Promoting Recovery from Training
For your training to be effective it must be followed by an adequate period of recovery to enable the body to return to a physiological steady state and for some all-important adaptations to occur.
An important consideration when planning recovery is to realise that every physiological response to training has a different time course towards recovery. Heart rate, body temperature and blood lactate may take minutes to return to pre-exercise levels whereas muscle glycogen (carbohydrate) and muscle damage may take days to restore. A competitor in a nine day stage race with numerous hill top finishes might therefore need to rest or perform light recovery rides for five or six days following the event before they are ready to compete again. However, there are occasions when the recovery duration is out of the athlete's control if they are competing in heats or a multi-stage event. In these situations cyclists have to employ strategies to promote and possibly accelerate recovery.
When designing training it is imperative that you plan your recovery strategy, including taking regular recovery weeks. For most cyclists the maximum period of loading should be no more than three weeks, although some coaches may occasionally employ single highly strenuous 'crash' weeks followed by a week of recovery. It is also worth including one full rest day per week and schedule enjoyable non-strenuous activities such as going to the cinema or having a meal out to get a mental break from training too.
You also need to be aware of other external stressors such as exams, work, dieting and altitude as these can apply additional training stress. Where these stresses are present try to reschedule training and recovery to account for them. Mental stress can have a profound impact upon physical well-being and vice versa so it should always be taken into account and, if possible, planned for in advance.
Avoid excessively long periods of racing without any kind of break and ensure that your diet is adequate to support training and racing. Cyclists can become obsessed with maintaining a low body weight, but a severely restricted energy intake can hinder recovery, training and performance, and can have an adverse effect upon health.
Your overall energy intake should be balanced against the overall training load. Some forms of training such as high intensity intervals can deplete glycogen reserves so the diet should be rich in carbohydrates to support this. During times of illness and injury overall energy consumption and protein intake may need to be increased to support the immune system and facilitate repair. Adjusting diet in response to the varying demands of training is known as 'dietary periodisation'.
One of the most important recovery strategies is ensuring you get a sufficient quality and quantity of sleep. You can improve your sleep by keeping to a regular sleep schedule and creating a relaxing bedtime routine. Avoiding large meals, alcohol and caffeine in the evening and eliminating screens and television from the bedroom can help you in getting to sleep more quickly.
Finally there are a number of interventions that may be beneficial in promoting and accelerating recovery such as the use of hydrotherapy, compression, sauna, whole-body cryotherapy, floatation tanks and stretching. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine the evidence in favour, or not, of using these methods but in developing a recovery strategy it is important to consider both what the scientific literature states as well as what anecdotally works for you.
Optimal adaptation to training is only achieved if the acute and chronic training loads are balanced with sufficient recovery. However, some cyclists all too easily fall into the trap of paying great attention to the training, but fail to consider their need to recover. This can lead to them ‘digging a bit of a training hole’ and once they are at the bottom and exhausted it is extremely hard to climb out. Simply planning ahead and devising a recovery strategy can help to avoid a catastrophic downturn in performance and a long road to recovery.
