Any endurance sport is tough and the training for such an event can be demanding. Maximising your recovery from training will maximise what you get out of the sessions you are doing. This is crucial for all working athletes who are busy juggling a job, family and training as you want to get the most out of the time you commit to your training plan.
Below are a few things you can look at doing to increase your recover rate from training:
Ice and Cold Water Therapy
Most elite athletes will tell you that stretching and massage on a regular basis will keep their muscles long and in good condition. Keeping your muscles long and knot free is essential when you are trying to train hard day after day.
Just remember to keep it light after a hard training session or race as deep massage can slow recovery especially if you do not get regular massage.
Off Road Running
Running is a high impact (not quite like rugby) sport. One way to help reduce the impact on your joints and tendons is to run on grass or on softer surfaces. By staying off the road I have found that this reduces post training muscle soreness and allows me to train harder more often.
Stretching and Massage
After a run, run a cold hose over your legs (especially your shins) or sit your legs in a swimming pool or bath. This is an effective way to reduce fluid build up. You can also use ice but make sure you wrap the ice in a wet towel to avoid ice burn.
Elevation
Elevating your legs after training helps to reduce fluid build up. Combined with Cold Water or Ice Therapy this is very effective.
Contrast Therapy
Contrast therapy is where you hose down or soak your legs in cold water (like ice or cold water therapy.. see above) and then jump into a hot shower or a spa pool. Once you feel your legs heating up and are red with blood jump out and put them back in the cold water. Repeat several times.
Nutrition
It has been said that within 30mins of finishing training you should eat to start replacing all the nutrients that you lost while exercising. I usually find this hard to do especially after a hard session so I tent to take a shake with a mix of both carbohydrate and protein. Many companies make these recovery shakes including SIS, Hammer nutrition and Power bar and you can get them at most cycle shops. If you also find eating hard after a session then I definitely recommend that you try one of these.
Compression
The use of compression socks and tights is the latest trend in recovery. The pressure that compression socks put onto the veins, arteries and muscles helps push blood through narrow veins; therefore, increasing the flow of blood and returning it to the heart as it should.
Relaxation and Sleep
This is my favorite form of recovery. Aim to schedule harder sessions on days when you can relax and aim to get more sleep. It has also been proven that short sleeps of up to an hour after training can help increase recover by increasing circulating hormones.
Ben