Recovery Days
Allowing our bodies to recover is often an overlooked part of training. We put our bodies through its paces through aerobic training, anaerobic training and strength training. There are different ways to look at recovery:
Rest days
These are days where we simply switch of from training and concentrate on other aspects of our life, time with close ones, a different hobby, taking it easier to provide you from a mental and physical break from the training itself. Our bodies adapt from these often leading us to feel better and revitalised due to the break. Don’t put too many in a row though as you can come back feeling sluggish!
Active recovery
There are many ways to put active recover into your plan, this can be yoga/easy running, cycling or swimming, mobility and foam rolling. The Key to this session is to go easy, probably easier than you think or do at the moment, low HR or RPE being the goal, always feeling like you could go harder or faster at any stage but resisting the temptation. We start the session with a slight build up of lactate acid and this allows us to help start to flush it out. We promote blood flow to muscles providing them with oxygen to help them recover. Keep these sessions lower in volume. They are a key part of a training plan as it allows you to continue with consistency in your active training but help replenish and refresh to push you on your way
Gettint this parts of training in at the right time can really help your progress your fitness goals. not allowing them to be part of your training can lead to short term gains but long term fatigue/plateau and a lower fitness overall
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