Recovery Techniques

When I started getting into endurance sports (not going to say exactly how long ago) there was always talk about huge volume. You always heard about people running 100 mile weeks who were training for marathons and that just seemed like the thing to do. There was almost no conversation on Recovery. It seemed like the mindset back then was to always be sore so you knew you were doing some good. No pain, no gain. For many decades Exercise Physiologists knew that performance gains were only possible through a stress and recovery cycle. This somehow didn’t really get into practical application. Then about 10 years ago there was a major shift in the way some runners and coaches were approaching training. They put a major focus on Recovery instead of just massive volume. They found that injury rates went way down, runners were getting to the start line healthy and fresh, and many athletes performed much better. Now, Recovery is a normal part of the endurance athlete’s lexicon and it has become big business as many retailers are making big bucks on Recovery products. In this article I’m going to list and describe some of my tried and true recovery techniques as well as some that I’m not quite as familiar with but look forward to testing out.

Recovery/Off Days

While this topic still makes many runners cringe (especially those who have a 500 day run streak going) I am putting this at the top of my list for a reason. Recovery Days and Off Days should be a staple in every serious runner’s training plan. In Ultra App there are Recovery Days and Off Days built into just about every week of every plan (with the exception of the Elites). There is no substitute for an Off Day. The body absolutely needs time to repair microtears in the muscle, build larger and more mitochondria, expand the network of capillaries in working muscles, and a billion other tasks. If you keep pounding on your body every single day you will be in a perpetual state of tearing down. There needs to be frequent periods of building back up so that you can “absorb” the training stimulus and continue to improve. Off Days are easy…don’t run. Recovery Days are a little more tricky for people to understand. If you go just a little too hard on a recovery run, it becomes a regular Zone 2 training run. To keep it simple, I typically just walk during my Recovery Days. I wear Vibram 5-finger shoes or go barefoot and just walk the required distance. This keeps your muscles and joints nice and loose, provides some good foot strengthening, and also continues to build durability as you are still building “time on feet” for the week. How Often: Once per week.

Warmup, Cool Down, and Stretching

I believe that these 3 things are still largely dismissed by the running community. Maybe some people will do a few leg swings before a run and quick calf stretch afterwards but taking these 3 activities seriously can vastly improve your recovery. Warmup can mean several things so I’ll give an example of what I typically do for a warmup activity. I start with some dynamic stretching and even run drills. Dynamic stretches are basically moving your body through similar movements that you’ll be doing in training to get the muscles warmed up and pliable instead of just going in cold. These can be leg swings, calf pops, trunk twists, quad pulls, walking lunges, quick toe-touches and a bunch more. This is also a good time to do a few run drills i.e. high knees, heel to butt, skips, etc. The next part of warmup is done at the beginning of the training session. I prefer to walk for the first 5 minutes while gradually quickening the pace and then starting to jog while slowly building up to my training pace for the day. There are a lot of processes that need to happen in your body to get you to optimal running and these things take time. Your arteries and capillaries will start to expand in your working muscles as nitrous oxide is released into the blood stream. Other, non-critical parts of the body will start to close off the arteries and capillaries so the majority of the blood in your system can be used to keep your legs moving (ever wonder why your hands get cold while running, this is why). It’s kind of like warming up your car on a cold winter day. If it’s -5F and you jump in your car and expect to be able to floor it and have the car operate like it’s 75F out, you are sadly mistaken.

Cool Down is basically the exact opposite as Warmup (DUH!). This means that I usually spend the last 1/2 mile really dialing back the pace and then usually walk for a few minutes after my run is done. The purpose for this is keep the blood flowing through your muscles to clear out any waste products that are still around. No matter how slow you are running your muscles will still produce some lactate (which dissociates to lactic acid very quickly) which should be flushed back through your system. Also, you want to keep the deoxygenated blood flowing back to the heart and lungs. The reason to need to keep the blood flowing is because your vessels are still dilated from the nitrous oxide which is to help keep high volumes of blood moving through your legs. But, your veins have a series of 1-way valves that keep your blood moving back to the heart but need some help from your contracting muscles to pump it. If you go from running hard to not running at all, the blood in your lower body will tend to stagnate in your legs because the vessels are dilated and your muscles have stopped moving. This means it takes a lot longer to clear any lactic acid and deoxygenated blood which only prolongs recovery.

