Recovery Methods & Training

Recovery Methods & Training

Before we start I must say this is a little bit of a long one, I cut it short at the end due to the fact I didn’t want you to be sat or stood reading this forever. I hope you find it interesting and informative and please let me know if you would like me to further this topic of discussion on another post. Apart from that, ENJOY!

Over the past couple of years I’ve found myself becoming increasingly interested in the topic of Recovery & Recovery methods in training. This interest ignited at first with a personal experience. Around 2-3 years ago I remember injuring my back during a training session, back then I would train pretty much every day, sometimes even 3 times a day, usually following a routine of morning HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), Afternoon Circuit training & Evening 1+ Hours weight training or a 10k run. When I look back now I’m surprise I didn’t cripple myself for good but I sure did pay for all the training and lack of recovery or injury prevention methods.

My injury was never diagnosed correctly therefore it wasn’t until last year I gained an understanding of what it may have been. Basically as a result of muscular tension/tightness build up in the muscles surrounding my pelvis, it caused my pelvis to tilt into an unfavourable position during the bottom a squat (you may know it as a “bum tuck”). After chronic build-up of tension and lack of mobility/flexibility work to counteract it, my lower back and the muscles connected to my lower vertebrae became overly stretched in the lower squat position, causing them to tear and leave me flat on the floor for a week.

Ever since then I have progressively understood the importance of recovery in training. I now know that if I want to train like I do as often as I want to, I need to put my body in a favourable state to do so, otherwise I will more than likely experience another injury.

If you follow RikFit on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, you will understand that I do tend to go on about recovery quite a lot. This week I uploaded a couple of posts on the topic, but as usual it never gets much interest. The reason for this in my opinion is due to the fact recovery is seen as “boring”, it is not something a lot of us want to do as we are under the impression that it doesn’t get us what we want most, which as a generalisation for the general population, is a good looking body. Another reason is due to the fact many people don’t understand how recovery helps when chasing certain goals, we know we must rest at some point but we are all under the impression that we have to be part of “Team NO DAYS OFF” or “More training is better to burn more calories”, therefore putting recovery to one side to make the most out of training. This is why I am writing this post, it is to help you understand how important recovery is in training and how they must both work together to maximise your results.

As usual let’s start off with a definition. What is recovery? Well in the context of training, recovery is defined as to return to a normal state of health, mind or strength. This immediately bring to mind “rest”. Rest of course is a great form of recovery, however let’s decipher the definition a little bit more. It’s a RETURN to a NORMAL state of HEALTH, MIND or STRENGTH. What you must understand here is that you could be at a normal state of health but you may not be strong, you could be a normal state of mind but not a normal state of health, do you get where I am going with this? In order to sustain a healthy lifestyle and a long term training regime, you must try to insure that your performance both physically and psychologically is in a normal state or a “homeostasis state” so to say, in order to recover and function efficiently.

Moving onto the more interesting part, let’s talk about how recovery methods and long term training both intertwine. In order to change, progress or improve aesthetics or performance, your body needs a constant new stimulus to adapt and evolve to e.g. a training programme should naturally follow a process of progressive overload, to achieve this, frequency, intensity, time and the  type of training must be altered continuously throughout the programme. This will in turn create a constant new stimulus to adapt and evolve to. Leading on from this, in order to stimulate maximum adaptation, you must be able to perform the whole programme and perform it to the best of your physical ability. This will plane and simply not be sustainable or possible without implementing the correct recovery methods into your routine, this must be done to ensure you can conjure maximal effort and performance into each and every one of your training sessions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you have to be a raging bull every single time you train, but what I am saying is you should be in a position going into your training session, where both your physical and mental state is ready for the acute stress about to be placed up on it.

It’s all good and well me telling you how important recovery in training is, but it doesn’t have any true benefit if you can’t or do not know how to utilise or implement recovery into your training programme or routine. This is why I am now going to explain and give some examples of recovery method I like my clients at RikFit to utilise and that you can utilise yourself. I’m going to list what in my opinion, are the main recovery methods everyone should utilise. 

