Recovery is a Myth: What It Really Means and How to Get It

Recovery is a crucial aspect of any exercise program, but what does it really mean? The answer lies not in the number of rest days, but in the total demands placed on your body. Let’s explore the concept of recovery and how to achieve it.

Source: lifehacker.com

Frequent Rest Days: A Simple yet Effective Way to Pace Yourself

For beginners, resting a day between workouts is often recommended. This approach is seen in programs like Couch to 5K, Starting Strength, and Stronglifts 5×5, which are designed for those new to exercise. The idea is to limit the number of hard training days, allowing for a good mix of work and rest.

However, as you progress and become more experienced, you’ll find that you can handle more than just zero work on your light days. Experienced runners, for instance, often do light jogs every day, just like how our bodies barely register our baseline level of activity. The same applies to lifting. One strategy is to alternate upper-body and lower-body days, so you’re not working the same body part twice in a row.

But here’s the thing: you can work your whole body every day if you want to. The key is to keep an eye on how much work you’re asking your body to do, in total. Even during intense training periods, it’s essential to vary the length and intensity of workouts to keep the total demands on your body reasonable.

For an endurance athlete, the principle is the same, but the schedule might look different. During marathon training, for example, a runner might do speedwork or strength training on Wednesday and a long run on Saturday. The other weekdays would be short, easy runs. Think about it: you need to run a 15-miler at some point in your training, but most of us would be exhausted if we tried to do a 15-miler every day.

Varying Workouts Through the Week: A Key to Reasonable Demands

Using a training plan, written by a coach or other professional, can help you understand when to go hard and when to go easy. Couch to 5K and Starting Strength do this for beginners, while more advanced trainers adapt their training plans to keep challenging them. The idea is to find a balance between work and rest, so you’re not overdoing it.

When you’re new to exercise or ramping up your schedule, you might notice that you can’t do as much in the gym on your second day as you could on your first. You’re working harder, and yet your performance declines. But that doesn’t mean you worked too hard and need to back off. It’s normal to experience slight differences from one workout to the next.

Full recovery is a tool you can use occasionally for a performance boost. Every workout makes us stronger in the long term, but slightly fatigued in the short term. If you were to wait until you were totally, fully recovered before hitting the gym again, you’d barely train at all and wouldn’t make much progress. Instead, we train through it, easing up just enough to allow our gains to shine.

For a marathon, that’s a three-week-long taper. For a 5K, it’s just a day or two of rest beforehand. If you’re heading into a powerlifting meet, you’ll lift a bit less than usual for probably a week or two before meet day. Every workout that you skip during this taper sacrifices a little bit of long-term improvement, but also frees you from short-term fatigue.