Don’t ignore the obvious; take care of the first 98% before looking for the last 2%, that is a huge problem today. Are you athletes getting enough sleep? What is their lifestyle away from training? What is their diet? Are they living on energy bars, supplements and recovery drinks or are they eating real food? You must accumulate a background of training and competition before any sophisticated recovery methods are necessary and in my opinion effective. Hard massage is not recovery, that can cause soreness not alleviate it. Too much time in sauna or a hot Jacuzzi is not recovery, that can draining. It is always personal and optimum rather than maximum. Let’s go back to Bill Bowerman’s concept of a hard day followed by an easy day. It works. As training accumulates you can go a hard day, a medium day and then an easy day followed by rest. Always think of the 3P’s – Practical, Personal, and Proactive.
2 Comments
Juan RT
Could not agree more! Music notes without the silence in between them is just noise.
And that noise can be destructive.
Craig Duncan
Vern all tis stuff about recovery methods etc etc makes me think about what sort of athlete are we creating. Is it possible for you to post that great article by Kelvin Giles on the Generation Y athlete. We are creating athletes that may be professional in name but have few professional qualities and Im sure in your experience you have seen the decline of the number of players who have the passion as compared to those of yester year.