Etiquette -- 2 days ago
This may be the most important article on how to maximize your gym gains you’ll ever read, and I’m not even going to talk about one exercise, rep or set. We’re going to look at the importance of recovery, rest and refuelling in any training plan for improved gains and maximum results.
The biggest thing that people get wrong is the time they spend out of the gym. It is easy to become obsessed by your goals and in so doing, we may often forget that we only get stronger while we recover and re-grow our muscles, not while we are smashing them in a gym.
Both short term and long term recovery are important for optimal performance. There is short-term recovery from hard training sessions and there is the long-term recovery built into a year-round periodised training schedule. Short-term recovery is also called active recovery and occurs in the hours immediately after intense exercise. Active recovery refers to engaging in low-intensity exercise immediately after workouts or during the days following the workout. Both types of active recovery are linked to performance benefits.
Another major focus of recovery following exercise has to do with replenishing lost energy stores and fluids. It’s also essential to optimise protein synthesis (the process of increasing the protein content of muscle cells, preventing muscle breakdown and increasing muscle size) by eating the right foods in the post-exercise meal.
Getting quality sleep is also an important part of short-term recovery. Make sure to get plenty of shut-eye, especially if you are doing hard training. Sleep is the best form of recovery and seasonal training programs should undoubtedly accommodate for this. Most well designed training schedules will include recovery days and or weeks that are built into an annual training schedule. This is also the reason athletes and coaches change their training program throughout the year, adding cross-training, modifying workouts types, and making changes in intensity, time, distance and all the other training variables. Having flexibility in a training program and the ability to adjust on the fly is essential in preventing overtraining.
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