Recovery Principles

By Clive James, U.K.
Clive James is a UK Athletics Level 4 Performance coach. Here he breezes over various topics associated with recovery. Adapted from The Coach, Issue #4, Spring 2008.

    Many/most younger and sadly some senior athletes just do not know why they are undertaking specific sessions, hopefully very carefully planned by the coach. One of the main concerns is the lack of understanding of the word "recovery" in particular in a track-training environment.
    This article seeks to throw some light on recovery principles and is specifically aimed at athletes performing in, say, a 3km steeplechase to 12k cross country range.
    Scenario: Athletes John and Emma---Quote: "I like the session we've just done, but why can't we run fast reps/intervals off short recoveries; surely all we need to do is run faster."
    You've probably heard that many times before. The simple, perhaps glib, answer is that the majority of athletes and some coaches do not understand that probably the main benefit to the physiological improvement (heart rate/blood flow /lactate tolerance, etc.) of the athlete comes during the recovery.
    Simply, before we get too complicated-look at this session: 2 x 4 x 600m with two minutes recovery and four minutes between sets.
    (All athletes are to be treated as individuals and it is very important that the coach fully knows their physiology. So this is a gen­eralization.) Coach instructs his/her charges to run with heart rates (HR) peaking at, say, 172. The coach would expect from personal knowledge that after two minutes recovery the athlete's HR would drop to, say, 124, thus enabling him/ her to commence the next rep. While there is a considerable element of pace judgment/speed endurance, perhaps even appropriate speed, the main benefit is to physiological de­velopment, thus allowing over time the athlete to understand why he/ she does interval! repetition training and to plan adjusted HR Max levels and a governing recovery HR.

RECOVERY PRINCIPLES SPECIFICALLY, BUT MAINLY SIMPLIFIED

    Injuries and breakdowns just don't happen, they are almost always as a result of a poor training technique, poor planning or lack of recovery, stability and flexibility. So ....
 

Principle of Overload
    A gradual increase in training load should be the aim, but once adaptation to a given load has taken place, to obtain further improve­ment the training intensity must be increased. We'll discuss volume/ intensity balance.
 

Principle of Reversibility
    Simply, if you stop training, you lose it! A decrease in fitness will occur, so period overload is to improve fitness; maintenance train­ing is to hold current fitness levels, and lack of training will diminish performance BUT, a big BUT, rest periods are important for recovery­--why?
    Breaks must be allocated from training, maybe active or passive, to allow both psychological and physical recovery. These should be scheduled in (with good athletes) maybe one day in seven and certainly after a major event/race. These should be full 2-4 week recovery periods, not total rest but balanced recovery. Fitness levels will soon be back to normal because of the retention factor.
 

Principle of Specifity
    Simply be specific to your specific event, but that can include cross training which assists recovery, both mentally and physically. This also includes the specifity of energy systems; sprinters and endurance athletes need different forms of running!
 

Principle of Recovery
    Allow recovery to enable you and your body to adapt to the training undertaken. If you train too much and recover too little, you'll become run down and fatigued. Performance will stagnate, deteriorate and certainly not improve. To get optimal results, you will need to cycle daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Planning must accommo­date the important principles.
    Recovery is as important as actual training but there's one other principle.
 

Principle of Individuality
    You cannot successfully adopt other people's training regimens­you simply do not have the same physiology, mental capacity, etc. You are you, you are an individual.
    Everybody adapts and responds to training in different ways, and similarly recovers at a different rate-consider work and family commitments, environmental and travel considerations. An athlete and coach must customize training and recovery to suit/fit individu­als.
 

More Recovery Factors
    We expect our higher level PE students to understand these guidelines, so we coaches should understand them also.
    Perhaps back up a step to consider the importance of water turnover and temperature regulation in the process.
    Water is absorbed through the wall of the bowel and eliminated via:
      1. The kidneys in urine
      2. The skin in perspiration
      3. The lungs in expired air
      4. The larger intestines as feces.
    It is constantly formed in all tissues, as an end product of the oxidization of food. Short-term imbalance can be coped with-Iong­term is very serious. In sporting terms the most serious problem is dehydration, mainly associated with high temperatures and long duration events. So this leads to:
 

Temperature Regulation
    Body temperatures need to be maintained between 97F° and 99.5°. Heat is gained from the metabolic process via vigorous muscular ac­tivity. Short bursts of hard exercise can raise heat production by 10 to 16 times.
    Shivering in the cold is an example of trying to create heat.
    Heat is lost by radiation, conduction or evaporation of water through the skin or lungs. Sweat is the principal method of achiev­ing this. Controlling all of this is complicated, but coordinated-the brain via the hypothalmus and the hormones adrenaline and thyroxine interact to increase blood flow to the skin, thus increasing skin temp, also stimulating sweat glands to release evaporated fluid and reduce temperature.
    Care---Sweat also contains salts and electrolytes, which maintain a balance and need to be replaced by electrolyte drinks!
    We now need to proceed with the other elements that contribute to recovery in general, and the ap­plication of coaching principles:
    Perhaps the overriding issue in this context is: Poor pacing contributes to injuries---yes? Injuries do not just happen; they are inevitable as a result of training technique, or lack of recovery and/or stability/flexibility issues.

LET'S LOOK AT WARM· UP AND COOL-DOWN

    Warm-up increases heart rate, blood flow, loosens muscles, helps movement---makes the aerobic energy system ready to perform. It should also prepare you psychologically for the training session or race ahead (if in race mode, couple it with centering techniques).
    Cool-down: Easy jogging helps prevent blood pooling and flushes lactic acid. Static stretching will also help prevent muscle soreness and aid flexibility.
 

Back to Pacing
    Pace work takes a lot of time, practice, patience and above all else thinking. The intensity of training sessions to learn the craft is essential. The athlete must get a feel for and understand the new intensities placed on his/her training regimen. The athlete must then be able to relate the training intensity to the competition phase, i.e., fast first is almost always slow last---passing people in a race is far more psychologically fulfilling than being passed.
    So the best race tactics to adopt are steady state, i.e., even pace throughout with ability to call upon a sprint finish or tactical surges when needed. Surging is stressful and is why it must be mastered in a training scenario.

    Active and passive recovery­--both have a place and depend on the athlete and philosophy of the coach. briefly:
    Passive---sleep, rest, generally lounge around (in track terms slow walking and stretching).
    Active---Very active stretching, massage, hot/cold submersion (in track terms, probably slow jog­ging).
    Next major tactical consider­ation (in the recovery process) is:
    Tapering: a period of training before an important race (event). Basically back off to be in peak form on race day. Basic rules follow:
    Maintain intensity but reduce volume (see later). Stay sharp, but freshen up. How long is the taper? It really depends on the event, usually from an endurance perspective.
    The taper is individual, depends on trial and error. Should allow you to go into a race fresh, sharp, mentally alert and with confidence high and no muscular fatigue. Also this is a time when stretching and flexibility issues can be reassessed. Stretching is an injury prevention tool, not a rehab one!
 

Benefits of Flexibility

    Flexibility reduces muscle fatigue, makes for effective movement, promotes economy of style,
and reduces the possibility of injury.
    In summary recoveries are personal, the athlete is an individual (I again stress this), the coach is an individual and many of us have our own pet principles of recovery. By all means experiment with them. That is progress.
    A pop song a few decades ago had the line, "there are more questions than answers," and that is always a healthy situation.
 

FROM: TRACK COACH 190