete centric coaching process backed by science and data is the best way to achieve overall wellness and performance. Coach Dave is the head coach of Triple Victor Racing and under his guidance these athletes worked throughout the season to reach a top team ranking with IRONMAN of 7th in the world for 2016. Coach Dave is a 9x time 70.3 and 6x IRONMAN finisher to include racing at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in 2015 and 2016. Coach Dave is a 4x IRONMAN All-World Athlete, 2x USAT All-American, 2x Team USA member, and finished 2016 ranked #1 in his state for Age Group 30-34. Coach Dave's athletes have raced around the world at every distance and he takes great pride in helping his athletes achieve their wellness and endurance athletic goals. You can learn more about Triple Victor Coaching here.
*The purpose of this article is not to be a general review that is applicable to the endurance athlete and is not meant to take the place of professional coaching or training.
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