Systematic Recovery and Regeneration Guidelines

Systematic Recovery and Regeneration Plan Within a Training and Competition Program

Practical Guidelines:

Always strive to maintain a basic level of health.

Eat wisely, eat enough & ensure adequate hydration

Restoration of energy and water stores before and after training and competition should be a major priority.

Little evidence for vast majority of ‘supplements / ergogenics’.

Supplementation is not an excuse for a poor diet or unwise nutritional practices.

Rest, recovery & regeneration periods should be planned as integral parts of the training & competition program.

At least one full day per week should be assigned to passive recovery.

Allow for full recovery every season

Allow for a 1 – 3 regen days within periodization

Every season there should be a more extended period of planned regeneration.  Typically, 5 – 10 days … some of which will be passive in nature.

Keep a training diary; track VOLUME & INTENSITY.  (mins, hours, metres, km / HR, RPE, own scale), plus other indices (criterion measures, bdw, HRrest etc)

Attempt to ‘individualize’ the training schedule & load; do not blindly follow some ‘famous’ athlete’s regime!

Establish a sound history of basic training involving a critical mass of low intensity training prior to attempting to increase the % of high intensity interval training within a given program.

Monitor the easy / light training sessions / days as carefully as you would the hard / intense ones.

Limiting the number of really intense training sessions to 3 - 4  per 7 – 10 day cycle depending on the athlete and period of year.