Recovery
Endurance sports are to a certain degree a competition of who can recover the quickest. Becoming a master of your recovery will allow you to train more, adapt quicker, and race faster -- all things that we strive to do. Let's discuss a few areas of recovery and discover which we can all improve in order to maximize our training and be healthy!
Recovery starts with the most basic requirement for all living things: sleep. When we enter into deep sleep (REM sleep) our body secretes human growth hormone. This allows for muscle growth, tissue healing, and overall adaptation from the stress of training. Most people are quick to decrease their sleep time in hopes of adding some additional hours to their day, but this only leads to chronic sleep deprivation, loss in performance, and eventually a large cost to your overall health.
The next component of recovery is nutrition and fueling. This includes everything that is consumed throughout the day including your pre, during and post workout nutrition and hydration. The old adage "you are what you eat" is truly something to live and perform by. If you continually fuel your engine with low quality fuel, you can't expect a high quality engine and high performance. Whereas, if you make sure to eat high quality nutrition, that includes carbs (to help fuel your performance engine, and replenish glycogen) protein (to allow for muscle re-synthesis and growth) and fat (for the heart health, absorption of vitamins/minerals, inflammation, and fiber content) you are creating a platform to build endurance performance.
Other recovery components include foam rolling, massage. compression socks/boots, sauna, hot tub, epson salt baths, etc.... The list can go on and on. A lot of people invest a lot of time and money into these components that offer limited gains in performance, but disregard the major ones listed above. Don't get me wrong, they do provide a benefit, but don't fall victim to the advertising if you have yet to dial in your sleep and nutrition. Once you have a good routine of sleeping and eating well consider investing in these added bonuses.
Together let's all make it a goal to focus on the most crucial pieces of recovery; sleep and nutrition. Develop an optimal routine now so that as training increases and the triathlon season gets closer it is something that is already ingrained in your schedule. If you are serious about performance and longevity within the sport this is the time to make a change and be the best you can be in 2019!