It is a well known, but well forgotten fact that our bodies don’t improve during exercise/training.  Instead, they improve after exercise/training.  Put simply, during training, our bodies are damaged/broken/busted up.  And in the hours/days following, our bodies repair/improve/upgrade themselves, and make them just that little bit better than before.

Everyone out there is hunting for the newest/bestest way to exercise/train, but very few care, or even think about, their recovery.  So here are some basics about recovery.  These basics are applicable to everyone who exercises.  But it is obviously much more important for those who train hard numerous times a week, compared to those who might go for a gentle walk once a week/fortnight.

So what do I mean when I am talking about recovery?  Well, I define it as follows:

“Returning the whole body to a pre-training state”.

Jam Sandwich – High GI carbohydrates and calories.

And to keep it simple, I am going to split it into 3 sections:

• Nutrition.
• Physical.
• Mental/emotional.

Nutritional recovery.

When we train hard for a prolonged duration, our bodies use up a lot of resources.  The easiest ones to deal with are fluids, carbohydrates (energy) and proteins (muscle).

• To replace lost fluids, you want to be drinking (no, that does not mean alcohol!).
• To replace energy, you want to be consuming high Glycemic Index (click here) carbohydrates, such as sweets, ice cream, chocolate, cakes, sugary drinks etc.  In fact, as long as you are training hard, the half hour after training is the best time to eat all those things we should otherwise be avoiding/limiting!  (If, however, your goal is to lose bodyfat, ignore this bit.  It will not help you!)
• To repair/preserve muscle, you want to be consuming food containing protein.

Milk – fluids and protein.

And ideally, we want to have a quick “shot” of all these within the first half an hour after training. So how do we do this?  You can get sports recovery drinks that contain all the above in a single bottle.  These tend to be convenient and practical and easy to consume within the initial half hour after training.  Alternatively, you can simply:

• Drink your bottle of water or glass of milk (fluids and protein).
• Eat your jam sandwich on white bread and a handful of raisins (high GI carbohydrates).
• Eat your meat/dairy/egg sandwich on white bread (protein and high GI carbohydrates).

This initial quick “shot” get the recovery process going as soon as possible.  But within a couple of hours after training, we should be aiming to sit down and have a good meal of proper food with an emphasis on plenty of complex carbohydrates and protein.  This gives the body the tools it needs to replace all the resources it used during training, so it will be ready to train hard again next time.

Physical recovery.

When we train, our muscles burn up a lot of energy and dump out a lot of waste products.  These wastes are then literally flushed away by the blood flowing round our body and through the muscles.  But when we train hard, the wastes products can’t be flushed away fast enough, and they hang around in the muscles, causing aches/stiffness/soreness etc.

The best ways to aid our physical recovery is to help our body flush away these waste products, and bring in fresh resources.  And probably the best method of all, starts before the training session has even finished…

Active recovery, or a good cool down.

Active Recovery – an easy jog.

This is probably the most important method of physical recovery.

Depending on the duration and intensity of the training, this can be 5-10 minutes or more of gentle, easy aerobic activity, eg an easy bike ride, gentle jog, nice swim etc.  You can interspersed this with your static stretches to improve your flexibility if you like.  But contrary to popular belief, these stretches have little to do with reducing aches and soreness in the following days.

The idea behind active recover, is to simply keep the heart rate ticking over and the muscles gently pumping away, to help flush out more waste products and get fresh resources in quicker.

And Active Recovery does not end there.  You can, and should, use it later on in the day, or even on the following few days.  When you are feeling sore and stiff, there is nothing like a gentle, easy (ie not hard/intense/difficult) walk, jog, bike ride, swim etc to mobilise your body and help get rid of your aches and pains.

Passive recovery.

Passive Recovery – relaxing.

This is probably what most people think about when they talk about recovering from training…sitting or laying down, not moving and basically chilling out.  And it works.  Because the body is not working hard any more, it has the chance to get on with the business of repairing/improving itself.

But many studies have shown time and again that people do not recover as well, or as quickly, compared to Active Recovery.  This is possibly because the blood is not flowing as quickly/well as in a moving body.  So bad stuff is not circulated out, and good stuff is not circulated in as well.

So after a hard training session, even though you may want to collapse in a pile…it is usually not the best thing to do if you want to feel better.

Contrast baths.

Contrast bath – the cold bit.