I don’t think most runners stretch enough or in the right way. I would love for runners to make stretching a daily routine. Here are some tips about stretching that might help with getting more out of stretching. It’s a really good idea to warm up the muscles before doing static stretching. You can even start out by doing some dynamic stretching, walking, or drills. I know a lot of people who do the whole…touch your toes for 10 seconds deal and think they are good. Really effective stretching includes much longer holds (over a minute in most cases) with breathing incorporated and continuing to pull deeper into the stretch. I like to make sure to hit all the major muscle groups in the legs, not just the ones that feel tight. Your hamstrings might “feel” tight when it’s actually your hip flexors that need to be stretched. A good round of stretching might last 30-60 minutes. How Often: Daily

Massage

I rank massage as the 2nd most important recovery technique. A highly skilled massage therapist can keep your muscles (and myofascia) in tip top shape after tough runs or tough weeks of running. There are many different techniques involved in massage and each has it’s own benefit. For this reason, I highly recommend that you shop around and find someone that works really well for you. Massage for recovery is not meant to be a relaxation massage with very light pressure. It is also not supposed to be excruciatingly painful. A really good massage therapist can tell which muscles need some work and how to best go about loosening them up. Here are a list of some of the massage techniques/implements that I recommend trying out: Deep Tissue, Facilitated Stretching, Bamboo, Sarga / Ashiatsu (these are modalities where the practitioner uses their feet), Muscle Scraping, and Cupping. If you are really beating up your legs during training I recommend getting a massage weekly. Shoot for a 90 minute session. If you don’t have the budget for a weekly massage you may also find benefit in getting massage every other week. How Often: Weekly (if possible)

Self-Massage Tools

I am separating this from Massage because I think they are different enough to warrant their own section. While useful, I still think that getting a massage from a good licensed massage therapist is unbeatable. They can find areas of tightness that you never thought were tight and may be causing all your problems. With that being said, not everyone can get to a massage therapist every week and sometimes the use of one of these tools can provide some benefit. There are a ton of these tools out on the market so I’ll just name a few that most people are familiar with. There are foam rollers, muscle track rollers, Thera-guns, and numerous other implements for self-imposed trigger points. The purpose of most of these tools is to increase the blood flow to very specific points which helps to bring in nutrients and oxygen to help with the repair process and loosen up tight spots. How Often: When Needed

Sleep

Sleep is seen by many as a luxury but for the serious athlete sleep is a requirement. The ability to get adequate sleep is one of the factors that sets Elite/professional runners (and other athletes) apart from age groupers. I would be willing to bet that the best athletes out there get, on average, 10 hours of sleep per day. This usually includes a nap between training sessions. Sleep is where all the magic of recovery takes place. The more sleep you are able to get during training, the more physiological adaptations your body is able to make. The people who brag about getting 4 hours of sleep every night and still train really hard are not being tough, they are doing a huge disservice to their body and their true potential as an athlete. I highly recommend getting at least 8-9 hours of sleep per night. If this is just not in the card for you, try to at least get a quick 30 minute nap in during the day. Don’t think of sleep as wasted time. Sleep must be thought of as training. How Often: Daily

