By: Dave Tomlin
Push through it!
No pain, No gain!
Walk it off!
Any of those sound familiar?
If you played any kind of organized sports in your youth, you certainly heard some of these very same phrases.
We, as a society, have grown accustomed to thinking that more is always better. Always going harder, in the athletic world, is the key to succeeding. Resting makes you weak. Judging by the number of soft tissue injuries I’ve seen and experienced, I think it’s time to rethink our position in athletics.
As I’m writing this post we are amid a global pandemic. We’re doing our best to practice social distancing and look after each other. We are asking more questions than have answers. Our society is in a precarious position; at the mercy of a virus we can’t quite figure out. Likewise, our fitness professionals’ and coaches’ definition of recovery is also a topic that we’re just beginning to unpack.
As an athlete, I subscribe to the idea that an athlete should not ruin tomorrow’s practice with what they do today. I realize that there’s so much more research to be done on this topic But what I do know is that the old school mentality that shaped our viewpoints of what an athlete should be willing to endure to reach their goal is slowly becoming the “dumb guy” argument. Athletes perform better overall when they’re given the chance to recover, especially older athletes. I’ll share with you some of the benefits of revising this idea as well as some of the roadblocks that keep us from buying into this philosophy. I’ll also discuss how some athletes have the ability to recover so quickly. But first, a definition of recovery.
Fatigue:
You feel tired and out of breath. Your lips are parched and you need water. Sometimes you may start to feel dizzy and you can’t run another mile. At night, you’re having a hard time getting to sleep and staying asleep. You hardly have an appetite and you’re becoming increasingly irritable. You are experiencing the effects of fatigue.
Fatigue is broken down into two parts: peripheral and central.
Peripheral is defined as muscle contractile proteins that are not responding to their neural stimulation.
Central fatigue is focused primarily on descending motor pathways from the brain and spinal cord. Bishop et, al (2008) support a central fatigue hypothesis that suggests that during this time, the brain is acting as a protective mechanism to prevent excessive damage to the muscles.
During practice, one can experience three different types of recovery such as immediate, short-term, and training recovery. 
After a hard workout, the protein in your muscle tissue breaks down causing damage. Muscle protein synthesis lasts for up to 48 hours after a
hard workout. Also, muscle protein synthesis lasts longer in untrained individuals, as well as, muscle protein breakdown. All of that new muscle protein is going towards muscle repair; it has a very little reserve to build muscle.
I get it, you feel like you’re on a roll. You feel fine, perhaps a little sore, but that will go away once you get going. Besides, you haven’t felt this level of commitment since you were in high school. This is the way to train if you want to get better. STOP!! Your pending breakdown is inevitable! Trust me, taking on a more strategic approach is better long term.
What is recovery?
Are you feeling tired the day after a workout? Have you lost your appetite? Are you getting sick often? Are you in excessive pain? Are you having restless nights?
You may be experiencing symptoms of overtraining and need to include a period of recovery into your training. An athlete’s ability to recover efficiently is the key to success.
Bishop et al. (2007) define recovery as the ability to meet or exceed performance in a particular activity. Jeffreys (2005) identifies the following factors of recovery:
- Normalization of physiological functions
- Return to homeostasis
- Restoration of energy stores
- Replenishment of cellular energy enzymes
Performance Gains
While at rest, your body makes new muscle protein to repair the damage. Rest means giving your body some time off. As athletes, we have certain times throughout the year when the rest looks different than others.
A rest day can mean :
- An active recovery,
- Alternate upper and lower body workouts
- A complete day off, no working out
- Limited sets and reps
- Tempo session
- If required, a full week off
Although the research in the area of recovery is extensive, further research is needed. The body is a complex system that recovers differently depending on many factors. Each of our body’s major systems plays a role in the recovery process: the lymphatic system, nervous system, respiratory system, digestive system, circulatory system, etc. Sleeping habits, food consumption, and stress factors all contribute to the recovery of an athlete.
As an athlete, I’ve seen too many of my peers’ careers derailed from injuries Most can be attributed to overuse injuries. I’ll let you in on a little secret… our favorite athletes that last a long time in their respective leagues can attribute their longevity to how well they recover.
Let us look at the NFC South in the National Football League where they have three starting quarterbacks over the age of 35.
- Matt Ryan (35) Atlanta Falcons 11 years in the league
- Drew Brees (41) New Orleans Saints 18 years in the league
- Tom Brady (43) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 19 years in the league
Tom Brady has expanded his recovery system into a successful business separate from the playing field. “TB12” is a method created and endorsed by Tom Brady and Alex Guerrero which consists of 12 different principles to limit an anti-inflammatory response in the body.
