When training hard and frequently we know that it’s virtually impossible to progress without giving ourselves adequate time for recovery. Managing recovery on a short and long-term basis is important if we want to see results. But what does recovery mean and how important is it? Let’s look at the different factors that impact recovery and how we can better facilitate recovery so that our performance and progress isn’t negatively impacted by fatigue over time. The first part of this post will address the importance of nutrition and sleep. The second part will look at training volume and methods for recovery.
Recovery, in terms of training, means that individuals who undergo training require enough time to recuperate between exercises and between training days. Therefore, recovery includes nutrition, different methods for recovery and sleep. Without adequate recovery, fatigue increases and performance decreases thus impacting muscle gain and fat loss. This highlights the need for adequate rest, managing training volume and ensuring you’re getting proper nutrition on training and rest days. Furthermore, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is often thought of as an indicator of muscle damage however, soreness doesn’t always indicate muscle damage and vice versa. Simply doing exercises you’re not usually accustomed to or targeting the muscle differently can also cause soreness without necessarily causing muscle growth. Thus, it becomes important to periodize your training and incorporate deload weeks (a week of reduced training volume after a certain amount of consistent training weeks) so that your training and progress isn’t negatively impacted by sudden bouts of fatigue and stress.
The importance of Rest
When training a muscle group, 2 to 3 times per week is usually the minimum frequency that facilitates enough volume to induce muscle growth and allow for enough rest. Therefore, rest days are days between training days that allow you to recover and how well you recover indicates how much you can progress. Proper nutrition and sleep on rest days is just as important as those on training days, if not more. This means getting enough food in relation to your goals, including adequate protein, as well as a minimum of eight hours of sleep per night can help muscle growth. On the other hand, not incorporating adequate recovery management can decrease performance and increase the risk of injury. It can also impact stress hormones thus slowing down rate of progress. Additionally, how well you recover and the speed of recovery also depends on your age, sex, how long you’ve been training, the exercises done and whether you’re in a gaining or fat loss phase.
Nutrition and Sleep
When it comes to diet there should be some room for flexibility concerning macronutrients and the tools that you use to get to your calories. Even though you may have less flexibility in a calorie deficit the range of tools you use can make life a bit easier, whether this means calorie cycling, intermittent fasting or carb cycling. I bring this up because some individuals encourage the idea they should have different calories on rest days and training days, which means calories on training days and decreasing calories on rest days. However, this may have implications for recovery and may complicate calorie tracking since there are a lot more mechanisms at play that influence our calorie intake and expenditure. Furthermore, when in a fat loss phase, being in a consistent calorie deficit will make it easier to measure your progress, although your recovery will be slower you’ll still be able to recover with a slightly reduced volume. Alternatively, being in a gaining phase means that on your rest days you have a greater opportunity to get the calories you need to recover and to facilitate muscle growth as well as to support your daily activities. It also means having enough food to fuel your next workout since your energy levels will also improve.
In terms of macronutrient ratios having enough protein during rest days and training days ensures that your protein intake is enough to facilitate muscle growth. This is usually around 0.8 g/lb to 1.5 g/lb per pound of bodyweight. Additionally, carbohydrates and fat intake depends on your individual preferences but the overall calorie intake should fall within a range of your calorie targets.
Furthermore, sleep is a huge part of recovery since it helps reduce stress hormones, blood pressure and any accumulated fatigue. It also plays an important part in muscle building and fat loss. On the other hand, not getting enough sleep can result in muscle loss and can negatively impact recovery and performance. Although recommendations suggest a minimum of eight hours of good quality sleep per night not many people are able to get those eight hours. Therefore, trying to sleep earlier, having a few hours of extra sleep on the weekends or incorporating power naps can make a significant difference in your progress.
In the next part we’ll look at the different methods of recovery and how our training volume and frequency is impacted by recovery.
Marie
Dattilo, M., Antunes, H., Medeiros, A., Neto, M. M., Souza, H., Tufik, S., & Mello, M. D. (2011). Sleep and muscle recovery: Endocrinological and molecular basis for a new and promising hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses, 77(2), 220-222. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2011.04.017
Vyazovskiy, V. (2015). Sleep, recovery, and metaregulation: Explaining the benefits of sleep. Nature and Science of Sleep, 171. doi:10.2147/nss.s54036
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