Recovery Strategies to Improve Daily Performance

By Peter Twist

In our fast-paced lives, we make sacrifices every day to accomplish all of our priorities. The outdoor enthusiast carves out opportunities for a hike, an off-road ride, an intense workout or a game with friends simply because this is how they choose to allocate their most precious resource: time.

Yet many active individuals avoid making time for recovery. The result is a body progressively breaking down with multiple aches and pains that limit activity.
Perhaps a better understanding of the value of recovery can convince active individuals to commit to this important step and help you be in top form each day.  Consider the flow chart that shows what your body experiences on a daily basis:

The Performance – Recovery Cycle

So what happens if you neglect the Recover – Refuel – Rehydrate phase?  Instead of growth and improvement, the outcome is over-training, breakdown and injury, all less than ideal outcomes. It’s critical to make time for recovery to ensure your body can be ready for activity day after day.

Types of Recovery
Giving your body that break means being aware of the different recovery stages. Micro recovery: Within each workout, build in short amounts of rest to allow the workout intensity to remain high. Post workout recovery: After each workout, the body slowly returns to normal status, with its reduced heart rate, breathing rate, circulation.

Post competition recovery: After a very intense activity, the body needs more time and attention to return to its normal status.
Training cycles: High-performance athletes modify their training on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual basis to achieve performance gains and ensure they are well-rested for critical competition.

Helping the Body Help Itself
In the performance-recovery cycle, there are critical ingredients that impact the body’s ability to repair itself on a daily basis. First, it’s key to restore nutritional balance by replenishing the body with adequate amounts of carbohydrate, protein, fats and fluids. Then, the body needs time to use that nutrition and stored body fat to restock its energy stores at the cellular level. Both come together to help with tissue repair, as the recovering body works to reduce muscle soreness and restore
muscle elasticity.

Recovery Strategies
To maximize recovery from daily exercise and activity, the following strategies should be implemented:
1.  Workout style: It is critical to train the body to be prepared for the demands of activity and real life. An athletic training approach that builds whole-body strength, efficient multi-directional movement skills and enhanced balance response will allow real life activities to be pursued with enthusiasm without fear of injury.  
2.  Nutrition and hydration: Follow a well-balanced, whole-food diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains and ample fluids to ensure your body has all the necessary nutrients to replenish itself every day.
3.  Professional recovery experts: Partner with a team of professionals to keep your body working well. This can include using massage, a physiotherapist or a chiropractor.
4.  Myofascial massage: Invest in some performance tools to help stretch and massage your muscles. These can help rehydrate your muscles, infuse blood and oxygen flow and restore muscle elasticity every day to improve recovery and ward off injury.
5.  Pilates, yoga, stretching: Consider joining a class for active movement therapy with professional instruction.
6.  Rest: Commit to adequate sleep every night. This ensures your body has time to repair.

Invest in Recovery
Athletes in tune with their bodies understand that recovery is just as important as exercise. Commit to refreshing your body, regenerate your spirit and renew your excitement for activity.  This will allow you to live your life full speed ahead with a body that is ready for the journey.

Peter Twist (MSc) is the president and chief executive officer of Twist Sport Conditioning. He is an exercise physiologist with a specialization in coaching science. Having coached in the NHL for 11 years, Peter has worked with over 700 professional athletes, including league MVPs Mark Messier (hockey), Justin Morneau (baseball) and Hakkem Olajuwon (basketball). He has published over 400 papers, 10 books and 19 DVDs on athlete development.