The Importance of Recovery

A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to see Jackie Joyner-Kersee speak at Cal State Stanislaus.  For those of you who don't know, JJK holds the heptathlon world record and is considered by many to be the greatest female track and field athlete of all time.  Toward the end of the presentation, one of the athletes from the college track team asked JJK if she ever worried about getting burned out of over trained.  As a coach, I was very interested in her answer.

She said, "I don't believe in burn out". She said she loved doing what she was doing and that she couldn't get burned out doing something she loved.

I've also heard it said, by a number of top athletes and coaches something to the effect of, "it is very hard to over train, but it is easy to under rest." With that in mind, lets look today at how our bodies adapt to the training that we throw at them:

Training stresses your body.  The immediate reaction of your body to the stress of training is to become fatigued.  As a result, right after a training session, you are in worse shape than you were before the session.  Your body doesn't really adapt to that training session until night time when you are asleep.  During the first two hours of sleep, the pituitary gland will release a dose of Human Growth Hormone (actually, it releases HGH all through the night, but the greatest amounts are released in the first two hours).  If you have undergone a training session earlier in the day, your body will release more HGH than normal in order to repair the dammage done during the session and become stronger so that it can handle more stress in the next session. 

The point is this.  If you give your body rest, it can adapt to tremendous amounts of training stress. As your body adapts to that training stress, it can handle greater levels of training stress. As you become stronger and stronger, you will race better and better.  I have a friend, a national class marathoner, who has trained at over 200 miles per week for up to 6 weeks straight.  While he was in college, he was only an above average runner at the NCAA division 2 level, but he gradually transformed himself into one of the best marathoners in the United States.

Here are some tips that will allow you to train hard AND recover this summer.

1. Keep a regular schedule.  Avoid staying up really late and sleeping until afternoon.  This type of sleep pattern reduces your body's ability to make HGH.  Set a limit for yourself.  After a certain time, say 10 PM, turn off all your movies, video games, computers, and cell phones and get some quality rest. 
2. If you do your running in the morning, consider a nap after that session.  You will actually get some of the HGH benefit from that nap that you would get sleeping that night.
3. Avoid too much caffeine.  If you consume caffeine throughout the day, your body will have a difficult time dropping into the deep, restorative sleep that you need to adapt to the training you are doing.
4. Eat low calorie, nutrient dense food.  If you don't understand this last statement, don't worry, next week's article will be on nutrition.

Let me be clear on one point.  Over training is a real possibility for athletes. It is really a very simple equation.  If your training stress, life stress, and the physical demands of your day are greater than your body's ability to adapt, you will begin to break down and your performance will suffer.  I cannot tell you exactly how much training your body can handle because each one of you are different.  However, I can tell you that your body will handle more training if you take care of it than if you don't.

I've just added a video regarding post workout recovery techniques

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=18221

By the way, Grace is 40!  See what happens when you take care of yourself??