This is a simple method to again, help the blood flush out the muscles.  You alternate between 3-4 minutes in a hot bath (37-43 degrees C), and 1 minute in a cold bath (12-15 degrees C), and repeat 3-5 times.  When you are in the hot bath, your blood vessels expand and more blood is shunted into your muscles.  And when you get in the cold bath, these blood vessels contract and all the blood is flushed out of the muscles.  This is the same principle as Active Recovery, except you end up nice and clean at the end.

If you don’t have access to 2 baths, do the same thing in your shower (1-2 minutes hot, 10-30 seconds cold).

Massage.

I have no personal experience with massage, but understand that it can increase blood circulation in the area being massaged.  This can help flush out waste products in a similar way to the previous 2 methods.  But the few studies I have read about massage have shown that they are not as effective as Active Recovery.

If you have a deeper knowledge than me, leave a comment below.

Mental/emotional recovery.

Emotional Recovery – a good nights sleep.

This aspect of recovery is very often overlooked by people.  And while it is much more of a consideration for high level athletes, or people who train hard/compete several times a week, it can and does effect your regular exerciser.  Usually when they have been doing the same routine for a long time without change.

Constantly putting yourself under pressure by training hard, or competing every week can take a mental toll on anyone.  Or constantly going through the same motions of the same workout, for months on end, can make the most enthusiastic exerciser grimace.

So a very effective way of recovering emotionally/mentally, is change.  These changes can include any or all of the following:

• A change in training intensity.  Alternate between easy/hard training sessions, so you don’t get stuck in a rut.
• A change in training duration.  Spice things up by sometimes having a longer/shorter session than usual.
• A change in training type.  Do something completely different.  Make it a totally different activity.  eg, if you are a cyclist, go off and spend a week hang gliding or something.
• A change in the company you keep.  If you are always training with the same people/team mates, spend some time away from them thinking/talking about something other than your last/next training session.
• A change in your training environment.  This can simply mean try out a different gym, or train outside instead of inside (or vice versa).

The above are all good tactical (short term) ways of recovering emotionally/mentally.  But we should all try a more strategic (long term) approach.  This involves having as stress free lifestyle outside of training as possible.  This is usually much harder to achieve, but can include the following:

• Spending quality time with friends/family who you can relax around.  But pick them carefully.  Being in the middle of an arguing family/group of friends is not stress free.
• Try to avoid clashes between training schedules and school exams/work assessments etc.  Coming from a competitive training session straight to a competitive school/work environment is not stress free.
• Develop a network of “helpers” who can assist you in your training logistics.  Eg, mechanics to take the stress of equipment from you, or drivers to take the stress of getting to/from training/competition from you.
• Ensure you get a good nights sleep every night.  Sleep is the bodies natural way of mentally and physically recovering.  You ask any insomniac how important a good nights sleep is.  Don’t skimp on it!

As you can see, the above are much more long term strategies that may or may not be practical for everyone or every situation.  But they do help!

But if you remember only one thing from this article, remember this…

“We improve in the time that we are NOT training”.

What is periodisation?

To me, periodisation is:

“Specialising in different things, in different phases, over a period of time, in order to bring them all together at the end.”

For example, if I were to build a house, I would divide the project up into the following phases:

1. The foundation phase – concentrate on digging the foundations.
2. The walls phase – concentrate on building the walls.
3. The roof phase – concentrate on putting the roof up.
4. The decorating phase – concentrate on the internal decorating.

If I did these phases in this order, I would end up with a nice house.  But if I did them in a different order, or I tried to do them all at the same time, I would end up with a mess.  And the same principles apply to training for health, fitness and performance.

Why should we periodise?

Different periodisation phases can last from a few days, to a few months.

I can think of 2 main reasons:

• Practicality – The ways of improving some aspects of fitness compete/interfere with other training aspects.  In other words, training them at the same time can cancel both out.
• Efficiency – Doing it this way usually means you reach your goal quicker than if you didn’t.  In other words, you minimise the training aspects that cancel each other out, and maximise the training aspects that build on each other.

Example #1 – An athlete wants to improve their power.  So they should increase their strength and then improve their explosiveness/speed.  Doing it the other way round will mean very low/no improvements in power.

Example #2 – Your average overweight guy wants to look better naked.  So he should build up his muscles first, and then lose excess fat.  Doing it this way will give much better results compared to doing exactly the same thing, but in the other order.

How do we periodise?

Exactly how we periodise depends on what your goals are and where you are starting from.  But in general, this is how I go about planning a periodised training plan.

