Athletes recovery
Coaching
Coaching

Recovery Strategy For Athletes

As Masters Athletes we are all too aware that recovery is key to maintain our performance over the years, but ensuring this is achieved is often neglected.  And as I refuse to stop training hard, I need to up my recovery game and searching around I came across a great article on the 100 point recovery strategy, and I have tweaked and placed into my own programme now. And I hope you can see the benefit too.

Optimising Recovery

It has long been recognised that without adequate recovery, an athlete will not achieve his or her full performance potential due to the accumulation of progressive fatigue, often termed over-training syndrome. Therefore, optimising recovery is an essential component of the overall training plan. Recovery techniques including methods such as compression therapy, nutrition and hydration, hydrotherapy, massage and myofascial release, athlete self-monitoring, and lifestyle factors have all been recommended. The purpose of this report is to recommend a method of implementation a 100-point weekly recovery checklist. Something I myself have used over the years and more so now.

100-Point Weekly Recovery Checklist

The 100-point weekly recovery checklist was developed for the beijing games and specifically for the Indonesian Olympic Team to use. The general training ideas and plans that were employed by the national team coaches was of high volume, which was consistent among the coaches the 16 sports (archery, swimming, diving, taekwondo, boxing, weightlifting, cycling, shooting, indoor volley, beach volley, canoeing, rowing, sailing, tennis, badminton, and athletics). Little emphasis was placed on optimising athlete recovery and regeneration, due to a lack of knowledge, available facilities, and adequate equipment. The main goal was to develop a “practical approach to recovery and regeneration” that could easily be implemented and used. A weekly recovery checklist was developed that gave a numerical recovery goal per week (i.e., 100 points) to motivate the athletes to engage in self-initiated, proactive recovery strategies. Proactive recovery has been defined as athlete initiated recovery strategies that are a planned and systematic part of the training program. Following review with sports medicine clinicians, 4 proactive recovery focus areas were included from the work of Jeffreys and implemented (Table 1).

Numerical Recovery Point Value

The numerical recovery point value for each recovery modality is presented in Table 2. Determination of a points value was based on (a) the effectiveness of the recovery technique being implemented (research evidence supporting its use) and (b) the level of athlete engagement required for its implementation, it needed to be easy (self-initiated, proactive recovery). As such, the numerical recovery point value represents a combination of evidence for technique effectiveness and the athlete engagement in implementation.

Checklist Instructions

The elite athletes were encouraged to achieve 100 points on the weekly recovery checklist. The athletes were instructed to select two or more of the daily recovery strategies (Table 2), with each strategies recovery focus area used at some point during the week. Check- list instructions are outlined in Table 3. An example of how you as an athlete could implement proactive recovery strategies to achieve 100 weekly recovery points is presented in Table 4.

Conclusion

Optimising performance requires a fine balance between stress/fatigue and recovery (recovery is all to often neglected), which is best achieved when the athlete is proactively engaged and sees the benefit within the recovery process. The 100-point checklist provides a useful tool to educate athletes about the importance of post-training and post-competition recovery methods, and to promote self-initiated, proactive recovery strategies for the improvement of maximum performance.

 

 

Use this Checklist to make sure you are getting the best out of your training by getting the best out of your recovery

If you’re looking to get some recovery items want to lean more check out my articles:

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