Drew Brees’ recovery methods are well documented and he is quoted in a May 8th ESPN article as saying:
“ I feel like I’m pretty aware of what you lose with the aging process. So everything I do from a training perspective, from a recovery perspective, Is to combat that”
Drew Brees
In sports, progression happens slowly. Even so, the practice of waiting for an athlete to recover is not a popular notion because coaches are focused on the bottom line and believe they can’t afford to wait for their athletes to recover. It takes coaches stepping out on a limb to endure the ridicule from their peers, their athletes, and fans to further advance conventional wisdom.
One such coach back in 1996 was Arsène Wenger who joined the English Premier Leagues (EPL) Arsenal F.C. from Nagoya Grampus F.C. of the Japanese Association. Wenger’s method, at the time, was mocked by most. It wasn’t until his team started to produce results that people started to take notice. One of the significant changes Wenger made was how the players trained and their approach to recovery. Before Wenger became the manager, the players were accustomed to long drugged out training sessions designed to tire the players out. The idea was that these prolonged training sessions would produce stronger, faster players. No account was made for the players’ recovery.
Wenger turned that notion completely on its head. What was once a novel theory has now become commonplace. The EPL spends millions of dollars each year monitoring athletes’ recovery.
Sufficient Recovery:
We, as older athletes can gain valuable insight from these professional leagues. In particular, the older veterans’ method of prolonging their careers.
A 2016 study in Biology of Sport, concluded that “ for athletes taking part in an active warm-up before an anaerobic exercise for 15 minutes and recovering for 5 minutes recorded enhanced anaerobic performance”. Influence of Warm-up Duration and Recovery Interval Prior to Exercise on Anaerobic Performance.
Benefits:
A recovered athlete, in the long run, is a healthier athlete. As a young athlete, I remember so many times I wasn’t ready to practice but I pushed through anyway. What it led to was a career filled with a lot of injuries and unfulfilled potential. The benefit of a well-recovered athlete does something for an athlete, physiologically, mentally, physically it creates a confident supercharged athlete. When an athlete is confident, they get bigger, faster, and stronger.
Drawbacks:
We’ve all grown up in a society where athletes were portrayed as “meatheads”’ ‘ and were coached by paramilitary coaches who resembled more of a drill Sergeant preparing his troops for battle and less like an open-minded understanding individual able to adapt to the individual needs of their athletes. That philosophy has followed us into adulthood. It now shapes our philosophies on what we believe will yield the best results for our personal goals. It could be very difficult to break out of that mold. With limited time and events/competition to be ready for, the demand to get your body ready is increased. Simply put, we don’t have time to waste!
Tread lightly, if we don’t take a holistic approach at our training incorporating things like sleep, nutrition, and listening to our bodies, we will regret it.
How do athletes recover so quickly:
When dealing with individual sports like tennis, track and field, and swimming it becomes a little more targeted monitoring. Establishing a baseline is your first step, it helps you to know what your normal is. You can use a journal to write down how you feel before and after your workout session. You would be surprised at how many things you can learn. Several online questionnaires can be useful. Here are a few examples of some.
- Recovery-Stress Questionnaires for Athletes ( RESTQ-Sport)
- The International Fitness Scale ( IFIS)
- Fitness Quotient
As older athletes, having a solid relationship with your Integrated Support Team (IST) is imperative to staying healthy. Having solid and professional advice from experts in key areas like nutrition and chiropractic care is essential because they can give you the whole viewpoint which will dictate your workouts. Lastly, like everything in our society, science has offered some cool advancements in this area from which we can all benefit. There are quite a few monitoring equipments available to help keep a close eye on our recovery. Like the Nike “HR monitor, “Garmin Forerunner 945″ and the” Polar Vantage” each quality product can aid in keeping us on top of our health and recovery.
Conclusion:
As I get older I’m grateful for my experience and perspective. I never wanted to be the kind of person that wasn’t able to change because “that’s not the way we did it back in my days”. I grew up one way and now because of new information I believe something else. Truth is, we are healthier when we’ve recovered sufficiently creating a mentally and physically stronger athlete with a resolve only achieved when you have confidence in the quality work you’ve done.
References:
Recovery in Training, www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/recoveryUNM.html.
Frikha, Mohamed, et al. “Influence of Warm-up Duration and Recovery Interval Prior to Exercise on Anaerobic Performance.” Biology of Sport, vol. 33, no. 4, June 2016, pp. 361–366., doi:10.5604/20831862.1221830.
“NFL Football Teams, Scores, Stats, News, Standings, Rumors – National Football League.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, www.espn.com/nfl/.
Jeffreys, Ian. “A Multidimensional Approach to Enhancing Recovery.” Strength and Conditioning Journal, vol. 27, no. 5, 2005, pp. 78–85., doi:10.1519/00126548-200510000-00014.
Triplett, Mike. “Saints Release Guard Larry Warford after 3 Pro Bowl Seasons.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 8 May 2020, www.espn.com/blog/new-orleans-saints/post/.
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