Taking A Day Off: 

Let’s start off with the simplest one of all, REST! As I mentioned before, you honestly don’t have to be a part of “Team NO DAYS OFF” if you don’t feel up to it, or if more importantly, your body isn’t in a position to benefit from it. A simple way to assess when you need rest is by analysing your training performance, for example, you usually squat 80% of your 1RM (1 REP MAX) fairly easily for 2-3 reps, however today you struggled to even get 1 rep overall. This is a clear sign of fatigue and decrease in performance, therefore a great indication you should… REST! Keep assessing your performance every time you train, your goal is to use trial and error with rest and training days until you find a suitable amount of on and off days (on = training, off = rest) that allows you to continuously perform at a high level and ultimately progress on a weekly basis.

  

Stretching & Mobility work: 

I’m not going to get into all the various types of stretching and mobility work you could use. This is because the people I’m writing for probably do not mobilise before training or stretch afterwards very often. What I am going to do though is explain why you do at least some mobility before training and why you should stretch after every training session, especially if you have a number of tight areas you need to work.

Mobility work before a training session will allow your body to prepare for the range of movement and load you are about to place up on it. In my experience, many people walk into a gym and go straight into “set 1” without even giving their body a change to warm up or experience the pressure or stress about to be placed upon it, this is basically a recipe for disaster. At RikFit I take mobility work before and during a session quite seriously, especially with clients that need it the most. We usually start by taking each joint through their range of movement, whether that’s max flexion, extension, adduction, abduction, protraction, retraction etc. After this we will then perform mobility work during the training session, this will be specific to the exercise being performed, for example if my client has little range of motion in their Ankles during a squat, then Ankle mobilisation techniques will be utilised during rest periods for a number of sets.

Stretching is something most of us tend to turn away from, we only want to do the things that get us direct results, therefore after your training session when you tired and sweaty, the last thing you really want to do is stretch. Although, as I’ve mention throughout this post, in order to live a sustainable long term training based lifestyle, you need to ensure your body is physical state to do so. Everyone who doesn’t stretch or utilises mobility methods will more than likely have a “tight” area or muscle group within their body, this will more often than not be reflective of their lifestyle and how they spend most of their time. For example, if you have an office job and are sat in a chair all day, you will most likely have tight Hamstrings, Hip-flexors and inactive Glutes. Meaning when it comes to a squat, you are going to struggle with the positioning of your pelvis to allow for a healthy, full range of motion squat. At RikFit I like to identify tight muscle groups as early on as possible to help create a safe structured programme that will minimise risk of injury and hopefully improve the flexibility of the cause for concern areas. After training we will usually perform a good 10-15 minute stretch off focusing on the main muscle groups used in the training session, this is also the time where I like to prolong stretches specifically on areas for improvement, therefore these stretched will be what we call “Developmental” stretches, which focus on developing or increasing the range of movement within a stretch.

How often should you mobilise and stretch? Well it true depends on the current physical state you are in and the pressure a load your body can handle from the type of training you perform. A good rule of thumb would be to utilise mobility before a training session, stretch after a workout and maybe perform 15-20m minimum on your rest days to keep a good healthy flexibility and range of motion in major muscles and joints.

At RikFit I always like to look for a second opinion, this is to confirm inflexible muscle/muscle groups or areas with decreased range of motion that have identified early on in training. This brings me on to my next point of utilising a good Physiotherapist. 

Physiotherapy: 

Physiotherapy is great in numerous ways, one way is the fact a good physiotherapist can identify any restriction or movement issues you may have, of which you can then work on both with a qualified coach and the Physio themselves. Another is a Physio can utilise tissue release and manipulation methods to help free up any tight muscles or muscle groups. Also you’re a good Physio may even be able to identify whether you have muscular or skeletal issues that they can or cannot deal with, if this is the case, they may refer you two a good Osteopath who can focus more on the biomechanics of why you are experiencing specific restricted movement or tightness in a given area. RikFit clients are usually referred for a “MOT” for lack of a better word, to assess their current state at the beginning of a very intense training programme, after receiving feedback from a Physio, the clients programme will be altered specifically to cater for any issues raised.

