What is Recovery and Why is it Important? (Part 1 of 3)
Coach Amy’s first marathon in Chicago, 2008.
What’s this Podcast About?
Coach Amy and Coach Liz emphasize the significance of recovery for endurance sport longevity in their Recovery Manifesto. In this episode, they introduce the topic of training recovery and its essentiality.
Introduction
Decisions you make about recovery now impact your longevity in endurance sports; they have a long-term impact, not just this month or this year, but for life.
We’ve broken this complex topic into smaller digestible bits that are best listened to in order.
In part one, we explain why recovery is essential. In part two, we reveal the signs and symptoms of under-recovery; in part three, we outline how to recover appropriately. And lastly, in part four, we highlight the factors that impact our ability to recover.
We hope to learn something new that you can apply to your training behavior and that will lead to improved success!
What is Endurance Training Recovery?
Training stresses the body - on purpose - to make it stronger, faster, and go longer and further. Recovery is 50% of training—the stage where training adaptation occurs. It is the period when we are making structural and metabolic changes. The magic is happening!
healing
re-wiring the nervous system - making new connections
breaking down by-products (waste) produced by worked muscles
building up new and healthy muscle tissue so that it can take on more load
increasing the number of mitochondria - your energy-producing cells. The more mitochondria you have, the more energy you can generate during exercise and the faster and longer you can run, bike, or swim.
Recovery is strategic. Not all or nothing. With strategic recovery, the body can train more efficiently = which improves performance.
Endurance training is like building a castle out of Lego bricks.
Check out Coach Amy’s blog post: The Magic of Rest Day in Training.
How does recovery fit into Endurance Training? What does it look like?
There are periods of recovery that occur at diff times in training. We've broken it down into five periods.
Period 1 - “Off-Season”
Between training "seasons". Recovery, maintenance, transition. It occurs after reaching the main goal for the year/season: post "A" race.
This period can mess with our heads. There is a fear of loss of fitness. Coach Amy shares her personal experience with this stage. The most damage can happen to an athlete at this stage—it affects training over the long term.
Period 2 - “On-Season”
The recovery that happens during a training cycle. Easing back during the main training cycle. Coach Amy outlines concrete examples of ways athletes make mistakes during this period, and Coach Liz shares her personal experience learning how more isn’t better.
Period 3 - Weekly
Between workout sessions. Different depending upon the sport.
Period 4 - During the Workout
Recovery time for the body to prepare for the load of the next phase or part of a given workout. e.g., the easier effort between interval repeats. Manipulating the rest phase is just as important as manipulating the work part.
Period 5 - Taper
Tapering before a race is a kind of recovery. It's that time when the amount and intensity of training are reduced—the “calm before the storm.”
Next up: Coaches Amy and Liz dive into the dreaded consequences of under-recovery and how to recognize it so you can catch it before it spirals out of control.
Summing it Up
The biggest mistake we make as athletes is that we don't take the time to recover, which is easy to do if you don't understand the purpose of recovery or how to fit it into training. Recovery is 50% of training and is just as important as your work!