Heather Fell: As endurance athletes, we are known for pushing ourselves hard, week in, week
out throughout our training. However, there is a limiting factor to the quality and value we can
get out of our training, and that is recovery. You might hear athletes and coaches saying recovery is
key, but what does that even mean? How do we know if we've recovered properly? Well,
that's why we're here to answer today. [music]
There are two main fundamentals to recovery, having proper nutrition,
and quality sleep. Let's take a look at sleep first. This is most probably the most important
one, but it's also one of the easiest to be overlooked. There's a lot of studies that
actually prove that a good amount of quality sleep can have a positive impact on your performance,
but also can help improve your mental well-being. When we think about sleep, there are actually
two factors you want to make sure you've got covered. One is the quantity, the amount of
time you're actually spending asleep, and maybe the more important one is quality. Now, we are
all obviously different, and we have different requirements depending on what we're doing,
but also just how our bodies react. It's roughly thought of as seven to nine hours of sleep per
night should be enough for most human adults. During this time, it's when your body is letting
the muscles recover through protein synthesis, and also the release of the human growth hormone.
Then the quality of your sleep can be affected by many factors, but one of which can actually
be your training, which is ironic, because you need the recovery from it. Say you're
doing a late-night hard session, maybe it's track Tuesdays, or in the summer you're doing a midweek
ride with your friends and it gets quite intense, or by the time you get home and
you've had a shower, you've eaten, you've hydrated, it's already quite late, but
you're normally quite buzzing from that, and it can take quite a long time to really wind
down and be able to get into that quality sleep. You can look at potentially rearranging your day
if this is something you struggle with and trying to do your more intense harder sessions earlier on
in the day, and then winding down with something in the evening, such as yoga, that's just going to
help you get into that more relaxed state. [music]
Let's say you're training three or four times a week, and maybe most of those sessions are on the
weekend, and you're having regular good quality sleep with a decent nutrition plan that's just
coming from your regular meals, well, in that case, you should be able to recover adequately
between all of those sessions. If however you're training every day, or maybe even several times a
day, then you're going to need to potentially up your recovery strategy and look at your nutrition
in a little bit more detail. Essentially, there are two important nutrition windows
after your training session, and these become more important if you've done a particularly hard
or a long training session. [music]
The first and most important of these two windows is around 20 to 30 minutes after
your exercise. This is to try and replenish some of the carbohydrates and proteins that
your body will have used up. Now, especially if it's been a longer or a really hard session,
you would have depleted quite a lot of carbohydrates during that.
You want to find a snack or recovery drink that's got a ratio of around
3:1 or 4:1 of carbohydrates to protein; around 1 gram per kilo of bodyweight of carbohydrate,
which is going to give you around 200 to 300 calories depending obviously on your weight.
Now, the idea of these is the carbohydrate is going to replenish those glycogen stores that
have been depleted, but also, there's some protein in there that's going to help with repairing your
muscles. From a practical point of view, you need to just try and think ahead and plan a little bit
when it comes to your nutrition. Say you're doing a training session away from home like you're
going to the gym or the pool, then think about what you'll want to have afterwards so you can
start to replenish those depleted stores. Whether that's a sports bar or banana, something that you
can easily eat on the way home. Then you need to address the protein side
of things as well. It's thought that in this first window you need somewhere around 10 to 20 grams of
protein, and a great way of doing this is through a protein recovery drink. If you're organized,
you could simply take your bottle with some powder already in it, measured out for the
right quantity, and then add the milk or the water once you've done your session,
and you can use that on the way home. Or you've even got the options of sachets, like the ones
that we have from our channel partner at Nuzest, where you simply have that already measured out,
pour it into your bottle and you're good to go. That will give you around 21 grams of protein.
Also, not everyone is able to take on solid food as a recovery when you've done a hard
session. You've got that feeling where the last thing you want is to actually
eat something but a recovery drink can be the perfect replacement in that scenario.
[music] Beyond this immediate window, you've
got the second window that's around one to three hours afterwards, and it does depend a little bit
on how hungry you are. Here again, as with the first window, it's not necessarily about taking
on a huge amount of quantity, it's more about making sure you get the right balance. It is known
to be a more substantial meal at this point, and you want to make sure you've got a good balance
of proteins, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. You could have something simple like some grilled
chicken with a pasta salad, or an omelet with some avocado, or if you are still struggling to digest
something that's really like whole food, you could go for a smoothie that's got fruit and yogurt,
and maybe a little bit of protein powder added in. By combining both of these recovery windows,
you should be able to make sure you've got that correct balance of nutrition and really
helping your body to optimize its recovery. You're replenishing those glycogen stores we've already
talked about, and really giving your muscles the best chance of rebuilding and recovering,
ready for your next session. Another aspect that shouldn't be overlooked
in nutrition is hydration. Now hopefully, you're still going to be just naturally hydrating
throughout the day irrelevant of your training. If you are doing a particularly hard session,
or you're doing a lot of training indoors, and you want to try and make sure that you've got an
electrolyte drink as well, so you're making sure you replenish those salts, which you wouldn't get
from water alone. [music]
Although the emphasis for good recovery is two key pillars, so your quality nutrition
and making sure you've got your quality sleep, there are still several other methods that can
help to complement this recovery for your body making sure it's ready for the next session.
You need to look at nutrition as a whole, so not just after the sessions, but making sure
that you've got healthy nutrition covering all of the food groups you need, irrelevant
of a training day because it does add. A lot of people do choose to take some
multivitamins, you've also got the option of the increased popularity in essential greens.
For example, we've got the Good Green Vitality from Nuzest, which is something that can just
help make sure you've got everything covered. Then there's a physical aspect
of looking after your body. You might want to do a bit of self-massage or foam rolling,
get a massage ball, make sure you do 10 to 15 minutes of stretching after a hard session.
Just getting something like that into your routine is going to help your body stay in a good shape.
There are a few more expensive options such as booking in for a regular sports massage or even
investing in some compression equipment. It's all going to help with getting your body ready for
that next training session. [music]
Consistency as we know is always key with training and becoming a better athlete.
Making sure you're on top of your recovery will allow you to become consistent in your training,
and it's one big happy circle. Let us know what recovery options you use in between
your training sessions, especially if you're doing multiple ones in a day so we can all
learn from each other. You can do that in the comment section below. If you have enjoyed it,
remember, give us a Like, you can follow us on our social media channels and you can also
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