RECOVERY SESSION: THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

Here’s a dilemma we face as performance-oriented athletes: We cannot conduct every swim, bike and run workout as a high-intensity fast-paced interval session and expect to sustain and enjoy a healthy athletic lifestyle.  Recovery and adaptation are just as essential in our quest for athletic performance as is the stress we induce during our breakthrough sessions.  We have two alternatives: First, lie on the couch and refrain from any form of exercise until we have recovered and adapted sufficiently to “hammer” again.  The second alternative is to conduct low-intensity training sessions that actually accelerate the recovery process.

We usually associate the term “low-intensity recovery session” with “junk miles”.  However, as performance-oriented triathletes, we strive to maximize our investment of training time and energy – “junk” is simply not in our vocabulary.  Our recovery session presents us with three extremely valuable opportunities to maximize the recovery-adaptation phase of the training cycle.  These are: metabolic and muscular recovery, neuro-specific training and approach development.

Metabolic and Muscular Recovery:  Engaging the muscular and metabolic systems through gentle, low intensity training accelerates recovery and adaptation by promoting circulation of blood and oxygen to remove lactic acid and toxic residues built up from that last breakthrough session.  (Using a heart rate monitor can help the “Type A’s” among us to ensure that we don’t turn this gentle session into yet another hammerfest… Oh no, not me.)  Swimming and biking may be more effective for this active recovery process than running – especially for older athletes – by minimizing the stresses of weight-bearing and impact.  This “escape from gravity” means we can be kinetically active with minimal stress on the cardiovascular, muscular and skeletal systems.  Active recovery also keeps those “feel-good” chemicals flowing so we don’t crash and get grouchy.

When our training program calls for active recovery, does this mean we shift into “auto pilot” for 30-40 minutes, let the mind wander and simply go through the motions – ala “junk miles”?  We can turn our recovery session into a…

Golden Opportunity:  If you’ve read previous entries of this column, this may seem redundant, but it is oh-so-important: We train three primary anatomical systems – the muscular, metabolic and neurologic.  As we train, the muscular responds and improves the least of the three, although we are convinced this is the one we should focus on for improving athletic performance.  It is actually the neurologic that responds and improves the most – yet how much of our training strategy specifically addresses this system?  Herein lies the golden opportunity: We can transform our active recovery session into a neuro-specific training session.  This is the perfect time to concentrate on sport-specific drills – swim technique drills, and cycling skills like single-leg circles, ankling, smooth circular pedaling, along with balancing and blending skills like “bicycle Tai chi” (described in the ______ entry of this column).

During the recovery session, we are not preoccupied with quantifiable output – other than keeping the intensity level low.  Instead, we can devote our time, energy and focus to improving our technique.  The purpose for sport-specific drills is to improve and perfect our swim-bike-run form for greater efficiency, grace and economy.  Ultimately this improvement translates to increased speed and endurance with less effort.  (C’mon tri-geeks, isn’t that really what we want for Christmas?)

Here are a few pointers for getting the most out of these sessions: First and foremost, relax!  Physical and mental relaxation are paramount to nurturing proprioception and coordination – the two essential elements we want to develop through skills drills.  As you practice specific drills, take frequent breaks.  Pause, recompose your mental focus, allow your neuro-system to recover, as it processes and integrates each repetition.  Be clear about precisely what you are working on and envision how this will perfect your technique.  Keep the drills basic, so that you work on just one or two elements at a time.  Complicated tasks will overwhelm your neuro-system, retard your improvement and reinforce the very same inefficiencies you wish to transform.  Hey, this is a recovery session – take it easy!  Conduct your recovery-neuro-training sessions alone, in calm and familiar surroundings that support your inward focus.

Inward focus?  We are specifically training neuro-muscular coordination and proprioception.  This neuro-component is the interface between body and mind hence it requires a clear and undistracted mind.  If the mind is unsettled and that “little voice” is spewing forth endless commentary about this, that and the other thing, we have slipped into “auto-pilot”.  No longer are we yielding the most for our investment.  This brings us to the third opportunity for maximizing the recovery-adaptation phase of our training cycle.

Approach:  Very little has been said about this crucial element – crucial to both training and racing – yet our approach largely determines the quality of our experience and has significant bearing on our performance.  Perhaps you have arrived at the starting line of a goal race overwhelmed with anxiety and panic.  You slept horribly, your stomach was in knots, your body was stiff and cramped and you forgot some vital piece of gear.  (Isn’t racing supposed to be fun?)  A state of panic and anxiety is no way to approach a race you have spent months, perhaps years, training for.  Well, here’s the good news: As you train for your next race, each recovery session provides you with the perfect golden opportunity to develop a calm, empowering approach.  With practice, you can carry this calm and centered state to the starting line of every race.

What do we mean by “approach”?  Why does our approach have such a significant bearing on our performance?  “Approach” is our composite physical, mental and emotional attitude towards the workout/race we are about to undertake, and the way we prepare for it.  Ask yourself right now, “How do I typically prepare for and go into my training sessions?”  Is your brain usually buzzing with stress and commentary about work, your relationships, an upcoming race or the remaining items on your “To Do” list?  Are you actually conscious of lacing your shoes or pumping up your tires and checking the condition of your bike?

