Some thoughts on recovery

I remember returning from my first trip to Australia totally
enthralled with what I had seen in terms of systematic recovery programs at the
AIS and some of the state institutes. I came to the conclusion at the time that
you must be proactive and design your training around recovery. Conceptually at
the time that might have been a logical conclusion especially with the attitude
that existed here in the states at the time. That attitude was that rest &
recovery were a luxury; you rested when you needed it, a very reactive
attitude. Over the last fourteen years I have seen the whole “recovery” piece
take on a life of it’s own. It seems an elite athlete cannot do more that a few
minutes of “hard” training and they must have a massage, get ice and have a
specially concocted recovery drink. In other words the pendulum has swung
completely to the other side where it
seems to be all about recovery and not
about training. Somewhere in between the truth lies. The human body is a
wonderfully adaptive and self-organizing organism. We need to give it credit
and stop interfering with the natural inflammatory cascade that triggers the
adaptive response. I think we need to take a step back and look at what we are
doing with recovery today and reassess it's place in the whole training process.
There is very little actual research to back up what we are doing in recovery.
Let’s reconsider how often and what external means of recovery we are using.
Let’s do a better job of learning what each athletes “recoverability” is to all
the various types of work they use in training. Lets remember that the
foundation for a good training program is a good plan. A good plan will take
into account the demands of the various types of work and adjust accordingly. Hopefully
this will stimulate some thought and discussion and help find a more balanced approach
to recovery.