A Full Guide on Training Recovery
Overtraining (and overreaching) occurs when someone lacks proper recovery in their training or exercise plan. It doesn’t just happen with athletes; it can happen with anyone who goes to the gym.
Movement places stress & demand on the body. In return, your body needs to recover from this stress / demand.
If your body doesn’t have the opportunity to recover, your body will instead start to break down. This is when you may begin to experience injuries, illness, fatigue, and more.
These small amounts of stress and impact we place on our body add up in time and we need to provide our bodies the amount of recovery for the amount of stress being placed on the body, in order to prevent injury and maintain your wellness.
If your body is properly recovered, you will get better and movements will become easier. If your body isn’t properly recovered; things will feel hard pretty much all of the time, injuries will flare up, and your energy will feel consistently low.
healthy stress vs. overtraining
It starts with PHASE I. ⬇️
Phase I: Healthy Stress (Where we want to remain)
Usually overtraining starts from a good place: you have goals and you want to work hard to achieve them. And you must add stimulus and (healthy) stress to the body in order to make it stronger.
Phase I is where everyone should be: phase I is a good place! Phase II is where many people end up at, due to poor recovery, and Phase III is worst case scenario, which we absolutely want to avoid.
The goal for seeing progress in performance is to sit right around the overreaching mark, without consistently going over. This is the best way to provide new stimulus to the body, and healthy stress.
Phase II: Overreaching
Phase II is when you push at harder intensities, especially back to back in sessions, and this takes your body longer to recover from.
Our body is built with systems to help you recover, so before you reach overtraining syndrome, you will get signs that you’re going beyond your body’s ability to recover.
Athletes end up here more frequently, usually following high intensity training seasons.
But you don’t need to be an athlete to experience these symptoms. You can experience this as a regular gym-goer or hobby lifter, as well.
Oftentimes others will end up in this place when they are struggling with managing their time around their wellbeing; this might look like neglecting sleep, consistently. It might look like skipping a meal or two, consistently. It might look like (because of all of this), missing out on active recovery methods, like walking, consistently.
The point is, if you’re falling short on your self care and recovery, you’re going to start to see the warning signs — and these things will not go away until you intentionally work on correcting them.
The Warning Signs of Overreaching:
Decreased performance or plateau
Prolonged muscle soreness
Muscle atrophy occurring alongside high intensity training
Mental & physical fatigue
Injury flare-ups
A stall in progress
Poor sleep
Increased RHR
If you sit in an overreaching stage without providing your body the recovery it needs for months on end, this is when you get into more serious territory, which is overtraining syndrome. ⬇️
Phase III: Overtraining Syndrome
Hopefully you don’t experience overtraining, but this tends to occur when you’re lifting, running, or exercising at high intensities, with minimal recovery — for months on end.
The signs of Overtraining:
Illness & injury flare-ups
Extreme fatigue
Increased RHR
Depression & poor sleep
In order to prevent injuries, and potentially damage our immune system, we make sure to also prioritize an equal amount of recovery in response to the demand that you’re requiring of your body in training.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF RECOVERY
The key aspects to optimizing your recovery are: nutrition, sleep, active recovery, and enough rest between sessions.
Enough Rest Between Sessions
Between each training session, you want to make sure that you’re giving the muscle groups you just trained, some time to recover.
Low intensity workout: > 24 hours
Moderate intensity workout: 24-48 hours
High intensity workout: 48-72 hours
Heavy compounds (squats and deadlifts) will take longer to recover from than a bicep curl or weighted plank. Try not to overthink it!
I know that there’s some talk about recovery based on muscle groups, but its less about muscle group and more about the muscle fibers (type I and II) and how those different muscle fibers recover.
Oftentimes the movements that you can go heavier on (squats and deadlifts) are also the movements that contain a high amount of type II muscle fibers (that demand more recovery).
And oftentimes the movements that progress slower (bicep curls and planks) are going to contain more type I muscle fibers that aren’t as strong, but recover more quickly.
That said, if you’re working with light intensity, your body can generally recover within 24 hours. How long your recovery will take depends on the intensity of the exercise and frequency, alongside your recovery routine.
Training Deloads
For individuals who are training within moderate and high intensities, it’s recommended to regularly incorporate training deloads as well.
When training intensity increases, the demands on your Central Nervous System (CNS) increases as well.
