Training Tip #8: Recover and Adapt

How the body responds to training is maybe the key factor in working out how effective a training program will be. It’s tempting to believe that there is a linear relationship between the amount of training you complete and your performance levels at the end of it. I.e. more training = better performance.

This, of course can’t be the case, because if it was we’d see people training all day every day and never getting injured.

So how does the body respond to training and why do we need to schedule breaks? Any kind of training is a stressor, meaning it is an activity which causes stress, and so our bodies need to respond in a certain way. Our bodies don’t like change, they like things just the way they are because they know it’s safe. We’re designed for survival not athletic performance. What that means is that chronically stressing the system through training (training all the time) or giving an inappropriate training dose (doing a session that’s too much for the body to effectively respond to) are both going to cause harm rather than good.

For every system in our body we have a ‘set point’ which the body wants to maintain. This includes for physical qualities that you might want to improve through training. So, to improve them, you need to make sure you’re doing it gradually and allowing the body time to adapt. If we give the body a training stimulus which is appropriate (just at the threshold of what we can currently do), and then give it time to adapt, then we will improve, and the set point will move upwards slightly. If we do this over time, our physical capacities will noticeably increase.

One key thing to note is that we don’t improve when we train, we improve when we rest after we train. Bouncing back slightly better than before is called supercompensation (think compensating and then adding a little bit) and is the reason why training load schedules need to be planned and adapted carefully.

Something which has gained a lot of popularity over recent years is the use of recovery methods such as ice baths and compression to decrease recovery time and allow you to train harder again sooner. While it makes sense that if you feel less sore you may be able to train harder, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s always a good idea.

As we’ve seen, we improve when we rest, and the body doesn’t really want change. If you’re sore after training, maybe the body is trying to tell you something. Soreness could actually be a protective mechanism the body uses to stop you from working too hard when it’s trying to make you better. If we then reduce soreness through recovery methods during that time, we’re probably doing one of two things. The first thing we could be doing is just making the muscles feel better, and tricking them into feeling like they should work hard again. The problem here is that even if the muscles are ready to work, how to we know that the other structures in the body (particularly those with less blood flow such as bones, tendons and ligaments) are ready to be loaded again? Same goes for systems like the immune system or endocrine (hormonal) system. In this case we could do ourselves harm (injury or illness) because we pushed too hard too soon.

The second thing we could be doing by over-using these methods is to switch off the adaptation processes which are making us better in the first place. In this case, even if we ignore the potential hazards of the point above, we may be training harder each time for no additional benefit because we don’t allow the body to adapt. Working harder for no greater rewards hardly seems an effective use of energy does it?

As you can see, it’s a complex subject, but here are a few simple guidelines to follow which can help.

1. Adaptation and recovery both happen when you sleep enough and have good nutrition. Get these things right first before worrying about anything else.
2. Training must be planned effectively, with adequate time for the body to adapt and recover. Sometimes there needs to be planned periods of ‘overreaching’ or harder training, but don’t push hard all the time.
3. Use recovery methods such as ice baths and compression sparingly. Leave them for when they are really needed, such as after a competition or maybe in the first week of training after a long break. Don’t rely on them all the time, learn to understand how your body feels and what it’s trying to tell you and that will give you insight into how to plan your training in future.
4. Stress is stress, whether that’s physical or psychological. When you plan training, think carefully about the times when you may be under more psychological stress (during a period of exams for example) and try to balance training loads according to these factors.