Recovery

Recovery: the most important and most overlooked aspect of training. If you don't have a good recovery from a hard block of training, you put all of your hard work and time into jeopardy. In this blog post, I am going to talk about some of the things that I like to do to help promote strong recovery:

The Rest Day

For me, this is time to do things around the house and enjoy a day off. I try to get some extra sleep, make more elaborate meals, and watch a movie. There are several things I avoid doing on rest days. First, I avoid exercise in any form. This may seem obvious to some, but to others it is not. Second, I avoid running too many errands as the rest day is the time to rest the body and mind. Third, I avoid travelling. Travel on rest days is not always avoidable, but I avoid it if at all possible. I never feel as recovered after a rest day that becomes a travel day. Some coaches even schedule travel into training plans as a workout.

Cold therapy

Taking a dip in the creek after the Comfortably Numb race (Whistler) 

Otherwise known as jumping into an ice cold creek. After a hard session of training or a long workout, I like to find a deep pool in a creek to sit in for five minutes and cool off my legs. This helps with soreness and swelling, and seems to help me recover from hard or long efforts faster. One theory is that when you cool your legs, the veins constrict, pushing more waste-containing blood out of the legs. In cold water hot muscles are cooled much quicker and more effectively than icing, and this cooling helps to reduce swelling. Fresh blood quickly returns to the legs after the therapy, providing lots of oxygen and nutrients. Although there is not a lot of scientific evidence to back this up, cold water therapy is a very common practice amongst high level athletes.

Post Workout Meal

I love this cook book.

I don't get too bent out of shape over the specifics of my post workout meal, but there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, I usually eat my calories as opposed to drinking them. Protein shakes and recovery drinks can get really expensive if you are using them every day. That being said, I like to make a fruit shake with hemp protein and omega oils after a hard work out because it tastes really good and cools me down.  But the most important thing is to eat some carbohydrates as soon as possible after a workout; this allows your muscles to better replace glycogen stores. Right after working out your muscles are very sensitive to insulin, which is need to bring carbohydrates (in the form of glycogen) into the muscles. It's important to intake carbohydrates while your muscles are still "thirsty".



Stretching

This is one that I need to work on most. Most of us that run a lot are probably quite tight. I try to stretch after working out and then again in the evening. In the evening, I also do some work on the foam roller. The foam roller is use for self Myofascial release.

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That is a look at some of the things that I like to do to help with my recovery. If you have something that you really like to do for recovery, please post a comment. For example, does anyone out there have experience using compression socks for recovery?