Simple right? Recover, ok stop training and rest.
Well, this is great in theory but also it is important to consider what key variables will directly influence what we call the "recovery process" and identify how, when and why these can be manipulated to enhance your performance and health to ultimately achieve your intended goals in a sustainable way.
There are different types of fatigue that should be differentiated that will help to understand how to better deal with it.
First of all and the most common and clear is 'Muscle Tissue Damage'. The tears we create during strenuous repeated movements, that create the sensation called DOMS (Delayed onset of muscle soreness). This is expected during intense workouts especially training that imposes high volume and more time under tension during the eccentric phase when the muscle is lengthening directly creating these small tears in the muscle cells.
Central Nervous System (CNS) fatigue - This can be often masked by many other lifestyle variables such as sleeping routine, caffeine, daily activity and stress levels. An unbalanced management process of such variable in addition to higher intensity training is a recipe for burn out. Often this can take some time to recover from correctly and goes beyond the sensation of muscle tissue damage. Other symptoms will include reduced performance, frequent poor mood, weight changes, high resting heart rate, poor concentration, headaches, lethargy, lack of motivation and 'heaviness' during simple daily movements.
In order to prevent this, let's take a look at how we can train and balance lifestyle to optimise progress and health!
TRAINING VOLUME / FREQUENCY / INTENSITY AND PROGRAM STRUCTURE - Balancing rest days, easy days and higher intensity days accordingly to preventing excessive overload and DOMS that prevents you from consistent routine or impacting you day to day life. Using a taper week, every 4th week during a training program whereby volume and intensity is reduce by approximately 20% to allow for the body to maintain a stimulus for progress whilst being manageable to prevent excessive fatigue and stress on the body that can lead towards multiple of the above symptoms.
SLEEP - Ensuring that we optimise hygiene, creating consistent sleep and wake times and ensuring that the best window of opportunity to experience a duration of 8-9 hours per night to allow for growth, repair and cognitive benefits.
NUTRITION QUALITY - The type of food you consume, will influence the repair, growth and maintenance of muscle tissue in addition to sustaining bodily functions and providing necessary energy for training and lifestyle to optimise results and body composition. The main point is to also maintain adequate levels of mental health, whereby eating habits are sustainable, balanced and varied for macronutrient and micronutrient density!
SUPPLEMENTS - If you are unable to consume adequate levels of nutrients, such as daily protein in take and certain vitamins then they can be an excellent way to facilitate with nutrient balance for health and performance. It is a great idea to get a blood test before starting any training program to identify if there are existing deficiencies or nutrients you would benefit from consuming.
TOTAL STRESS MANAGEMENT - Avoiding habits that are detrimental towards health and recovery such as alcohol consumption, smoking and consuming junk food and processed goods. This will accumulate existing fatigue within the body and mind, impacting sleep, energy levels and hormone balance such as insulin that can lead toward chronic disease and the likelihood of become ill or injured.
TAKE HOME:
If you know that you're under high work loads, training hard, eating poorly, extremely busy, sleep deprived and the consuming junk and alcohol frequently you must consider the balance of training with your lifestyle and seek to improve such areas that may be compromising your existing energy levels, training, eating habits and mental health.
It also also important to establish the difference between over-trained and being under-recovered where the symptoms of being physically burnt out are more likely.
Often the perception of soreness is far from something that is going to stop you in your tracks from progress and is inevitable during training programs where we aim to increase volume and intensity over time if the management of all variables are under control! So don't shy away from hard work.
If you feel like you've been experience a rollercoaster or stuck in a cycle whereby you're often feeling run down or the lack of balance within your lifestyle is holding you back, get in touch for some coaching to re-establish your strategy!
KD.
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