| Training Stress Takes on Recovery |
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| Written by Scott |
| Wednesday, 03 February 2010 00:00 |
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We had a very good spin session with team the other night. We talked a lot about recovery since we just finished a hard weekend. After three weeks of solid training, we capped it off with a 30min bike TT and a 5k run TT. Clearly, we were not fresh as could be, but, everyone showed good form nonetheless during that TT. Coming off 3 weeks of training and finishing with that hard workout is a red flag for us coaches though. In that, it is really time to remind everyone that recovery is as important as training hard. If you keep punishing your self and breaking your body down then it will never catch up. Training theory dictates that super-compensation has to occur in order to get faster. This means, that your body not only needs to compensate for the added training stress but it actually needs to over (or super) compensate so that you can get stronger or go longer (whichever you are going for). If you add too much training stress while the body is trying super-compensate you diminish or destroy the bodies ability to get faster. And, of course, this all depends on the type of training stress you placed on it in the first place and what you plan to do next. This can get really complicated fast but from an athletes perspective it does not have to be. As an athlete you can learn to listen to your body. Once you do a really hard effort (intensive training) or multiple weeks of solid training (extensive training) you need to dial it back and recover. I have mentioned our MH rule a few times. That is the best quantitative (measurable) tip I can give you. If you struggle to get your HR or power up into MH then you need to take it easy and not worry about anything hard. Another good tip, is to watch how your body feels in a workout. You may feel crappy before the workout. If so, there are really only two things that will happen during the workout. If you are in a training hole (breaking down) you will feel worse and worse (or just as crappy). If you are recovering, you will actually start to feel better as the workout goes along. If you feel worse then you need to cut back your training and add some more recovery days in or maybe even take a day off. If you feel better? In that case, you can likely stay on track.
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 February 2010 15:35 |