Recovery Strategies? Where do I start?!

Once upon a time, in a previous life, I was an athlete, training 5 - 6 times a week. Over the last few months, I have been getting back to some training. At the moment, I am running 3 times a week and it took a lot of work to get myself back to this point ( a story for another day!)

I have found myself looking for recovery strategies as I try to build my body up for some proper training. Even for a therapist, the whole world of recovery is a minefield! It is widely accepted that an athlete that can recover quicker, is an athlete that will perform better.

As a therapist, I have seen athletes and coaches that I work with tying themselves up in knots over what recovery strategy is best. I get it, the research is mixed, ice or heat, massage or foam rolling, stretching or not, are you better off just doing nothing at all?

From where I am standing, we are over - complicating recovery. The body has built - in recovery mechanisms. We need to sleep and we need to eat. Before, we start looking for fancy added extras, we need to get the basics right.

Lets have a look at sleep first. Sleeping is the body's way of repairing itself. It has been shown time and time again that athlete's that do not get enough sleep are more likely to get injured and may have decreased sports performance. So, how much sleep is enough sleep? On average, an athlete needs 8 hours sleep + 1/2 an hour for every hour spent training. So, if you are an athlete who has spent two hours at the track today, you should have 9 hours of good quality sleep. Good quality sleep is important also, think, dark room, limited caffeine intake and no blue light.

Next, diet. Now, I am not a nutritionist and I don't claim to be, but the affect of our diet on our ability to recover can not be ignored. Again, simple is best. Make sure that you are getting adequate carbs, protein, fats (ideally from food) at the right times around training to maximise your body's ability to recover. If you think that you might not be getting maximum bang for your buck with your diet, contact a nutritionist that understands your goals, your training and your sport.

A massive consideration is training scheduling. If you are an athlete, your coach probably takes care of this for you, but making sure that you are not doing back to back hard training days is important. This can be hard to keep track of unless you are keeping a training diary and monitoring the RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion) of training sessions, the easiest way to do this is to rate them out of 10 and make sure that a higher ranked session is followed by a lower ranked session. Remember, communication is key! Your coach can't read your mind. If you are training yourself, sit down and plan your sessions at the start of the week so that you're not doing all the hard days together. Listen to your body!

Now, recovery modalities. I would love to be able to say "do A, B and C" and that is the best way to recover, but I can't. I don't believe that there is a one size fits all approach. I have been training for 15 years and I think I've just figured out what works for me, now. I like a mixture of cross training, heat, mobility and compression. Other people will opt for foam rolling and ice therapy. The research is mixed and you can pretty much find a paper to back your opinion, no matter what it is. Try different things, see what works for you. When you find it, integrate it into your training week.

So, to finish off. Simple is best. Make sure you are sleeping and eating well. The fancy modalities won't give you an edge if you are only sleeping for 3 hours a night and eating takeaway every night of the week. If you want to get the most out of yourself, do the basics right, consistently, and watch the magic happen.

If you feel that you need some help to put a mobility, injury prevention or recovery plan in place, just send me an e-mail or message!