When are you training? How easy should an easy day be? In this article, we discuss how to gauge your efforts for the most benefit in your training
We’ve all heard the stories of the monster training sessions a friend/competitor/pro athlete has done, and I have no doubt we have all been on the receiving end of one of these monster sessions. When you finally get home, fall on to the sofa and refuse to contribute to society for the next few hours/days/weeks. This is great. This is training! If I train harder than my competition, I will surely beat them, won’t I? Train harder, longer and faster, and I will crush the opposition!
What if I told you that working hard in training is not conducive to great performance. What if I told you that training smarter rather than training harder would get you where you want to be? Hard sessions indeed push you to improve, but the gains aren’t made in the pool, on the road or the track. They are made in the bedroom (not how you are thinking!) Recovery!
When we train hard, we break down our muscles, and when we rest, they repair and come back stronger, so we can perform better next time. However, if we constantly batter our muscles and don’t allow them the time to repair, we end up going backwards and just breaking down muscle for the sake of it. But, hang on, this whole article is about training easy. Yes, and this is where easy workouts come into the mix. As a well-trained triathlete, just resting will give you some excellent benefits; however, throwing in some recovery workouts will benefit you even more. These need to be easy, and I mean elementary; they can’t stress the body; otherwise, all that hard work from the previous workout will take longer to be seen or worse, you could start down the road to overtraining.
Recovery workouts should be done at a level where it doesn’t feel like work PWRZ 1 or HRZ1 RPE of around 2-3 anything more than this, and it is just too hard. If in doubt, go easier. These workouts can focus on skills and drills in the pool or on the bike, and I would recommend them being on the turbo so the intensity can be controlled. I would also recommend that running is avoided as a recovery workout. It is just too stressful on the body, even at a low pace/heart rate. Alternatively, you could go for a walk or a hike if you really don’t want to touch the bike or swim, again making sure you don’t tax the body too much.
In summary, recovery as a well-trained athlete doesn’t need to be complete rest; active recovery is fine. So long as it is easy! If in doubt, go easier and no running for recovery.
Keep training, keeping improving and keep having fun!
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