A hard workout has you a little sore—or a lot! An extended training program may affect your overall performance levels through fatigue! From following some simple strategies and tips, you will be able to recover quicker and hit them goals!
This article will briefly explain factors that contribute to the quality of recovery and how specific techniques may reduce your recovery time.
DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) refers to acute muscular soreness which generally occurs after strenuous activity. It starts to develop over a period of 12-24 hours with maximum pain peaking between 24-72 hours. Full recovery of strength and power from a resistance based training session that has caused DOMS can potential take several days to fully recover (Cheung et al., 2003). Therefore, a progressive ongoing training program may affect an athlete’s goal due to the occurrence of DOMS. Modalities that enhance the rate of recovery from DOMS and exercise-induced muscle damage may increase the beneficial effects of a taper week for athletes (Meur et al., 2012).
Literature claims that an athletes Creatine Kinase concentration increasingly develops in the first 24 h post exercise with peak levels reaching at 24 hours before reducing again. It is said that 60h post exercise, creatine kinase concentration is fully recovered (Oxendale et al., 2015). For some athletes this may suggest that they are training when their bodies have still not fully recovered from a previous game and competition. Furthermore, this will potentially have an effect on performance levels and further fatigue levels.
A poor recovery can prevent individuals from working at full efforts in future training sessions, work intensity, muscular strength, muscle gain, hormone levels and exercise recovery. As a recovery strategy, I will provide information about ‘Tapering’ or ‘Deloading’ which can be implementing into a training program.
Deload Weeks
After days in and days out, weeks in and weeks out, you may notice fatigue in your bodies function, hitting a serious plateau or a decrease in performance. The importance of periodization – micro, meso and macro cycles allows a coach to plan and implement correct volume training sessions throughout an athlete’s career. This is to promote reduce risk of injury and prevent the chances of overtraining (Bennett, 2015).
A ‘deload‘ week is introduced to allow effective recovery of protein synthesis within the musculoskeletal system and the central nervous system, also known as ‘tapering‘. This rest period can promote continuous progression and decreases the risk of injury. It should be greatly considered when strengthening and conditioning the body, however when designing a tapering period for an individual it is important to personally design the program for the athletes needs and goals. Literature has shown that the duration of a taper period can have an effect on fatigue and performance. Bosquet et al. (2007) stated that a taper duration of 8 to 14 days seems to be the maximum taper duration before there is a negative influence on fatigue and performance levels. Despite this, taper weeks for as long as 4 weeks have shown positive effects on performance and fatigue but other athletes may respond negatively from these duration periods.
An example of deloading:
- Decrease the number of sets and reps for each exercise
- Decrease the weight load
- Increase the rest periods
- Decrease the number of training days/week
- Decrease the time of eccentric loading, the slower the contraction, the more tension is produced on the muscular system.
How to calculate volume load – number of repetitions x number of sets x load lifted (Peterson et al., 2011).
Designing a programme which involves the volume load within a training meso-cycle period is demonstrated as below.
Week 1: medium-high volume (starting new lifts)
Week 2: medium volume (slight recovery from week 1)
Week 3: high volume (challenging week)
Week 4: low volume (deload week) Week 5 and beyond: repeat the cycle
Bergeron (2015)
Quality of Sleep
There are many others strategies that can be adopted to help improve recovery. There have been links between quality of sleep and athletic performance and efficient recovery.
The relationship of quality of sleep to post-exercise recovery and athletic performance is a growing topic and recent scientific evidence states that sleep factors such as; sleep deprivation, poor quality of sleep and interference in the circadian rhythm may be a key attribute that causes a slower recovery and a decrease in athletic performance (Samuels, 2009).
