Not long ago I had a chat with past Madison Aquatic Club coach and friend, Ricky Perez, who is now a coach for TIDE out in Virginia Beach. Their coaching staff is taking turns doing a "podcast" of sorts on topics related to swim performance. He is tackling the areas of Recovery and Nutrition.
Between talking to myself and President of P2Life Nutrition, Micheal Shead, Coach Perez composed a two part series on Recovery and Nutrition, "While work is a necessity, it is only one part of the puzzle." Below is Part 1. Give it a read and let me know your thoughts! I will post part two sometime tomorrow.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coaches’ Corner: Recovery, Pt. 1
In the world of athletics, and more specifically competitive swimming, there are many trends and ideas floating around recovery and nutrition. Often times, we do not utilize all of our resources to their full potential. Most athletes will come to practice on a consistent basis work hard and go home feeling satisfied. While work is a necessity, it is only one part of the puzzle. Recovery is what allows the body to adapt and grow from the work that was put in at any given training session.
In swimming, we may have practices ranging from a single practice that last about an hour all the way up to two practices a day adding up to four to five hours a day. It may sound like a lot of training time, but what could you or your athlete be doing during the other 20+ hours of the day to enhance performance?
I took some time to talk to some good friends and very knowledgeable people in two areas of training. Derek Toomey (current coach and previous NCAA swimmer/Team USA athlete) and Micheal Shead (President of P2Life Nutrition) found and answered some frequently asked questions about recovery and nutrition that may help you become a better athlete. All of these may help whether you are an 8 and under swimmer in your first season or a national swimmer who has been doing this your whole life.
In this first part we will be looking at just recovery as a whole and in the next post we will be looking at nutrition more specifically. Nutrition and recovery work hand in hand as nutrition is a major component of recovery. With so much information on nutrition, we decided to post them as two separate pieces of information.
Recovery:
How does not recovering affect performance?
We all know that recovery is good for the body, but it goes outside of just waiting for a day off or a recovery practice. A good way to picture it is by thinking about how rested you are in the form of a percentage. “If your body can only perform at the percentage you are recovered, let’s say your body is only 70% recovered, then 70% is all you may get out of a practice.” In order to get everything we can out of our training we have to be able to look at training as a 24/7 practice. This means recovery is more than just hoping your coach writes up an easy practice.
What are some recovery strategies that can be utilized throughout the whole day to help prepare for better training sessions?
If coaches only have control over one to four hours of training per day, what do we do with the other 20+ hours? Nutrition, sleep, stretching, and even meditating are big parts of recovering. One of the biggest things as athletes to work on is consistency with these techniques.
Sleep: Although it becomes hard to get in all these hours, studies have shown that athletes, due to performing at a higher level, require not only 8 hours but 9.25 hours per day. During this time the body will go into “construction mode” as your body is able to focus all its energy on delivering nutrients, creating blood flow, and regulating hormones to repair and recover your body throughout training. While sleep patterns and needs are very individual, a great approach is to look at a 24 hour day. Are there any times or activities that can be shortened, optimized, or cut out in order to add 30-90 minutes of sleep a night? The average teenager spends anywhere from 3-6 hours of each day on their phone/social media. These numbers may not apply to all athletes, but while we know social media isn’t going anywhere, this is a good place to look for swapping some screen time for a few extra “Zzz’s”.
Stretching: Stretching is one of the easiest ways to recover because you can do it just about everywhere and anytime. The main areas of focus may include ankle flexibility, leg muscles, triceps and lat muscles. Many athletes do not have a background in a field that has to do with anatomy so my biggest tip would be utilizing your coach as a resource or doing some of your own research on the internet and searching for things like shoulder muscles and from there pinpointing where you are sore and then looking up stretches for that muscle. Do this after practice, before bed, when you wake up, and even throughout the school day to keep your muscles loose and ready to go.
Meditation: While meditation can be in the form of yoga, it can include any form of mindful practice. Meditation is being aware of where your body is at its current state and being able to release tension mentally, which will eventually lead to releasing tension physically. Practice this before bed with Shavasana (corpse pose) and hone in on deep breathing through your diaphragm and lungs. Practice this by incorporating box breathing/meditation, also known as diaphragmatic breathing. Remember that exhaling is just as important as inhaling when it comes to active breathing exercises!
Other things to think about during this time are imagery and visualization. Looking at your life and envisioning your direction and purpose helps program the brain with “Self-fulfilling prophecy”. This being the idea that if one believes in something, it will happen, and their resulting behaviors align to fulfill those beliefs. In other words, beliefs influence your actions. Athletes of every sport, at the highest-level practice this year-round picturing their big event so that when the time comes, they are ready and have rehearsed their performance many times before. To read or even watch more on this take a look at Rhonda Byrnes’ “The Secret”.
Do you do anything different at meets when it comes to recovering?
There are a couple of things you can do to help recovering during meets but the first main point we need to remember is not changing any routines too far outside of what we are used to doing. Consistency is key.
While you are at meets be sure to warm up and cool down properly as this will keep your body ready to compete, while warming down will flush out nasty toxins built up in your body, like lactic acid. The faster you do this and the longer you do it after a race the better. Remember you can never cool down too much. Between races elevate your legs on a wall and do some mindful breathing to both reduce anxiety and promote circulation throughout your body.
What are some other recovery strategies you can do throughout your training and at meets?
There are hundreds of different styles and theories that people use to recover but it’s just a matter of finding one that works for you.
Cupping: The suction and negative pressure provided by cupping can loosen muscles, encourage blood flow, and relax the nervous system.
Compression clothes: Decreases muscle tension and inflammation. Increases blood flow and circulation.
Ice Baths: This will reduce swelling of muscles while flushing lactic acid out of your body. When you sit in an ice bath the cold causes your blood vessels to tighten. This helps drain the lactic acid out of your muscles.
Foam rolling: This a way to help smooth out your fascia, the tissue that stretches over and through your muscles. Fascia is like plastic that covers your muscles, so when you build too much of it you become stiff and less flexible. When you roll out you also release muscle knots, and which helps reduce muscle tightness and improve joint mobility.
Muscle stimulator machine: These machines can be found as a handheld device or a large piece of equipment. Typically used with more senior athletes, this device helps stimulates muscles enough to create blood flow, activate muscles as if you are stretching out/moving around, and it helps promote voluntary muscle contraction rates for later activity.
In all, there is no single answer to how to recover better. If your athlete is valuing their practice time and looking for other ways to improve, ask them to start looking at ways they can value their non-practice time to maximize the space between training sessions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A great write up from Coach Perez, tune in tomorrow sometime to see Part 2!
Comments