1. Plan a regeneration week every three or four weeks into your training schedules
These are simple to design. Schedule one week of lower intensity and shorter duration running every three or four weeks. This ensures adequate recovery of your muscle tissue, refuelling of your energy reserves, relieves the monotony of your standard training schedules and gives you a psychological break from rigorous training.
How slow should your training efforts be during the regenerative week? Nice and easy: about 60 to 70 per cent of your maximal heart rate. It should feel like you are cruising well below your standard ‘hard’ training pace, and you should be able to talk comfortably while running.
How much should you shorten your training efforts? Aim to reduce your standard daily training distance by 25-to-50 per cent. You’ll find that the following week you’ll feel renewed and your training pace should be faster than normal. Runners are often concerned that they’ll lose some of their fitness if they cut back during these regeneration weeks, but you need have no concerns. A few days off or of reduced running actually improves performance as the muscle tissue recovers, rebuilds and stores more glycogen.
A final word about using periodised schedules: our bodies do not follow schedules perfectly, no matter how well designed. There will be times when the runner will have to deviate from the schedules because his recovery may take longer than anticipated. Having a fatigued athlete sticking to his schedule invites further fatigue and perhaps poor health.
2. Follow the hard-easy principle of recovery training
Follow a hard training effort with one or more easier training sessions. Recovery runs should be done at a lower intensity than your hard workouts with the objective of enhancing your recovery. And don’t forget, a long training run, even if at a moderate pace, is still considered a hard run. Long runs deplete your carbohydrate stores and cause considerable muscle damage – definitely qualifying them as hard runs.
3. Don’t be afraid to take a day of complete rest when needed
This might be considered heresy in some running circles, but the athlete who can discipline himself to take the occasional day off when he is exhausted will recover faster than one who flogs himself every day.
4. Only train hard when your body is ready to train hard
If you are fatigued while training hard, your body will not adapt properly and your immune system will be impaired, making you more susceptible to any bacteria and infections going around.
5. Recovery starts at the end of your training session – the warm-down
The warm-down is a grossly neglected technique for speeding up your recovery. This phase is designed to adjust your body from exercise to rest. The warm-down has many positive effects including bringing heart rate and blood pressure down to normal, preventing pooling of blood in the legs, reducing O2 from the tissues, speeding up resynthesis of waste products and metabolites that have built up during exercise, allowing the muscular system to recover after strenuous exercise, and helping us psychologically unwind after our training efforts.
A basic cool-down should include decreasing, light aerobic activity (such as five-to-10 minutes walking) followed by some light stretching and relaxation exercise (such as yoga poses or stretches).
6. Recover from races
The rules are simple for recovering from a race. Rest or jog until you are recovered. You’re recovered when your legs are no longer stiff and sore, your muscles will not be sore to the touch, and you have regained your energy for daily activities.
Cross training at a low intensity can really help with this. For example, cycling, deep water running and walking on the elliptical trainer are all non-impact aerobic activities that do not stress the legs while maintaining your cardiovascular fitness. Avoid weight training for your legs until they are fully recovered.
7. Use a heart rate monitor to assess your recovery
The use of resting heart rate and the heart rate monitor are now commonly used to assess whether a runner is working harder than normal to achieve the same pace and distance (i.e. under-recovered).
Early morning heart rate should be established over several mornings upon waking up. The average should be calculated, and on ensuing mornings, if the resting heart rate is elevated by more than five beats per minute, it is a reasonable indicator that the runner is still recovering from the previous day’s training.
The runner can also establish his normal cruising pace heart rate, and when training, if this heart rate is significantly elevated, it could be a sign that the runner is incompletely recovered from the previous day.
These, then, are the main players in recovery – a training principle that is grossly neglected in many runners. For the coach and runner reading this, I’d remind you of one thing: Recovery is not an optional training principle.
What other factors affect your recovery time?
Freelance writer Roy Stevenson has over 300 articles on running, triathlons, sports, fitness and health published in over 60 regional, national and international magazines in the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He is one of the most widely published writers on running-related topics in the world. To view more of Roy Stevenson’s running articles go to www.running-training-tips.com
7 keys for effective recovery by Roy Stevenson
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