The effects of sleep deprivation have been found to affect the state of the mood of an athlete, including confusion and increased fatigue during a power lifting training. Oliver et al. (2009) discussed that 24 hours of sleep deprivation has shown a reduction in endurance running performance. 30 hour sleep deprivation has shown a decrease in anaerobic performance and furthermore, a longer sleep deprivation timeframe reduces muscle glycogen content, reduced voluntary activation and therefore increasing the chances of a potential muscular strain (Skein et al., 2011). In this instance, this provides evidence that lack of sleep is positively correlated with performance and recovery. The less sleep we receive, the more our performance will decline and the longer it will take us to recover.
If you’re sleeping pattern is abnormal, this will cause your cortisol levels to increase (due to the lack of sleep) which will lower testosterone and HGH levels. If these particular hormones are not in the right balance, you will not receive the maximal benefits from your workout and could be detrimental to increased risk of injury, decreased performance levels and insufficient recovery. Therefore the importance of rest is absolutely crucial for effective recovery! Erlacher et al. (2011) proposed disturbances in sleep occurs prior to important competitions and during normal training. These were an effect of poor sleeping habits such as watching television in bed, caffeine use and excessive thinking or worrying.
Overall, whilst trying to maximise performance and recovery you must consider all aspects (intrinsic and extrinsic) factors that can cause/trigger injury, athletic performance and negatively impact recovery.
Strategies that can be adopted socially:
- If you are feeling under the weather then take some time off and allow your body to fully recover.
- Sleep napping can be effective means of enhancing athletic performance – naps over 40 minutes have shown to be unfavorable.
- Create a good sleep routine that involves getting into bed around the same time every evening.
- Reduce consumption of caffeine 3-4 hours prior to sleep
- Humans require 7-9 sufficient hours of sleep.
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If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact directly or use the references below to enhance a greater knowledge of understanding.
References
American college of Sports Medicine (2011) Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. https://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/delayed-onset-muscle-soreness-(doms).pdf
Bennett, R. (2015) Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation. Wiltshire: The Crowood Press Ltd
Bergeron, S. (2015) What is a Deload week? And Why is it Important? http://www.builtlean.com/2014/05/05/deload-week/ [Accessed 14/02/16]
Bosquet, L., Montpetit, J., Arvisais, D. and Mujika, I. (2007) Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Med Sci Sports Exercise. Vol, 39, No. 8: 1358–1365
Cheung, K., Hume, P. and Maxwell, L. (2003) Delayed onset muscle soreness: treatment strategies and performance factors. Journal of Sports Medicine. Vol. 33, No. 2: 145-164.
Erlacher, D., Ehrlenspiel, F., Adegbesan, O. A. and El-Din, H. G. (2011) Sleep habits in German athletes before important competitions or games. Journal of Sports Science. Vol. 29: 859-866.
Gregory, E. P., Pearcey, D. J., Squires, B., Kawamoto, J. E., Drinkwater, E. J., Behm, D. G. and Button, D. C. (2015) Foam Rolling for Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness and Recovery of Dynamic Performance Measures. Journal of Athletic Training. Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 5-13.
Meur, Y. L., Hausswirth, C. and Mujika, I. (2012) Tapering for competition: A review. Science and Sports Journal. Vol. 27, No. 2: 77-87.
Oliver, S. J., Costa, S. J., Laing, S. J., Bilzon, J. L. and Walsh N. P. (2009) One night of sleep deprivation decreases treadmill endurance performance. European Journal of Applied Physiology. Vol. 107, No 2: 155-161.
Peterson, M. D., Pistilli, E., Haff, G. G., Hoffman, E. P. and Gordon, P. M. (2011) Progression of volume load and muscular adaptation during resistance exercise. European Journal of Applied Physiology. Vol. 111, No. 6: 1061-1071.
Samuels, C. (2009) Sleep, Recovery, and Performance: The New Frontier in High-Performance Athletics. Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America. Vol. 20, No. 1: 149-159
Skein, M., Duffield, R., Edge, J., Short, M. J. and Mundel, T. (2011) Intermittent sprint performance and muscle glycogen after 30h of sleep deprivation. Medical Science Sports Exercise. Vol. 43, No. 7: 1301-1311.