The training microcycle that we use most frequently at TLA is the weekly microcycle. In the Training Tribe, and with most coaching clients, I usually program 6 specific workouts in any given week and then recommend a recovery training day as the 7th session.
There are a few exceptions to that general rule. Some athletes are encouraged to utilize only 3-4 targeted workouts per week, and fill in the rest with recovery sessions. And of course, there are always those times when, despite our best intentions, we just can’t quite hit all the prescribed training. Using recovery training as a fallback or bailout can be effective in “at least getting something done” and staying on the goal path.
Today we’re going to define recovery training, and provide some specific examples. Before we get to that, we should talk about the “No Days Off” policy at TLA.
For the Lifetime Athlete, “No Days Off” takes on a slightly different meaning than the popular one. Instead of leveraging tough talk and saying that you should keep grinding and hammering no matter what, we take a slightly more thoughtful – and dare I say intelligent – approach. The only time I recommend a complete day off with no training of any kind is when something goes wrong. Illness. Injury that is significant enough that you can’t train around it. Scheduling snafus that truly don’t leave any time for athletic nourishment. Rare stuff, really. Or should be.
The need for any total day off from training is usually the result of an error. One of the tools I use in coaching is an assessment of prior workload impact and current training readiness. That sounds complicated but in reality it simply involves waking up and asking yourself how you feel. There are only three choices. Is it a green light day? If so, you feel great and can do any training you want, probably going fairly “hard” that day. If you give yourself a yellow light rating, all is not lost. In most cases you can warm up gradually in a workout and complete the session as planned. Or you make a few necessary and prudent adjustments and make the training fit the situation most effectively.
But a red light day…that’s the thing we don’t want. Excessive soreness, exhaustion, swollen glands, etc. This means that the last several days were out of balance. An error was indeed made. It all comes down to the artistic tuning of your sleep, stress, training or competition workload, nutrition, and recovery management. If that stuff is anywhere from decent to ideal, you won’t have a red day. But if enough of those items were suboptimal, your body slows down its adaptations to training, goes into a heightened state of inflammation, suffers hormonal imbalances and metabolic dysregulation, and becomes more susceptible to pathogens.
So, in the presence of a red light day, you probably should completely take the day or even several, totally off. But learn from the lesson. Barring unforeseen accidents, nine times out of ten, that red day could have been avoided if those health and performance practices were prioritized to a greater degree. For both performance and longevity, we want to minimize red days. Free radicals. Oxidation. Accelerated aging. A few reds are going to show up no matter how hard we try to prevent them, but keeping them to only a couple per year is best for your long term health (which I care about as much or more as your performance).
Now we can get back to what a recovery training session should look like. First of all, it must have the descriptors easy and relatively brief. This means mostly low intensity and short duration. I’d also add the word fun into this mix. I’m all for doing hard things. Everything you do in life, and as an athlete, is not going to and does not have to always be fun. But most of your recovery workouts should be. This is an important aspect of program sustainability and adding some joy to your life.
The beauty of the recovery training is, because it is easy/brief/fun, it is not detractive to the ongoing recovery and adaptation process going on in your body. It is additive to those mechanisms. By increasing circulation, mobility, movement skill, and parasympathetic states – recovery training helps you to maintain athletic viability between the harder, higher workload sessions which are the large stimulus, changemakers in your program.
As I mentioned earlier, in most programs, when we are really doing a good job with design and workload management, we may only require one recovery session per week. But there is nothing wrong with having several of them if that is what is actually indicated. I don’t like to “stack” hard sessions until the breakdown level is reached. Instead, I space them appropriately for maximum absorption and benefit. This is certainly one of the art forms of coaching.
I also like to make most of the recovery sessions “free choice.” As long as the recovery workout (or play experience) is easy-brief-fun, it almost doesn’t matter what the athlete does. Sure, the session should provide some supportive or associated benefits to the overall plan, but that can take on a lot of shapes. Most people enjoy that option of selecting what they do for recovery. It can give them something to look forward to, remove drudgery, and prevent burnout. Having a weekly free choice recovery option in training is very similar to having a flex day (I like this term better than cheat day) in a nutritional program. Both are nourishing.