We all know that effective performance-oriented training is a cycle of stress, recovery and adaptation.  Like it or not, all forms of stress play into this cycle – all forms.  If we have absolutely no control over our minds, and they are entangled in an endless cycle of stress, then our physiological recovery and adaptation is impaired.  We are not improving our athletic performance or assuring our overall health as effectively as we can.  The recovery session provides a golden opportunity to transform this debilitating condition.

Make a clear choice to include approach development as part of each recovery training session.  If you allot 60 minutes for the session, spend the first 15 minutes very consciously preparing.  (Record this 15-minute approach time as part of your actual training in your log, to affirm its value in performance-oriented training.)  Be slow, methodical and patient in your preparation.  Be thorough and meticulous as you shower and change before swimming, as you check your bike over, as you lace your shoes before running.  Spend at least 5 minutes of this time sitting still, with your eyes closed, breathing slow and deep through your nose, with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, just above the gum line of your front teeth.  (This tongue placement is an ancient technique that helps to ground and calm the mind.)

Conclude this (minimum) 5-minute process of calming and clearing your mind by acknowledging how very fortunate you are to train and race.  Be grateful for your health, wealth, family and freedom – all the elements in your life that support your incredible athletic dream.  Now you may begin your training session with joy and happiness!  Practicing this relaxed and positive approach in your training will yield great benefits on race day. Gratitude and appreciation are very powerful allies in the face of fear and anxiety.  If we imprint these attitudes as we approach our training sessions, they will be much more familiar and accessible at the starting line of the big race.  Native Americans would often affirm their gratitude before a battle with, “It is a good day to die.”

It’s best to conduct this calming and centering process in the privacy of your car or home, before you set out on the road or enter the gym.  When you conclude this short meditation, you have two important objectives during the recovery session: 1) Continuously sustain slow, deep conscious breathing throughout the session.  2) Feel gratitude and joy for this wonderful activity you are engaged in.  Give yourself permission to really enjoy moving your body, rather than approaching this session as just another obligation to be performed and crossed off the list.

Spend the first 5-10 minutes of your actual workout at a pace that is absolutely effortless – one that seems ridiculously slow.  Swim, bike or run as gracefully, efficiently and smoothly as you can – as though you do not want to increase your breathing or your heart rate above a resting pulse.  Completely engage your sense of feeling – really feel what its like to swim, bike or run, as though this is the very last time you will ever have the opportunity to do this activity.  Feel every cell in your body engaged in this demonstration of perfect technique.  Make each recovery session a sensuous one.

A Few Pointers for developing the mental clarity and inner focus that will help you to be 100% present and feeling in your body:  To encourage a sense of deep relaxation, refrain from using caffeine during recovery workouts.  It’s OK to feel slow and relaxed (even sluggish)!  Learn to create sharp mental clarity without the caffeine, and how to couple that to a relaxed body instead of one “on edge”.  As mentioned above, this is not a social affair – train in solitude so you can go within. Choose a calm and familiar training course.  Be very aware of each and every breath.  At such an effortless easy pace, your breath can be slow and deep as you bike and run.  Let the rhythm of your breath harmonize with the cadence of your pedal strokes and running strides.  Breath every three swim strokes instead of two – bipolar breathing.  Minimize your stroke count and maximize glide time.

Coupled with the 15-minute “clear-your-mind” approach/preparation described above, this leisurely 10-15 minutes of effortless, graceful and perfect technique with slow deep breathing calms and prepares our neurological system for optimal integration of sport-specific technique drills.  Remember, the nervous system is part body and part brain.  This neuro-system must be clear, calm and relaxed at both ends (body and mind) to effectively improve our swim-bike-run form and technique.

Carry-over:  Fulfilling our golden opportunity does more than improve our grace, economy, efficiency and speed.  As we conduct these training sessions in a thoroughly calm and relaxed state, we imprint both our bodies and our brains with this serenity.  It begins to carryover into all of our training and racing experiences.  With practice, we experience more clarity and serenity even at high levels of intensity.  Our swim-bike-run form doesn’t fall apart as easily when we push hard and our perceived level of exertion is lower.

During your interval training sessions, to aide in this carry over, begin to focus as much on the short recovery intervals as you do on the work intervals.  Recall and recapture that effortless, relaxed feeling from your full-on recovery sessions as you recover between work intervals.  Strive to keep that serenity as you commence each new work interval.  Relax your hands, arms and facial muscles.

In the Zendurance approach to training and racing, we have a powerful slogan: “Mind in matter.”  Mind in matter creates the strongest possible neuro-system. This union is the essence of kinetic intelligence – of grace, efficiency and economy.  As we engage our minds completely in our bodies, we can transform any endurance sport into an effortless, sensuous activity, a “dance” of harmony.  We can enter the “zone” – that state of being where we feel at peace with the world, where our physical, mental and emotional aspects find balance and inseparable union.  In this calm and heightened state, we are each capable of incredible feats of endurance.

Every recovery session offers a golden opportunity to develop and perfect your ability to enter the zone.  Extraordinary athletic performances require more than high levels of exertion.  We must tap into the infinite potential that lies within this mysterious zone.  As you explore and develop your unique approach to training and racing, the zone will become a much more familiar and accessible “landscape” – yet, like a wilderness, it will always retain an element of mystery and magic.  Enjoy the exploration!

This essay originally appeared in Hammer Nutrition Endurance News #59.