• Identify your ultimate goal.  For example, getting ready for a kumite (karate sparring) competition.
• Identify the physical aspects that are needed to succeed at kumite.  For example:
  • Anaerobic fitness
  • Coordination/agility/reactions for attack and defence.
  • Muscular power endurance.
• Put these building blocks into a logical order.  For example:
  • Improve general coordination, fitness and strength.
  • Improve power, while maintaining/improving general fitness and coordination/agility/reactions.
  • Improve power endurance and anaerobic fitness while maintaining/improving general coordination/agility/reactions.
  • Improving specific attack/defence drills while maintaining power endurance and anaerobic fitness.

I chose this order for two main reasons. 

• It moves from the general to the specific
• The longer lasting physical aspects (adaptations of the muscles/heart/lungs) are targeted before the more ephemeral ones (adaptations of the nervous system).

This is a very simple explaination of periodisation.  As long as I remember, I’ll go into more detail and explain long (macro) medium (meso) and short term (micro) periodisation in future articles.  But in the meantime, start thinking about your own long term training and see if you can split it into sensible phases.  Good luck!

As always, if you like/dislike this article, you can print, email or share it using the buttons below.  Or you can subscribe to this blog via RSS or email using the buttons near the top right of the page.

And if you live in/around Skipton and need/want professional coaching from me, just contact me today by clicking here.

Just a quickie to say a huge well done to my friend Becky who won her second amature boxing match over the weekend.

She travelled a round trip of 11 hours(!) and her opponent threw in the towel half way through the second round.  She has been working very hard on her conditioning recently, but so far she hasn’t had a  fight long enough for it to pay off!  But that fight will come, and when it does she will be ready for it!

Well done again Bex!

Congratulations to my friend Karen Driver who competed in the European Masters Swimming Championships in Cadiz last week.

She got 4th in the 800 metre freestyle (only missing out on the bronze by 0.6 sec! ), and knocking 3 seconds off her personal best!

She got 3rd in the 400 metre freestyle (yay!!! )

And she got 13th in the open water freestyle, knocking a fantastic 3 minutes off her personal best!

Karen Driver Swimming

We have trained together a lot here in the gym, and we worked hard to make the time as productive as possible.  She spends hours every day in the pool, so the last thing she needs is “work for works sake” in the gym.  We scaled back on exercises that were not helping her with swimming and fine tuned others to make them as specific as possible to her events.

The only reason we were in the gym was to improve her swimming time.  So there was no thought of showing off, posing in the mirror, or doing the things the bodybuilding boys were doing.

“If it did not directly help with improving her swim time, we didn’t bother with it.”

I loved every minute of training with her, because we got loads of strange looks from all the bodybuilding boys confused as to what we were doing.  I even got told i was training “wrong” because i wasn’t “isolating the muscles”!  The human body does not work in isolation.  It is 1 incredibly complex unit that needs to work in a coordinated fashion.  So that’s how it should be trained.

The most important moves we were doing were big, compound exercises (full depth heavy squats, pullups etc), explosive plyometrics for the legs (to help improve her turns) and very swimming specific moves on the cable machine (so we were “swimming” on dry land!).

Barbell Squat

Vertical jump

It highlighted a big difference between people in the gym.  Some come in and do things because it looks good/sexy/cool (and they read it in a magazine that sell a lot of “supplements”), and we come in and do things because they WORK!

What kind of person are you?

Half time display at the KUGB Nationals 2007, by the Chelmsford Display Squad:

See many more of these pictures at our Gallery.

Alice Griffiths	Sensei Bob Rhodes
Anna Parkin	Stuart Gwynn
	Chris Cray
Lee Lamb	Antony Duffy
JJ Bruce	Paul James
	Chris Cray scoring an Ippon on ?
Chris Cray vs ?	JJ Bruce & Colin Bilbao
Colin Bilbao & JJ Bruce	? & Chris Cray
Chris Cray & Danny O’Connor	JJ Bruce & ?
? & JJ Bruce	? & JJ Bruce
	? vs Chris Cray
? vs Chris Cray	Colin Bilbao and Jon McGorian
Danny O’Connor & Damien O Donnell	? & Matt Price
? & Matt Price	? & Matt Price
? & Matt Price	? & Matt Price
? & Matt Price	? & Matt Price
Matthew & Joseph Rawcliffe
	Jon McGorian & Anthony Duffy
Jon McGorian & Anthony Duffy	Zoe Campbell & Vicky Mulhearn
Samantha Plumb	Samantha Plumb
Kelly Perry	Kelly Perry
Kelly Perry	Holly Stirling
Holly Stirling	Holly Stirling
Paul James	Paul James
JJ Bruce	Lee Lamb
Stuart Gordon
David Prout & Chris Cray	Michael Davidson & JJ Bruce
Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	Chris Cray & JJ Bruce
Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	Chris Cray & JJ Bruce
Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	Joe Hart & Jon McGorian
Joe Hart & Jon McGorian	Joe Hart & Jon McGorian
Joe Hart & Jon McGorian	Joe Hart & Jon McGorian
Ryan Tucker & Danny O’Connor	Ryan Tucker & Danny O’Connor
Matt Price & ?	Matt Price & ?

