Rountree - The athletes guide to recovery : rest, relax, and restore for peak performance

The Athletes Guide to Recovery is part of the Athletes Guide series.

Copyright 2011 by Sage Rountree

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by VeloPress, a division of Competitor Group, Inc.

3002 Sterling Circle, Suite 100

Boulder, Colorado 80301-2338 USA

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Distributed in the United States and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Rountree, Sage Hamilton.

The athletes guide to recovery: rest, relax, and restore for peak performance / by Sage Rountree.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-934030-67-7 (pbk.: alk. paper); ISBN 978-1-937716-38-7 (e-book)

1. Sports injuries. 2. AthletesPhysiology. 3. Physical fitness. 4. Sports medicine. I. Title.

RD97.R68 2011

617.1027dc22

2010053410

For information on purchasing VeloPress books, please call (800) 811-4210 ext. 2138 or visit www.velopress.com.

Cover design by Erin Johnson

Cover photograph and by Tim De Frisco

Figures and gauges by Charlie Layton

Photographs courtesy of the following: by Steve Clarke; props courtesy of Trigger Point.

Version 3.1

To Wes, Lily, and Vivian

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.

HIPPOCRATES

Training = stress + rest. The most important component
of this equation is rest, but no one is going to get rich
writing a triathlon book about rest.

TOM RODGERS, THE PERFECT DISTANCE

Contents

ENDURANCE SPORTS are about testing the limits. You work your body to a breaking point, then step away from the brink, let the work absorb, and repeat. It sounds simple, but the process is not clear-cut. Where is that breaking point? Its a moving target, varying from athlete to athlete, year to year, month to month, and sometimes even day to day. How long does absorption take? Again, its hard to tell. Rest too much and you miss out on gains that could mean the difference between fulfilling your potential and falling flat. Rest too little and you drive your performance into a downward spiral that can take days, weeks, months, or years to mitigate. The key is finding the balance between working enough and resting enough, and thats what this book will help you do. Following the recovery tools laid out here, youll figure out how to achieve your optimal balance.

As an athlete, Ive pushed the limits myself. I ran myself intoand beyonda tibial stress fracture, and then, to avoid losing too much fitness, I spent many long runs churning circles in the deep end of the pool. I overachieved on a field test to measure my lactate threshold and wound up spending a four-month block training for a marathon with my heart rate zones skewed almost 10 beats too high, so that all the work that was supposed to be performed just below my lactate threshold was actually redlining me. Ive been so deep in fatigue during Ironman training that I desperately looked forward to a teeth cleaning, because Id get to lie down in the dentists chair. I understand how tough it can be to take the time for recovery, even when its really in my best interest.

As a coach, I have a more objective view. Much of my work is instructing my athletes to take it easy, building rest days, rest weeks, and rest months into training schedules. I spend much more time assuring my athletes that missing a workout is OK than pushing them to get things done. From reading logs and talking to my athletes, I can see when the edges start to fray, and I can pull their training back so they can absorb the hard work before returning to intense workouts.

As a yoga teacher, I know the benefits of rest, relaxation, lying down, and breathing. As I tell my students, going into a deep expression of a yoga pose isnt the path to enlightenment. But knowing when not to work deeper may help you down the path, because it shows self-awareness and an acceptance of what is going on in your body moment to moment. This self-knowledge is critical for success in sports and in life, and you can develop it by using the recovery tools outlined in this book. Some of them come from yoga, many more come from sports science, and all of them are proven time and again in athletes bodies.

This book gives you the tools for learning about your own body and its optimal conditions for recovery, so that you can reach peak performance while feeling balanced and content with your sport and your life. In , well examine the psychological and physiological processes involved in recovery to see its vital importance in training, and well see what can go wrong when recovery is insufficient and an athlete moves into overtraining. Youll learn ways to measure your own state of recovery, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and well look at some general guidelines for returning to training after injury or illness.

gives you concrete, proven techniques to enhance your recovery and improve performance. They cover everything from stress-reduction tips to nutrition and supplements to technological aids and massage. Youll also learn some very simple poses, breathing exercises, and meditation techniques to enhance your recovery and your overall health. To help guide you through, each chapter in this part begins with Sages Gauge, a visual representation of how much time, money, and confidence you can expect to invest in these recovery modalities. Some of the most powerful aids are freesleeping more, stressing less, and taking the time for self-care.

shows you how to put it all together, demonstrating various plans for recovery from training for and competing in events of all types, from short-distance bike races to ultramarathons. These chapters will give you a starting point from which to develop your own routines, based on how your body responds to the various techniques. Using the modalities described here, youll improve the speed and quality of your recovery, hit peak performance, and grow more balanced, happy, and successful in your sport and your life.

THE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK came to me in a flash as I enjoyed a restorative yoga class led by Susan Hutton. Susan, while I didnt have my mind as blank as I might have, I certainly appreciated the space for insight; thank you. Wes Rountree, my companion in that class and in life, helped not only in myriad intangible ways but also using his skills with Excel programming and helping me understand statistics.

Research for this book was a joy. In the dozens of in-person, phone, and e-mail interviews I conducted, I learned more than I could ever fit into one book. Im deeply grateful to everyone who spoke with me, and especially to those who demonstrated how powerful working in a field you love passionately can be. These include, in alphabetical order, Pat Archer, Brian Beatty, Annette Bednosky, Ben Benjamin, Dave Berkoff, Gale Bernhardt, Chris Bohannon, Jeff Brown, Gordo Byrn, Steven Cole, Bernard Condevaux, Kristen Dieffenbach, Matt Dixon, Jamie Donaldson, Andy Doyle, Evie Edwards, Charlie Engle, Reed Ferber, Shalane Flanagan, Carl Foster, Joe Friel, James Green, Kate Hays, Jeff Hunt, Gilad Jacobs, Nate Jenkins, Marc Jeuland, Leah Kangas, Jay T. Kearney, Kristin Keim, Michael Kellmann, Gran Kentt, Nikki Kimball, Thomas Laffont, Carolyn Levy, Amanda Lovato, Joan Nesbit Mabe, Peter Magill, Alex McDonald, Stephen McGregor, Greg McMillan, Tera Moody, Jack Raglin, Mike Ricci, Tom Rodgers, Hal Rosenberg, Monique Ryan, Bill Sands, Bob Seebohar, Stephen Seiler, Kami Semick, Todd Straka, Keith Straw, Jennifer Van Allen, Sue Walsh, Michael Wardian, Peter Watson, Matthew Weatherley-White, and Marvin Zauderer.