We have partnered with the Sports Health experts at NYU Langone to bring you the “Fit for Flight” Series. As an official medical services provider and performance center for USA Nordic Sport, their renowned experts will answer questions from our Olympic hopefuls and give you tips on a variety of sports health topics.
If you need help getting “Fit for Flight,” NYU Langone offers expert medical care and state-of-the-art diagnostic testing for athletes. USA Nordic members/readers receive exclusive concierge access to their multidisciplinary team—whether you want to improve your performance, have a nagging orthopedic injury, or just need an annual checkup. Fill out our appointment request form and one of their experts will be in touch to help coordinate your care.
For our next installment, we hear from Exercise Physiologist, Kate Baird, on the importance of rest.
“Your recovery period can be thought of as a window of opportunity in which the positive changes from your training can be captured. We call this window the “supercompensation theory”. The timeline is as follows: there is an exercise bout, followed by a period of fatigue, a period of growth or “compensation” where the body kicks into recovery mode and gets stronger, and finally a return to the baseline. To keep a hold of the gains you made, the next training bout should follow close behind that growth period. But how close? Understanding how much time the body needs to go through this process can be tricky, but there are a few important details to help each athlete plan and train effectively.
Firstly, your own training status and exercise history must be considered. If you are more acclimated to a type workout, you may not need as much time to recover as when you first started. Next, consider the type and intensity of your exercise. High intensity training can contribute considerable damage to muscle tissue and can lead to soreness. Delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, can occur up to 24-72 hours after exercise, so you’ll want to monitor for soreness throughout the program. Although there is no perfect rest recipe that fits everyone, we have some guidelines for different types of workouts. For strength & anaerobic exercise, give 2-3 days of rest per muscle group between sessions. This will allow the time for muscle healing and fuel replenishment between sessions. For plyometric workouts, give at least 2-3 days of rest between sessions, and no more than 3 sessions per week. Again, this will help with muscle recovery as well as reduce risk of overuse injury. Recovery from aerobic exercise will vary by intensity and duration. Light to moderate intensity aerobic training can be done just about every day, and often serves as a great recovery workout between high intensity workouts. It is recommended that high intensity aerobic exercise, such as threshold, VO2max and HIIT be done only 2-3 times a week for seasoned athletes. These types of workouts will be a considerable stress on the body and require more time to recover.
All of this considered, you will want to pay attention to how you feel in order to get a sense of just how much recovery time is needed between sessions. Overtraining can impede performance gains, and is often experienced through general fatigue, sleep disturbance, change of mood or motivation, overuse injuries, a decline in performance, muscle pain, and feeling more challenged by your workouts. If your recovery is appropriate, you will be able to increase volume and intensity without feeling the effects of overtraining.There is more to recovery than just taking time between workouts. Hydration and nutrition can have a significant impact on your performance improvements over time. Following a workout aim to rehydrate lost fluids with water or a sports drink. Aim to replenish your energy within 30-60 minutes of training by consuming a high quality dose of carbohydrate and protein. This will enhance the delivery of nutrients to your muscles, improve muscle glycogen replenishment, help initiate tissue repair, and help the body switch metabolism from breaking down to building up. Recovery nutrition is most important after high volume or high intensity training sessions, heavy lifting sessions, competition, and during consecutive days of training or competition.”