Pictures from the 2006 KUGB Shotokan Karate National Championships.  See these and many more pictures and prints from our Gallery.

	Nick Smith
Simon and Rhiannedd of Tekki SKC	Rhi of Tekki SKC
Sensei Mat Price of Leeds
	Sensei Dave Eaton (Shinsei SKC) checking the other guy still has teeth.
	Sensei Mat Price (Leeds)
Perfect Mawashi Geri
	Chelsmford Display Squad
Chelmsford Display Squad
GB vs. USA	GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA	GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA	? & JJ Bruce
? & JJ Bruce	? & JJ Bruce
GB vs. USA	GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA	GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA	GB vs. USA
GB vs. USA	Chris Cray vs. ?
? vs. Chris Cray	? vs. Chris Cray
Chris Cray vs. ?	? vs. Chris Cray
Chris Cray vs. ?
? vs Matt Price	GB vs USA
GB vs USA	GB vs USA
GB vs USA	? vs. JJ Bruce
JJ Bruce Vs. ?
Chris Cray vs. ?	? vs. Chris cray
Matt Price	Matt Price
Sensei Frank Brennan and his display squad	Matt Price vs. ?
Matt Price vs. ?
Antony Pendlebury of Liverpool Red Triangle scoring an Ippon with an amazing Ura Mawashigeri against Damien O’Donnell, in the Male Team Kumite final!	Sensei John Bell (on the right)
Sensei John Bell (on the right)	Sensei John Bell (on the right)

Janine Collins vs Holly Sterling

Some of the action from the KUGB Grand Slam of August 25th 2007. As always, if you can help me put names to faces…please get in touch! And as always, big thanks to Helen and Jane who always come through for me and tell me who these top athletes are!

1	2 Sensei Randolph Williams
3 Sensei Kevin O’Neil	4 Sensei Frank Brennan
5 The Judges	6 Anthony Duffy & Adam Hodgson
7 Anthony Duffy & Adam Hodgson	8 ? & John Huddleston
9 John Huddleston & ?	10 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds
11 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds	12 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds
13 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds	14 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds
15 Joe Hart & Craig Reynolds	16
17 ? & Damien O Donnell	18 Callum O’Neill & Anthony Duffy
19 Callum O’Neill & Anthony Duffy	20 Callum O’Neill & Anthony Duffy
21 Kevin Heyes & Damien O Donnell	22 Kevin Heyes & Damien O Donnell
23 Kevin Heyes & Damien O Donnell	24 Antony Duffy kicking John Cook
25 Jonathon McGorian & Damien O Donnell	26 Jonathon McGorian & Damien O Donnell
27 Jonathon McGorian & Damien O Donnell	28 Senior Male Kumite
29 Euros Edwards & ?	30 John Booth & ?
31 Laura Johnson & ?	32 Laura Johnson & ?
33 ? & Euros Edwards	34 ? & Euros Edwards
35 Holly Stirling & Laura Johnson	36 Laura Johnson & Holly Stirling
37 ? & Laura Johnson	38 ? & Laura Johnson
39 ? & Laura Johnson	40 Sensei Brennan & Englands Junior Kumite Squad
41	42
43 Antony Duffy & Damien O Donnell	44 Antony Duffy & Damien O Donnell
45 Damien O Donnell & Antony Duffy	46 Antony Duffy & Damien O Donnell
47 Natasha Balyckyi	48
49 David Wright	50 Hisham Shaif
51 Hisham Shaif	52 Jacob Baker
53 Chris Cray & ?	54 ? & Chris Cray
55 Chris Cray & ?	56 Chris Cray & ?
57 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	58 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce
59 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	60 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce
61 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	62 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce
63 Chris Cray & JJ Bruce	64 ? & David Campbell
65 ? & Nick Smith	66 ? & Nick Smith
67 ? & Nick Smith	68 ? & Nick Smith
69 Damien O Donnell & ?	70 Damien O Donnell & ?
71 Damien O Donnell & ?	72 Damien O Donnell & ?
73 Damien O Donnell & ?	74 ? & Jon Cook
75 Euros Edwards & Matt Price	76 Antony Duffy & John Booth

