Music Is The Space Between The Notes

Continuing from the discussion on periodization, and before we dive into the realm of various systems that have been used in the past and the direction of modern systems, it is imperative that everyone has a thorough understanding on the importance of rest and recovery during training.

http://sbrsport.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/recovery-run-rest.png

In the interest of keeping these posts as manageable as possible for readers, as well as preventing myself from chasing bunnies down all sorts of rabbit-holes, I will be dividing the conversation of recovery into two (at a minimum) separate posts.

When investigating recovery mechanisms, it is near impossible to separate them from the fatigue mechanisms from which we are recovering. For that purpose, we will split the concept of recovery along the dividing lines of fatigue, into two separate but not so distinct parts. On one side of the dividing line we have what we will call session recovery, that is, the recovery after and between training sessions, in which we are recovering from fatigue developed in the preceding training session. The second recovery component is deemed transient recovery and is the recovery between intervals within the session. The term is derived from the concept of transient fatigue which is fatigue that is attenuated within the course of the particular training or competition session.

http://www.ivillage.com/tips-avoid-muscle-fatigue-when-exercising/4-a-552455

This post will focus primarily on the concept of transient recovery. One may be inclined to believe that this concept does not apply to them or their particular sport. However, there are very few sports that do not have some intermittent nature, with perhaps the exception of sporting competitions in which only a single effort is required. However even those sports contain elements of transient recovery since there are usually 'heats' in a single athletic competition (think: 100m sprint) or repeated efforts during training regimens. Also consider long duration events in which heart rate plateaus and the athlete is in an aerobic steady-state. These events still require periods of higher and lower intensities, since a 200km cycling event may consist of multiple attacks and chases and climbs and descents, pushing athletes into their red-zones before returning closer to the session average. There is also some evidence to suggest that these endurance and ultra-endurance events consist of periods of lower intensities in which athletes attempt to rebuild energy stores and remove metabolic byproducts before returning to average race intensity. Therefore, the ability to recover from this fatigue accumulated during the event is a necessary component to consider for all athletes.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site21/2013/0706/20130706__07dcscycw_500.jpg

When determining the transient recovery periods during your training, you must have a specific training session goal. This is coupled with the proportional relationship between intensity and recovery. This relationship, simply, shows that as desired intensity of an action increases, the necessary time to recover from said activity also increases. For example, a 1-repetition maximum snatch requires a larger amount of recovery time relative to activity time than a 50% of 1-RM would require in order to reproduce similar results.

http://www.olympic.org/results?q=weightlifting

Therefore, if your goal is to increase maximal power output, your recovery periods should be timed so that each set or repetition sees you close to fully recovered before attempting another repetition, most likely in excess of 3 minutes so that you are able to produce maximal power per rep. If however, your goal is to increase aerobic capacity at sub-threshold intensities, the ratio of work to rest can be significantly higher due to the differences in the stresses applied to the body. As mentioned previously, this is related to various fatigue mechanisms - a discussion for another post.

The understanding of this relationship also gives us a powerful tool in periodizing work outs. Repeated Sprint Ability is, as the name suggests, the ability to produce high intensity efforts at maximum frequency. The recovery period between bouts can be manipulated to illicit specific training responses, within physiological limits, that would allow athletes to reproduce a higher number of high intensity bouts in a given time period, with a limited loss of action quality.

http://www.unchainedfitness.com/blog/targeted-speed-endurance-training-in-season-improves-repeated-high-intensity-performance-ability-in-soccer-players

A common activity I have seen in many sports, particularly team sports, is a partnering of athletes during workouts: one athlete completes a particular number of repetitions or travels a particular distance while their counterpart recovers, then they switch places and repeat. Related to our discussion, the issue here is quite evident. As intensity of activity is increased (e.g. running faster) the athlete returns to their partner in a shorter amount of time, thereby decreasing recovery time and vice versa. As we can see, this violates our general relationship between recovery and intensity. We can then expect the quality of the action to be compromised and subsequently reducing the potential gains from the session.

As the old adage goes, "train smarter, not harder." Preferably we want to do both, but misunderstandings about recovery periods during intermittent training activities tends to lead to a reduction in the overall quality and potential of the session.

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