Winning Tips for Optimum Recovery

Overtraining, as we have seen, is a complex syndrome with no guaranteed solutions. However, certain interventions show promise for prevention and treatment. A key concept is recovery, the antithesis of overtraining. One of the biggest difficulties in dealing with motivated but overtrained athletes is that the interventions generally consist of asking them to do less: “Take a day off from training.” “Take it easier on those intervals.” “Don’t do that workout.” “You’re hurting yourself by training too much.” The idea of doing less presents a dilemma to athletes who likely became good through tough training and pushing through the bad days and who are seduced by “if this much training is good, more must be better” thinking. They overtrain by simply doing more of what made them good. The message of doing less is therefore extremely difficult for these athletes to hear and goes against most training philosophies. A typical reaction: “What do you mean, do less? My competitors aren’t taking a day off.”

Recent developments in research on overtraining have shifted focus from overtraining to the idea of underrecovery. Instead of telling an athlete to cease some aspect of training, we can instead channel their need for action toward recovery activities. Indeed, the concept of effective, regular, and varied recovery activities has become part of the language of today’s smart, professional athlete, which is also the best way to sell it. Statements like “You’re not doing everything you can to succeed if you’re not taking care of your recovery” challenge athletes to tackle recovery (and decrease susceptibility to overtraining) in a way that telling them to reduce their training regimen never could. How can coaches and athletes recovery principles to enhance training and decrease the chance of overtraining? Individualization is key. The

first step is to incorporate recovery systematically into training. If a periodized training program is used, it’s important to incorporate more recovery activities into the higher-volume and more-intensive training periods.

An ideal training program that incorporates passive and active recovery activities should include a variety of techniques. Just as there are numerous ways to work on endurance training (hill running, strength and conditioning programs, sustained skill practice), and good coaches mix things up to maintain motivation, there are many ways to enhance recovery. Coaches and athletes should keep this aspect of their training programs as fresh and interesting as the rest of their training.

Coaches must be good teachers and enforcers of recovery principles with their athletes. For example, an active rest day at the track shouldn’t turn into a track meet if rest is the goal. Particularly at the elite level of sport, athletes need to learn that

appropriate recovery is as much a part of their job as is their training regimen, diet, or sleep.