Some pictures from the KUGB Grand Slam of Feb 24th 2007. Wales Vs. England Vs. Scotland.

There are quite a few of them, but let them all load, because at the bottom there are a few action sequences that are pretty good!

And if you can name any of the people in the pics, Contact us and let us put some more names to faces!

For the full list of results, see the KUGB web site (http://www.kugb.org/newsroom.cfm?keyid=134)

1 John James Bruce	2 Alex Labanciw & ?
3 Tommy Johnston (front) & Nick Smith	4 Tommy Johnston (front) & Nick Smith
5 Kevin Lampis & Euros Edwards	6 ? & John Childs
7 Richard Davies & Sensei Kevin O’Neil	8 Sensei Frank Brennan
9 Nick Smith & JJ Bruce	10 Chris Cray, Michael McGrath (blue stripped top) & Caroline McGrath
11 Sensei’s Davies, O’Neil & Wilding	12 Euros Edwards & Jack Somers
13 Graeme Lennie	14 Jon Cook & Damien O’Donnell
15 Damien O’Donnell & Jon Cook	16 Jamie George & Jacob Baker
17	18 Chris Smith & Chris Bell
19 David Wright & Ryan Tucker	20 David Wright & Ryan Tucker
21 KUGB Scottish Squad	22 ? & Damien O’Donnell
23 Damien O’Donnell & ?	24 Mel Finlay & ?
25 Chris Cray	26 Antony Pendlebury & Lee Butler
27 Antony Pendlebury & Lee Butler	28 Antony Pendlebury & Lee Butler
29 Antony Pendlebury & Lee Butler	30 Lee Butler & Antony Pendlebury
31 Matthew Hook & Stephen Patterson	32 Matthew Hook & Stephen Patterson
33 John James Bruce & ?	34 Antony Pendlebury & Chris Cray
35 Stephen Patterson & ?	36 John James Bruce & Lee Lamb
37	38 Sensei Frank Brennan
39	40 Sensei’s Andy Sherry, Frank Brennan & Laura Johnston

41 Jane Petts, Chris Smith & Jamie George	42 Hisham Shaif
43 Jason Plumb & Joseph Rawcliffe	44 Ryan Tucker & ?
45 Chris Cray, ?, Danny O’Connor & Jonathan McGorian	46 Damien O’Donnell & Jonathan McGorian
47 Damien O’Donnell & ?	48 John James Bruce
49 Emma Barker	50 Kimbaly May
51 ? & John James Bruce	52 Chris Evans & Chris Cray
53 Laura Johnston & Amanda Evans	54 Amanda Evans & Laura Johnston
55 ? & Danny O’Connor	56 Damien O’Donnell & Jon Cook
57 Mat Price & Euros Edwards	58 Mat Price & Euros Edwards
59 Mat Price & Euros Edwards	60 Chris Cray & Matthew Hook
61 ? & Danny O’Connor	62 Welsh and Scottish Junior Team Kumite
63 Jonathan McGorian & ?	64
65 Sensei Brennan & Junior Male Team Kumite	66 Sensei Brennan with Damien O’Donnell, Jonathan McGorian and Ryan Tucker, England Junior Kumite Team

Montage 1 Lee Lamb & John Booth	Montage 2 Chris Cray & Antony Pendlebury
Montage 3 Chris Cray & Antony Pendlebury	Montage 4 Damien O’Donnell & Jon Cook
Montage 5	Montage 6
Montage 7 John James Bruce & Chris Cray	Montage 8
Montage 9	Montage 10

A HUGE thanks to Ms Naylor-Jones, June and Chris Bell, Sensei Lyndon Davies and Helen Crowe for their help naming most of these competitors. There was no chance of me doing it without you!

All the above pictures are Copyright Cerin Rees 2009, if you like them, let us know, if you want a big copy, just ask.