This impact on your CNS can quickly decrease your performance, balance, and strength — if recovery is not a priority in your plan. Athletes like powerlifters will have deloads, alongside endurance athletes like marathon runners. Deloads are common among demanding sports and this is oftentimes, also, why athletes have seasons.
Training deloads will oftentimes occur every 4-12 weeks.
Nutrition
Macros
Protein: play a role in recovery by repairing damaged muscle tissue. (10-35% of your diet)
Carbs: play a crucial role for recovery, because carbs are needed to restore energy in muscle. (45-65% of your diet)
Fats: play a role in supporting recovery via delivering essential fat-soluble nutrients needed for recovery. (20-35% of your diet)
Water
Drinking water consistently throughout your day will ensure that you:
Replenish water after sweating
Transport nutrients needed for recovery
Remove toxins from your body, that are by-products from movement and exercise
Lubricate your joints and muscles for optimal movement and function
Aim to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, and more if you’re active.
Alcohol intake
Has a negative impact on recovery, unlike the other macros; it interferes with all of the positive processes of recovery that comes from proteins, carbs, and fats, as well as further impacting other recovery sources like sleep, hydration, and furthering inflammation.
Limit alcohol consumption as it can interfere with muscle recovery, hydration, and sleep quality.
Sleep
In a world where we grew up hearing “sleep is for the weak” its easy to understand why we feel stuck in this “give it your all, or die trying” era. But sleep is not for the weak. Sleep actually makes you stronger. Sleep, specifically deep sleep, is when the body does most of its repairs and recovery.
A lack of sleep will impact your recovery by furthering inflammation, throwing off hormonal hunger cues, and creating mental and physical fatigue.
General Recommendations: 7-9 hours of sleep
If recovery is poor due to sleep, you can work on improvements via:
Dimming lights in the evening
Put your phone away an hour before bed
Take a warm shower
Cool sleeping temperatures
Melatonin supplements
Active Recovery
Low impact activity is important for recovery, especially for individuals who tend to sit for most of the day.
Active recovery improves blood flow, moves fluid through the fascia and joints, helps remove toxins (released during exercise), reduces stress and inflammation, relieves muscle tightness, and maintains fitness levels.
If you need more general movement for active recovery & blood flow to the muscles, consider:
Walking
Swimming
Stretching
Yoga
Foam rolling
Massage gun
Massage appointments
bonus recovery methods
(only if everything else is achieved)
There are some other methods that individuals tend to use for recovery, but there isn’t enough evidence to truly suggest these methods improve training recovery. That said, they’re worth mentioning because they’re commonly talked about when it comes to sports recovery.
The two categories of these methods are those that promote blood flow (heat) vs. blood restriction (cold).
Heat for Recovery (Blood flow)
Increasing blood flow (via heat) can help push nutrients throughout the body and to the muscles faster. It also improves relaxation, which also happens to be helpful for recovery.
Saunas
Can help reduce stress, improve circulation, and can be impactful for overall wellness (70-100 F)
Epsom salt baths
There is no real evidence that epsom salt baths do much outside of help us relax, but again, de-stressing is impactful for recovery. Many will say it increases nutrient absorption of the magnesium and sulfates, but again with this, there’s not too much evidence that this is effective.
Hot tub
Can help with muscle relaxation and blood flow
Cold for Recovery (blood restriction)
The cold does the opposite of what the heat does; it restricts your blood flow.
Restricting blood flow also means restricting the nutrients that need to be delivered to your muscles after a workout. Over time, this may hinder progress.
However, there are signs that the cold can help with general energy and wellness — I would just recommend avoiding these methods right after training.
Cold Water Immersion
This includes ice baths, showers, and cold plunges (50-59 F)
Cryotherapy
The benefits for cryotherapy are that it restricts blood flow in order to help with reducing inflammation and swelling after training. Again, this is a method I would try on rest days, and avoid doing after training.
How to Create Your Own RECOVERY Plan
If you want to create your own recovery plan, the first thing you need to do is assess where you’re at with your current recovery.
Begin by assessing whether you’re achieving the standard recommendations:
Are you resting enough between sessions?
How much sleep are you getting?
Are you eating balanced meals?
How much are you moving (outside of your training)?
From there, begin to build out your training recovery, using our guide to help you decide which methods may work best for you. It’s normal for there to be some trial and error in creating your own perfect recovery routine (and also, there really is no such thing as “perfect”).
That said, if your routine is working for you, you should experience noticeable improvements in your gym progress and energy levels — and experience a decrease in injuries and discomfort.