If you cannot access a Physio or Osteopath, or it is simply too pricey, then at least utilise the recovery method of foam rolling or a masseuse. Foam rolling is a great way to target and release tight muscles, the great thing about it is the fact that you can perform it at home, at the gym or anywhere you want as long as you have foam roller, which tend to be very affordable and easy to purchase. Just visit a sports shop near you or search “foam roller” online.

A masseuse will help to relieve a build-up of tension and stress to relax the body, aiding it in recovery. However it is important to make sure that they are qualified and know what they are doing. Manipulating muscle tissue isn’t as simple as to apply pressure in the hope to relieve tension, it is much more complex and requires experienced hands to manipulate muscle with the right amount of pressure, direction and motion. 

Consume More Food/Calories: 

I’m going to be brief with this one as it is a topic I will talk about as a whole on a later date. The majority of people who are training to improve general health or their physique, plain and simply do not eat enough to perform at a high enough intensity to stimulate bodily change. This then turns into a vicious cycle as they will also not be consuming enough calories or even correct macro nutrient amounts, to allow muscular repair as well as adaptation. Your body is like a machine, it will not function efficiently running on fumes, you must supply it with fuel to work and function at maximum capacity and output. As a rough guideline, first calculate you BMR (Base Metabolic Rate, search online to find the equation) to find out the minimum amount of calories you need to maintain your body weight, make sure you also account for added energy expenditure, e.g. lifestyle, such as your job or training frequency, intensity, time and type. Second, compare this with the amount of calories you are consuming now. Once you have taken these two steps, you will even have an outcome of a calorie surplus or deficit, if a surplus then great! You are consuming enough calories to maintain your performance and help repair muscle tissue. If you are at a deficit, then set a plan of gradual increase in calories on a weekly basis until you are at a minimum of maintenance level BMR. This is something I implement with my clients after following the RikFit Natural food protocol for a sufficient amount of time, I can usually identify signs of under eating when performance if very poor and progress isn’t regularly occurring.

Lastly I’d like to briefly cover macronutrients, well more so one macronutrient which is protein. Protein is made up of amino-acids, when consumed protein is broken down into these various amino acids which play a huge part in tissue repair. It is very important, especially if you are performing a training type that breaks down muscular tissue to a large extent, that you consume enough protein within your calories to aid in muscular recover. I’m not going to give an exact amount, but just ensure you are have a good number of portions of protein based foods each day to ensure a sufficient amount of amino acids are supplied to the body to help aid in muscular repair and recovery.

I was now going to go onto supplementation but seeing as I don’t want to over complicate things for the people who are just interested in keeping things as simple as possible. If you would like to know more about supplementation and how it can aid recovery please let me know and I will add a post onto this one completely on the topic.

SUMMARY

To completely summarise everything I have just spoken about, you must understand some key points:

• Recovery is to return to a normal state of health, mind or strength.
• In order to recover your must implement adequate recovery methods.
• Without sufficient recovery, your risk of injury increases substantially.
• In order to train long term, you must ensure your body is in a healthy physical state to maintain performance.
• In order to stimulate adaptation, your body must be in a state to do so.
• Utilise recovery methods to help repair the body to a physical state to perform at a high level.
• Utilise recovery method to help improve the body’s physical state to perform and exercise safely.
• Stretch & Mobilise to increase muscular flexibility and joint range of motion.
• Physiotherapy will aid in identifying areas for concern and improvement. Also, if utilised on a regular basis, will help to improve the areas for concern, in turn leading to a healthier physical state to perform and train.
• Food is your friend and always will be if you use it nourish your body.
• Consume enough calories reach you BMR plus energy expenditure.
• Consume an adequate amount of protein to aid in tissue repair and recovery.

Again I hope this blog helped you and you are taking something from this for the better. As usual these are my views and the views of RikFit so please don’t take this a set in stone procedure, it’s just a simplistic guideline to help the average person understand why recovery and training have to work together to achieve sustainable long term results. Have a great day a comment with some feedback if possible, positive or negative, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I would very much like to hear yours if you have read it.

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