What’s This Research About?
The term recovery is a buzzword in fitness, but there isn’t a consensus on what it is, let alone how to evaluate and implement it for maximum benefits. In addition, there are so many modalities to consider for recovery, and not everyone agrees on what the best options are.
The authors of this paper outline what recovery is and provide a general overview of some of the seemingly endless recovery modalities from aromatherapy to supplements.
Why Recovery-Adaptation?
Recovery must also include adaptation. It’s not enough to recover from the demands of training, the athlete must also adapt, rebuild, and get stronger in order to handle future training programs.
TITLE: Recovery-Adaptation
PUBLICATION: Journal of Strength and Conditioning
DATE: 2016
AUTHORS: Sands, William A. PhD, FACSM, CSCS, EMT; Apostolopoulos, Nikos PhD; Kavanaugh, Ashley A. PhD, CSCS; Stone, Michael H. PhD, FNSCA
Adaptation: Growth and supercompensation. Deals with the process of long-term adjustment or alterations related to a specific training program. Involves biological defense systems including increased body temperature, increased metabolism, and hormone response. It also involves prediction – what will the body need later based on the stress that has been placed upon it? Hypertrophy is an example of adaptation.
Fatigue: “(a) There is a decline in one or more of the biological systems, (b) The decline is reversible, and (c) The decline may or may not occur before an observable performance or task failure occurs. Fatigue can be categorized as peripheral or central.
Central Fatigue: Fatigue from the cerebrum to the motor neuron. Central modalities include mental training, sauna, steam baths, and sleep management.
Recovery: Repair, or returning the athlete from a state of fatigue to a state of less or no fatigue. Hausswirth and Mujika define recovery as follows: “From a practical perspective, we define recovery as the whole set of processes that result in an athlete’s renewed ability to meet or exceed a previous performance. Further, the recovery period is also defined as the time necessary for various physiological parameters, which were modified by exercise to return to resting values.”, However, Stone et al. expand the concept of recovery beyond repair or refueling and add the idea of growth and supercompensation.
Overtraining: A more severe form of fatigue.
Peripheral Fatigue: Concentrated fatigue from the motor neuron to the muscle. Can affect one or multiple limbs, impacts strength, range of motion, and rate of force development. Peripheral recovery modalities include limb compression, hot packs, and electrical stimulation applied to a specific limb or body area.
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