Recovery and Recovery Tactics

I recall when I was an up and coming softball athlete. There were early wake ups, multiple practices and multiple games in 80+ temperature heat, long car drives from one city to the next to play in the next local tournament; in what felt like cramped cars with the music blasting with my best friends by my side. I also recall the many “pasta parties” that we would attend to help motivate us for the weeks upcoming games. Those meals typically consisted of lots of pasta, salads, and maybe some soda. We would all either go back to our respective homes with mom and dad or in some cases, during the summer we would pack ourselves together into a big sleeping team huddle at one of the players houses. We would wake up early the next day and play two, three or even four games in the summer heat or in some cases, heavy wind, light rain or even with a light dust of snow on the ground. That was the best we had back then! Fast forward almost 30 years, and the development of more and more hydration supplements, recovery supplements, sleep tracking wear, use of cold and heat exposure, “dialed in nutrition”, meditation, massage, and other modalities which has helped more and more athletes recover from the sport they love as well as the training that prepares them for that sport.

What Do we mean when we are “In Recovery Mode”

When an athlete or fitness enthusiast is working out hard, they are working and utilizing their sympathetic nervous system, which is one arm of our autonomic nervous system. This is the branch responsible for “fight or flight” or the branch that gets us revved up for activity. On the other hand, the parasympathetic branch is responsible for “rest and digest” or the branch that allows us to recover from activity. When we say we are in “recovery mode” we are more or less asking our bodies to rest, to reduce stress, and to allow for our overall systems to take a break from high levels of activity. When we allow for a reduction in training loads or training stress, it allows for our muscles to recover; meaning the muscle fibers have an opportunity to build back up from the process of being torn down by training. It also offers our glycogen stores to recover, we have the opportunity to clear out unneeded waste as well as hormone rebalancing which is the resetting of certain hormones like cortisol, growth hormone and testosterone to allow for continued tissue repair.

Types of Recovery

In a way there are two forms of recovery and they are an active form and a passive form.  Active recovery is when an athlete continues to move the system but at a much lower effort and lower heart rate, about 30-50% of their maximum heart rate. This will change for each athlete and for different ages of athletes. Active recovery can take the forms of swimming, walking, or easy cycling and I like to think of this level as zone 1 in the training zone which can help with moving the aforementioned waste products from the system. It can also include activities such as yoga, stretching or mobility work. Passive recovery on the other hand is more of complete rest where the athlete refrains from participating in physical activity and rather works on sleep, sauna, cold baths, simply eating proper nutrition, compression, massage, or physical therapy treatments.

Recovery strategies best suited for Women

Because women have a menstrual cycle, they and their recovery  needs are unique. Just like her cycle there are changes, and fluctuations in her hormones, and recovery should be commensurate to that change or variation. In order for women to continue to train, it is very important for her to get sufficient protein throughout her day and month which means based on her nutrition needs, she may need to be consuming 25-30 grams of protein within 45-60 minutes of training. Depending on where she is at in her cycle, she may need to off-load her joints due to certain homeones and the increased laxity that be present. Activities may include things such as rowing, swimming, or focused motor control work vs deep end range flexibility. A focus on maintaining and or improving nutrition and hydration with foods and fluids rich in electrolytes can also improve her ability to recover based on her cycle.