Recovery
Recovery is often one of the most neglected but most vital part of your training program. You've made the decision you want to lose weight and then make some great changes to nutrition. Suddenly when starting an exercise program, you are doing 3-5 hours of cardiovascular training a week outside of your weights sessions, and this is often after not training for an extended period of time. It works great for a while but then injuries start to kick in, does this sound familiar?
After increasing both intensity and duration of training, there is often not a similar increase in time spent to recover. This could be in the form of lying on the beach on the weekend, or focusing on the time you sleep at night (6-8 hours optimum). A structured recovery program would also include stretching, both dynamic before a workout and static stretches after a workout. It may also include a yoga class a week, and or foam rolling. If you are training 5 hours a week you really want to be getting 30 minutes to an hour of stretching in, the more the better. Physiotherapists, remedial massage therapists and osteopaths are not cheap and you can avoid them all together by turning your rehab into your prehab. Prehab is spotting potential injuries before they are likely to occur and then putting a strategy in place to avoid them. For example, a simple recovery strategy for a runner could be to foam roll and stretch primarily quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves and lower back for 45 minutes + per week, to warm up and cool down after each workout and to try and get 6-8 hours' sleep per night. On top of that they might focus on having two rest days each week and do some stretching or a yoga class on those rest days.
Hawaii Ironman Triathlon Champion Chris McCormack used to say that the way he stayed at the peak of his performance for twenty years was as much his recovery as his training. Because of this he was able to stay injury free throughout his career and beat opponents who were plagued by injuries. At Vision Personal Training the race is to get to your goal weight and to do that you need to be able to exercise consistently week in week out, the more injuries you have the less consistent you are able to be.
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
