Recovery
Drinking during a workout
When a person works out with weights, it is important that they let their strength return before they workout again. Regaining strength between workouts is known as recovery, and the time that it takes a person to recover between workouts is what is known as recovery time. I believe recovery is quite variable and depends on the personal qualities of a person’s body, and varies greatly according to the type of workout that is done. There are also different states of recovery that a lifter can be in, and in my opinion, recovery can be easily misunderstood, so I am writing this article to bring clarity to the subject of recovery.
Individual Differences
Perhaps the most common misconception about recovery is that there is a universal recovery time that everyone should allow between workouts. I don’t believe that everyone recovers at the exact the same rate. It is quite possible that if there are two people who are at the same strength level, and they perform the exact same workout, one may recover faster and the other slower because people are individuals.
How You Condition Your Body with Training Frequency
The next factor that people need to understand about recovery is that you can train yourself to recover faster or slower according to how often you habitually workout. For example, if a person trains their whole body three to five times per week, their recovery rate will most likely be faster than a person who trains their whole body once or twice per week, because to some extent, the body will adapt its recovery rate according to the workout frequency that a person habitually uses.
The Difficulty of the Workout
Another factor that can go overlooked in regard to recovery is how hard a person works out. A long workout is generally harder to recover from than a short workout. Pushing harder during sets of an exercise will make it harder to recover from than not pushing very hard during sets of an exercise. Lifting very heavy weight can cause nervous system fatigue and can be harder to recover from than lifting moderately heavy weights. Doing sets to failure with very light weights will cause extreme muscle fatigue and is harder to recover from than using moderately heavy weights. Demanding exercises such as the squat and deadlift are generally harder to recover from than doing calf raises or bicep curls that emphasize one small muscle group. In all of these examples, the harder the workout, the more recovery time will be needed.
Different Recovery states
When I listen to people and read about some of the things people say about recovery, it seems evident that they are thinking that the more you rest, the more you recover. This is true immediately after a workout, but it is not true forever. I think of recovery in terms of different possible recovery states that include: insufficient recovery (which is not good), anabolic recovery (which is what you want), steady state recovery (sort of a bummer), and detraining which is too much recovery time (a severe bummer). This needs to be explained and I will discuss each type of recovery in more detail.
In order to understand recovery, let’s take a look at what happens in the body after a workout. If a person has worked out with sufficient weight, volume and training intensity, the workout will stimulate the release anabolic hormones within the body. The common anabolic hormones that are referred to the most are testosterone, growth hormone, insulin growth factor 1, and insulin. An elevated level of these hormones will accelerate the rate of muscle synthesis and repair beyond its normal rate. The body’s goal is to create more muscle and strength than what it possessed previous to the workout so that the next workout will be easier and less stressful. The amount of time these hormones stay elevated seems to be an individual matter and can be as brief as 36 hours and as long as a week. With this in mind, each type of recovery will be discussed.
Insufficient Recovery
If a person works out before their body has a chance to rebuild the muscle tissue to the full extent that it is capable of, then the rebuilding process will be incomplete and a person will fail to gain strength or muscle size. This would be considered insufficient recovery.
Anabolic Recovery
If anabolic hormones are elevated after a workout and a person gives their body time to rebuild its strength and muscle size to a greater extent than previous to the workout, then the a person is experiencing anabolic recovery. Of course this is the type of recovery that someone who is engaging in strength training is trying to achieve.
Steady State Recovery
It is important that I stress again that not all recovery is automatically anabolic recovery that results in a strength gain. Perhaps the most common type of recovery for people who have been working out for many months or several years is steady state recovery. Steady state recovery is occurring when a person workouts and their body is only able to recover to the same constant level of strength and muscle mass. In other words, the person does not become stronger between workouts. This can occur from insufficient recovery, which means working out before full recovery has occurred, or it can also happen when the demand of the workout requires a greater anabolic recovery time than the amount of time that the body’s anabolic hormones are elevated. For example, if a person works out so hard that their body requires anabolic hormones to be elevated for 72 hours in order to rebuild itself to a greater strength level, but the lifter’s anabolic hormones only stay elevated for 36 hours after the workout, then the body will not be able to rebuild itself to a greater level of strength. What often happens is that the body keeps rebuilding itself to the same level of strength and muscle mass without ever becoming stronger. It just stays the same and is caught in the trap of steady state recovery. The only solution is for the lifter to perform a workout that they can completely recover from within the time frame that the anabolic hormone levels are elevated. In other words, workout hard enough to stimulate anabolic hormones, but don’t workout too long and too hard so that a long recovery time is required.
Too Much Recovery Time (Detraining)
There seems to be a camp in weight training circles that has the philosophy that if a person is not gaining strength they should rest longer between workouts. The idea is that the longer a person waits between workouts, the more they will recover and the more strength and muscle they will gain. For example, if you are working out twice per week and not gaining strength, try once per week, and if that is not working, try working out once every ten days and so on. This sounds logical but what is missing from the equation is that the longer you wait between workouts, the less anabolic hormones are being stimulated, and the further your anabolic hormones plummet to lower levels, the less ability your body has to rebuild muscle and strength. Instead of building muscle, you lose muscle. Losing muscle is known as atrophy and atrophy occurs from detraining. Detraining means muscles are not being stimulated enough to even maintain their size and strength. Once again the solution is to workout hard enough to maximally elevate anabolic hormones, but not so hard that your recovery time is longer than the time in which your anabolic hormones are elevated. Workout often enough to constantly stay in the elevated anabolic hormone state.
Smart Training for Anabolic Recovery
What is the take away from all of this if you are aiming for anabolic recovery which is the only productive type of recovery? Hopefully you can see that training harder often backfires, and waiting longer between workouts often backfires. Training smarter is what is necessary, which is why I advocate finding your limit rep or marker rep along with your limit set (finding your limit rep, marker rep and limit set are described in the “basics of ppt” section on this website). When you do this, your training will be hard enough to stimulate anabolic hormones and easy enough to recover from within the time frame that your anabolic hormones are elevated. The result is anabolic recovery and an increase in strength! Don’t be afraid to experiment with your training frequency by doing anywhere from 3 to 5 workouts for your whole body per week, or to go the other way and try working out only 1 or 2 times per week if you are fortunate to have excellent muscle and strength retention between workouts. I generally believe that if you only train while you are strong, and only as long as you stay strong, then you avoid fatigue during workouts and they are much easier to recover from. Easier recovery often means that many of you can increase your training frequency. For more information on Precision Point Training refer to the “basics of PPT” on this website, and the book, Get Stronger with Precision Point Training.