The secret to improving your training

Improve your technique? Train harder? Perhaps.

There can be many factors that contribute to improving your training and racing performance. Whether it be taking seconds off your transition times, improving your swimming technique, enhancing your run power, developing your bike handling skills, training more frequently and harder. However, a major aspect that gets forgotten often is recovery.

What do we mean by recovery? When we put the body through a tough training session, for adaptation to take place or for our body to improve from this training we need to rest so the body repairs itself. Once the body has had sufficient rest our body comes back stronger and ready to hit a harder session. If we do not have sufficient recovery by allowing the body to repair, we start the next session two steps back from where you were yesterday and not able to push as hard, instead of a step forward.

What can we use as recovery tools?

• Drinking adequate water - to hydrate you from training and to flush out toxins from hard training bouts

• Active rest - cross-training or low-intensity activity that gets the blood pumping to the muscles to aid recovery

• Sleep - quality and quantity so the body has time to repair itself

• Refueling - nutrition timed correctly can re-balance what is lost during activity

• Physical therapies - massage and stretching

• Emotional recovery - switching off, meditation, having a rest week from a demanding training plan

We know training consistency is key to improving however you also need to consistently have recovery time. By utilizing these options it allows you to recover faster and more effectively and thereby train harder and more often. Without recovery and just pure hard training, this works well for performance for a short while but then eventually leads to illness, injury, and fatigue – ultimately limiting your performance.    

Author – Head Coach Amanda Moore