There are some athletes and clients, however, who just don’t like any loosey-goosey in their programming. They thrive on very rigid, detailed structure and prefer specific instructions regarding what to do on their recovery days. It’s no problem for me to oblige them and I thoughtfully insert appropriate training. We usually support that with a discussion regarding the “why and how” of the workout and provide reassurance that more is not better in this case. Trust in a system and in a relationship make this work, and that’s definitely bolstered by the outstanding results we get.
But most of us, myself included, do just fine having some free choice options for a recovery day. I’m going to list out a number of them. Some will work better or be more obvious choices for one athlete than another. The only requirement I have is that you just select only one or two on any given day, and not too many in order to stay true to the goal of recovery training. Make sure your total session is less than an hour, and remember that 20 minutes is often perfect. And it’s entirely fine if you craft your own session. Also, you can place these sessions anywhere in your week that you feel you need it…where it fits best.
Meditation: Any form or method you like is excellent. Mindfulness, transcendental, etc. Explore this as a way to get centered, have more gratitude, and gain a peaceful perspective.
Breathwork: Box breathing, nasal inhalations, controlled breathing, and more have many benefits. Use breathing as a tool to affect your autonomic nervous system and practice methods that make you more efficient during training and competition.
Grounding: Go barefoot on the beach, in the water, or on the grass at the park. Experience some inflammation reducing ion transfer. Even works on concrete.
Heat Exposure: Choose your pleasure (not poison). Sauna, hot tub, steam room…even a hot bath or shower. Helps with circulation, inflammation, aerobic fitness, sleep quality, and longevity.
Cold Exposure: Explore how cold and for how long works best for you. You can use it to blunt inflammation (but watch out for diminished adaptations to training), speed recovery, enhance immune function, and excite the CNS.
Nature: Getting out in nature has myriad benefits. You are a natural, human BEAST. Good to be a part of the natural world. Hike a bit. Then sit quietly and take it all in.
Mobility Flow: This can be any “mobiflow” like some of the ones we use in our workouts. It can also be a yoga class or just a sequence of movements and stretches that you string together in the moment. Try to hit a few areas (hopefully not too many) in which you feel you are lagging.
Zone 1 Cardio: This can be any mode. Walk, bike, swim, row, etc. Generally only works in jogging with dedicated runners who run a lot but that might be you. Keep it very easy and don’t let the duration go over 30 minutes in most cases.
Light Resistance Training: This one might surprise you, but you can use many of your resistance training moves as range of motion and circulation exercises. This is especially true when you select very light weights or elastic bands or tubing and you work in unilateral, triplanar motions.
Casual Sports Play: I love shooting baskets, paddling my kayak or paddleboard, going for an easy ski or mountain bike ride, playing a little pickleball or Frisbee. I could add more to that list and I bet you have a bunch of options also. The only key here is not to get too competitive and turn this into a really hard day (at least not when we are calling it a recovery day).
Skill Practice: The sky’s the limit here. Shoot your bow. Practice fly casting in the backyard. Work on mastering an Olympic lift with a PVC pipe. Go through some footwork drills in submax fashion.
Activation: This one applies mostly to speed/power athletes, but if scaled appropriately, anyone can enjoy it. Working on just a few explosive movements (after thorough warmup) such as jumps, hops, bounds or throws can excite the CNS and prepare it for the next day’s session…as long as you keep it brief. Avoid high impacts, excessive eccentric contractions, and heavy loads.
Chores: Mowing the lawn (if you use a push mower) totally counts. Shoveling snow does too as long as it’s not a huge dump. Mop the floor, paint the fence. It’s all good.
The Stroll: Probably the king of them all. Just head out and cruise the hood or any other place you may be with no regard for heart rate or pace. Just enjoy human locomotion and ambulate alone for reflection, or with a friend or loved one for engaging conversation.
Just in case you need some merch to be oh so fashionable during your recovery training, we’ve got you covered. A sweatshirt that says “NO DAYS OFF!” and a t-shirt emblazoned with the graphic “MOTION IS LIFE – LIFE IS MOTION!”
There are many more options for recovery training and that’s the beauty of it. When you strategically apply recovery training in your program, you’ll feel great more often and have more success in the pursuit of your fitness and athletic goals.