Nutrition

This is always a very tricky topic with many people (athletes especially). There are a million different nutrition “philosophies” out there from Vegan to Carnivore and everything in between. I try not to preach a specific way of eating because everyone is different and I hope that you keep experimenting with your nutrition until you find what works best for you. There are definitely some aspects of nutrition and nutrient timing to consider when it comes to recovery though. PROTEIN - If you are a Vegan or Vegetarian runner, I highly recommend that you do your research and make absolutely sure that you are getting all of your essential amino acids in the appropriate amounts. It can be done but is not an easy thing to do. Amino acids (proteins) are the building blocks of our muscles and connective tissue. Without adequate complete proteins in your diet, your recovery may take much longer and you will certainly not have an optimal training cycle. Some protein should be eaten within an hour of completing your training session. This has been shown to be the optimal absorption window for amino acids. I do not recommend eating much protein before your training session (within 2 hours) because digestion time is slow and it’s no fun running with a protein brick in your stomach. Fats - I hope by now everyone has read some of the science on fats and realizes that they are not the monsters that we once thought. Not much on recovery for fats, just make sure you get enough in your diet as there are many vitamins that are only fat soluble (A, D, E, K) so you will not absorb them without fats in your diet. Also, fats take a really long time to digest so avoid too much fat prior to runs. Carbohydrates - This is another hard one for some people. There are a lot of Low-Carbers out there who are very inflexible when it comes to adding in more carbs. I have been a low-carb athlete for many years and I’ve experimented with a lot of different methods of doing low-carb with ultrarunning. Here are the facts, your body does need some carbohydrate to function. Your body can make these carbohydrates from internal sources (converting muscle protein to glucose). This is NOT optimal for athletes! During training, athletes should consume at least 10-15% of their daily calories from carbohydrates. As your training ramps up, your total caloric intake ramps up which means your carb intake must also ramp up. If you consume 3,500 calories per day (pretty average for a runner) then that means 350-525 calories (90-130g) from carbohydrates. The timing of these carbohydrates is also very important. If you are a high-carb athlete you should consume some simple sugars prior to your runs. For low-carb athletes you can avoid carbs prior to your runs in order to optimize fat burning. Both types of athletes should consume a good portion of their daily carbs within 45 minutes of completing the training run for the day. This has been shown to be the optimal absorption window for carbohydrates after training. These carbohydrates will help to optimally replenish muscle glycogen stores prior to your next session. How Often: Daily

Compression

Personally, I am a big fan of compression for recovery. Some people may not experience much benefit from it, but I have. I’ve been using compression for well over a decade when it comes to recovery. I do not, however, recommend using compression while training or racing (some people do). If you are able to invest in Normatec boots, I find they are extremely helpful. If not, compression socks or tights also work very well (I’m wearing my compression socks while I write this). The science behind how compression works is very similar to the section above on Cool Down. The benefit of compression is that you don’t have to keep moving your muscles to keep the blood flowing back to your heart through your veins. The compression acts to close down the veins just enough to allow the one-way valves to work more efficiently which helps to flush out the legs. How Often: 3-5X per Week

Ice Baths

Ice baths may be an effective tool to use after really hard sessions. I would not recommend using them every day but once in a while may be beneficial. An ice bath may have several ways that it helps in recovery. First of all, when your body is exposed to cold water there is a shunting effect that happens. This is a survival mechanism which pushes all the blood in your extremities to your core. The purpose is to protect your vital organ. The benefit to you is that it’s a fast way to make sure you flush the “stale” blood out of your legs and get it back to your heart and liver for re-oxygenating and cleaning. Another benefit is that cold water tends to have an anti-inflammatory response in the body. This can be beneficial to help prevent soreness after hard sessions. Another benefit is the production of cold-shock proteins from the exposure to the cold. I think there needs to be more research done to determine the exact role that cold-shock proteins play in recovery, but they seem to be beneficial. How Often: 1-2X per Month

IR Sauna

Given the choice between a regular sauna and an IR sauna, I choose the IR sauna. The difference is that the IR sauna is able to heat the muscles from the inside out instead of the outside in. This makes for a quicker session and the ability to target deeper muscles. 30 minutes in an IR sauna can really help loosen up tight muscles and get you ready for the next training session. How Often: Every 1-2 Weeks

IV and IM Treatments

IV vitamin/hydration treatments are a relatively new thing but are very intriguing to me. Staying hydrated is key for recovery but so is maintaining adequate vitamin and mineral levels. These IV treatments can help with both. You may also try IM vitamin treatment (shots) for a less expensive and quicker therapy if you are mostly interested in boosting your vitamin levels. Glutathione is made up of amino acids and is a powerful anti-oxidant which may also help with muscle repair and recovery. I am currently experimenting with IV and IM treatments to see how well they work for me. So far, I am a fan and would recommend to anyone who is interested. How Often: 1-2X per Month

This list of recovery techniques is far from complete. There is a huge market out there for devices and products that claim to be biggest thing in recovery. What I’ve listed here are items that I’ve personally used and find to be helpful for the recovery process. There may be others that work well and I encourage you to explore as many options as you can. For us ultra-athletes the answer is not always run more. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that training and recovering smarter is the best way to make it to the start line of your next race as happy and healthy as you can.