Recovery

Triathlon training is not all about working hard.

We need to build in some time where we recover from our hard efforts, allowing us to ‘absorb the fitness’.

If you have ever tried to push hard on every session, day after day, for more than a few days, a week, or even longer, you will know that it is just not sustainable. You will fatigue, you will hurt, you will not improve, and you may even injure yourself. In the short term you may improve a little, but as fatigue catches up with you, your ability to push hard diminishes.

You need some recovery.

When thinking about recovery, and ‘freshening up’, think about …

Recovery Sets

In our swim sessions for example, we may want to do some hard intervals throughout a 90 minute session. We often sprinkle some recovery sets into the session to keep us ‘fresh’ and able to do more work overall.

Recovery Sessions

Each training week is made up of a series of sessions. Some are really hard, and ask you to push yourself, others are about recovery. What we did yesterday impacts on our ability to perform today. If we have a key interval session to do in the week, we may include a lighter session the day before so we are ‘fresh’ and ready to perform in our key session.

Recovery Days

Some athletes have days off training each week. This is to avoid fatigue and give ourselves a chance to recover properly. The older we get and the more high intensity work we do, the more we need these recovery days!

Recovery Weeks

These are ‘lighter weeks’ in the training block. We often design training blocks whereby we build for three weeks – so three weeks of strong sessions (including recovery days), followed by a lighter ‘recovery week’. This allows us to shed some of the fatigue that we’ve built in the previous three weeks. We can design these as 3 work : 1 recovery, 2 work : 1 recovery, 2.5 work : 0.5 recovery etc.

Recovery Blocks

We sometimes use recovery blocks too. This could be where an athlete starts their season early and finishes it late in the year. A six month, full-on training programme can be a bit much. Instead, we include a short recovery block (i.e. two weeks) to effectively split the season. Two weeks of light training to freshen up, before going again and attacking the second half of the season.

Other Things To Think About

When thinking about recovery, it is not just about training volume and training intensity. We also need to think about:

• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Other stress (work / life)

We’ll explore these in more detail later on.

In short, recovery is the tool that enables the hard work, that facilitates the improvements and that prolongs our life in the sport!