Recovery Principle in Sports Training

Sports science has long recognised the importance of proper recovery in sports training (Barnett, 2006), and achieving the right balance between the stresses of training and recovery is a crucial part of achieving maximum athletic performance.

Training affects many body systems, including cardiovascular, neuromuscular, metabolic, endocrine, and immune, and it is important that each of these is allowed to recover before subjecting them the further stress; achieving this is the basis of the recovery principal in sports training.

All optimal training programmes will take account of the physiological recovery processes. Not only will this protect the athlete from over-training, when properly implemented it is also possible to achieve higher training intensities and volumes than would otherwise be possible. Every athlete is and individual and there is always significant variability across recovery processes, and it is a role of your sports coach to design a recovery regimen tailored to your specific needs.

Recovery Processes

There are three stages to recovery (Bishop, Jones, & Woods, 2008):
• Immediate recovery between exertions
• Short term recovery between repeating exertions
• Training recovery between training sessions
To an extent all three are related. While the first two of these are also vital, the rest of this article will focus mainly on the third. In terms of training recovery there are several key areas from which an athlete needs to recover:

 

Reduction of substrates

High intensity exercise can increase the rate of demand by ATP by three orders of magnitude, and to keep the muscles working this must be supplied at an equivalent rate. The systems that can replace ATP are phosphagen, glycolytic, and mitochondrial respiration, and each of these use different substrates, produce different metabolites, and have different ATP regeneration capacities and rates. The response of these systems is co-ordinated, with each contributing according to the intensity and duration of the exercise (Baker, McCormick, & Robergs, 2010).

• Phosphagen system – this has the highest APT regeneration rate, and works by converting creatine phosphate to ATP by the enzyme creatine kinase. When high intensity exercise increases the demand on ATP, it can be made available immediately.
• Glycolysis – this provides ATP at a rate between that of the phosphagen system and mitochondrial respiration. The process involves the conversion of muscle glycogen and blood glucose to lactate or pyruvate.
• Mitochondrial respiration – this is the slowest ATP regeneration process and is a multi-stage process in which macronutrients are aerobically converted to ATP.

It is important to emphasise that each of these systems is the optimal pathway for providing energy for different kinds activity, though they all make a contribution which may be sequential or operate in parallel. The first two can respond immediately, but have a limited capacity, while the aerobic mitochondrial respiration can respond quickly at the start of exercise, its rate is too slow to support prolonged intense activity. Recovery involves rebuilding these substrate stores.

Metabolic by-products

The phosphagen and glycolysis processes described above lead to high cellular lactate and hydrogen ion concentrations (acidosis) with the result that the re-synthesis of ATP and skeletal muscle contraction are impaired. The increased acidity of the cells also impairs the restoration of creatine phosphate and inhibits the function of key enzymes, thus recovery from acidosis must occur before these two key processes can be fully restored (Bishop, Girard, & Mendez-Villanueva, 2011).

Muscle damage

Muscle damage leads to pain and soreness that inhibits further training and competition, and can also impair the transportation of glucose from the blood to the muscle cells. It is vital that recovery from muscle damage is achieved prior to taking on further training.

Improving Recovery

The recovery principle requires that specific training strategies should be devised that will expedite recovery, and that these are often specific to individual athletes. There are, however, several approaches that tend to be beneficial generally.

Active or Passive recovery

Considerable research has been undertaken on the relative benefits of passive and active recovery, and the results are somewhat contradictory, though currently the favoured approach is active. This will, however, vary according to the kind of sport and the individual athlete.

Maximal oxygen uptake

Also known as VO2max, an athlete’s maximal oxygen uptake is important in endurance sports, though it is also important in recovery. Athletes with higher VO2max can replenish their phosphocreatine levels significantly faster and so recover more rapidly (Bishop, Girard, & Mendez-Villanueva, 2011).

Muscle buffering

As described previously, acidosis plays an important role in the impairment of muscle function. However, acidosis can be buffered by muscle cells, and the greater the capacity to buffer, the higher levels of hydrogen ions can be tolerated. The buffering ability of muscles can be enhanced with the correct training, again leading to faster recovery times.

Monocarboxylate Transporters

Monocarboxylate transporters (MCT) play an important role in reducing cellular lactate and hydrogen ion levels, so a higher level of MCT results in faster recovery. Concentrations of MCT can be increased by appropriate exercise (Bishop, Jones, & Woods, 2008).

 

Finally

Recovery from training is a vital component in improving athletic performance. While many recovery strategies have proven effective, there is no magic bullet as the optimum strategy probably depends on the individual athlete, the level of sport and, in case of competitive sport, the progression of the season. Good coaches are able to optimise recovery strategies for individual athletes, so this should always be your major port of call.

 

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References

Baker, J., McCormick, M., & Robergs, R. (2010). Interaction among Skeletal Muscle Metabolic Energy Systems during Intense Exercise. Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism.
Barnett, A. (2006, September). Using Recovery Modalities between Training Sessions in Elite Athletes. Sports Medicine, 781-796.
Bishop, D., Girard, O., & Mendez-Villanueva, A. (2011). Repeated-sprint ability–part II: Recommendations for training. Sports Medicine, 4, 741–756.
Bishop, P., Jones, E., & Woods, A. (2008). Recovery from training: a brief review. J Strength Cond Res., 1015-24.