Recovery… An Overlooked Factor Affecting Optimal Performance
By Principal Remedial Massage Therapist, Thea Dillon
If you’ve been training for the past few months with the goal of racing or participating in a major event like the Gold Coast Marathon or Kokoda Challenge, you’ll understand how difficult it can be to get the most out of your training sessions while keeping up with everyday work and family commitments. In addition to this, staying on top of any niggles or tightness to prevent the ultimate performance destroyers – injury and illness- creates an additional challenge and highlights how important Recovery is in keeping you on track.
As a former Ironman Distance Triathlon competitor, I understand just how delicate this balance can be, and the oh-so-familiar desire to push that little bit harder in training because of the belief that “more work is better”. If this “more is better” behaviour is negatively impacting on your ability to effectively recover and perform at your next training session then you need to review both your mental and physical approach to racing, training and recovery.
In my experience as an athlete and now as a Massage Therapist for athletes of wide-ranging abilities and experiences, I regularly see how important obtaining optimal mental and physical recovery between sessions is, and how often this gets overlooked as a key component of an athlete’s training plan.
Getting plenty of rest and recovery time in between sessions, following a healthy diet and nutrition plan, and following a well designed training plan that contains scheduled recovery times are all essential to achieving your goals come race day.
In addition to the basic principles above, one strategy that is very effective in optimising recovery is scheduling regular sport-specific massage therapy (soft tissue therapy) into your program. Quality maintenance massage will assist your training and racing performance. All our Elite Athletes include Massage Therapy in their weekly training plans without fail, and sometimes even 2-3 times per week.
Effects of training:
Our bodies are extremely adaptable and so the natural response to the stress of training (whatever your chosen sport) is to increase muscle tone, lay down additional muscle mass, bone mass and connective tissue, enhance neuromuscular coordination (brain-muscle connection), and for endurance sports, to increase the number of capillaries (small blood vessels) in the areas that are stressed by training.
These changes increase strength, power and endurance resulting in better performance. The short term result of this training load is inflammation at a cellular level, muscle soreness (DOMS) and neuromuscular (brain-muscle) fatigue. The ability to recover quickly from this will accelerate the positive training responses, allowing you to train at a higher level and ultimately perform better, and feel better.
Failure to recover and subsequently adapt to these changes will ultimately result in ongoing pain, dysfunction and injury.
How does massage therapy help?
Sports-specific massage therapy assists the body to recover between training sessions and after racing by:
– reducing the inflammatory response within muscle tissue and accelerating the cellular regeneration process described above. Essentially the sooner you get the massage post-exercise, the better. This applies especially following intense or long sessions – treatment within 2 hours post exercise has been shown to be optimal.
-resetting neuromuscular coordination patterns and enhancing proprioception (awareness of your joint/body position) so that muscles that have developed excessive tension and fatigue are lengthened back to a more optimal state. This allows efficient brain-muscle connection to be reestablished. Your awareness of, and ability to control, joint position is also improved. For example, have you ever had the experience of being unable to “activate” or switch on a muscle before massage and then with a few minutes of treatment this ability to contract the very same muscle has been improved?
-restoring optimal joint position and range of motion. Say goodbye to that tight, niggly, painful or uncomfortable feeling and hello to “ahh I feel lighter, taller, can move more easily, more efficiently and feel better connected”
-reducing fluid congestion and compression around the soft tissues involved, thereby reducing discomfort and movement restriction. It is thought that this also facilitates the exchange of oxygen, nutrients (and other good stuff) and removal of waste products at the muscle cell level.
A few more considerations …
Everybody has different needs when it comes to sports-specific massage, and this can change from one treatment session to the next depending on where you are at within your training and racing plan, and how your body is responding. Seeing a therapist who is knowledgeable and experienced enough to tailor your treatment according to your needs is essential.
If your massage therapist uses a one-size-fits-all approach (this includes religiously going too hard on your already inflamed muscles and creating excessive trauma to your body), is difficult to communicate with, or is too general in their treatment approach, then it is worth taking your business elsewhere.
While we all respond in different ways to massage, generally it can be expected that if you receive regular maintenance massage or physio treatment and you are healthy, then you should recover quickly from massage and it should not impair your training performance.
Be sure to let your therapist know how you responded to your previous treatment/s so that appropriate adjustments can be made if needed.
How do you know if you’re not recovering and need to reduce training or racing commitments?
If you are constantly feeling tired and/or sore, experiencing difficulty sleeping despite rest, regularly feeling run down, have a higher resting hear rate, or are on the verge of illness and/or unable to complete your planned training sessions as per usual, these are indicators that you are not recovering from training and you are unlikely to achieve your performance goals.
Talk to your coach and/or therapist for advice on how to best adjust your training load and recovery strategies.
Other recovery strategies to consider …
Other strategies that can assist in accelerating recovery include:
-wearing quality compression garments during and following exercise (such as those manufactured by 2XU that are sold from both our Clinics)
-engaging in appropriate warm down and active recovery sessions
-using ice bathing or hot/cold therapy post training and racing
If you have any questions or require further information on how our team of massage therapists and other allied health professionals can assist you in reaching your health and performance goals, please contact us or book an appointment at GCPSH today, phone (07) 5500 6470.