Recovery For In-season Athletes

Recovery for in-season athletes is often times the most overlooked aspect of training due to the time constraints that exist and how coaches want to take advantage of each second the NCAA has allotted them. Due to the nature of collegiate athletics, and now even high school athletics, the aspects of recovery have taken an even larger role in maintaining athletic performance for individuals as well as teams. Think about the average day for a collegiate athlete; Class, Study Hall, Weight Training, Treatment, Practice, Position Meetings and then include; Individual Film, Nutrition, Social Life, Rest/Sleep, Travel and Games.
The question seems to be, “How can it be fit in?”, rather than,” Where can we fit it in?” When trying to implement recovery with this type of schedule it can seem like a very daunting task, however, it can and should be done. The aspects that I feel need to be emphasized the most are; Nutrition, Rest/Sleep, Active Recovery.

Nutrition-With in-season athletes nutrition is one of the biggest factors that needs to be addressed because of the caloric expenditure they have on a daily basis. How many times have you ever asked an athlete how often or even how much they eat? I ask athletes this on almost a daily basis and usually get the same answer, “I eat all the time coach or I eat a ton of food.” The problem with this is that they don’t understand how much they are burning everyday and relatively how little they are actually putting into their bodies. After they understand this, then you can address the issue of what they are eating and how it will either positively/negatively affect their performance. Are they getting enough lean protein, whole grains, good fats and vegetables everyday?

Rest/Sleep-I remember when I was performing an internship at IPI and having one of the full-time coaches, Joshua Aycock, talk about rest/sleep. What has really stuck with me when he talked to us about the importance of sleep is how you should “invest in it.” I thought this was pretty strange until he explained what it meant and I’ve used the same line ever since. To paraphrase the conversation, ”Look at how much you sleep everyday, it’s usually between 6-8 hours. Right? Then why don’t you have the best bed you can get in order to make sure that you can sleep better?” Although having a good bed is a problem, most athletes aren’t getting enough quality sleep everyday due to any number of reasons; travel, watching TV, playing video games, loud roommates, writing papers, social life…… This becomes an even larger issue when teams are traveling during the week to play away contests and needs to be addressed when planning trips.

Active Recovery-Just getting out and performing some sort of activity will help the body start to recover after it has been broken down to do stress, however this doesn’t mean that you need to increase the intensity/duration of practices. The type of activity that is being addressed here can be as simple as riding a stationary bike or elliptical for 20 min., a foam roll session, stretching, contrasting hot/cold tub or even performing an active warm-up. These activities are all very low impact, provide almost no stress to the CNS and most importantly they raise the body’s core temperature as well as increase blood flow, oxygen and nutrient levels throughout the body. All of this allows the body to become more efficient at “flushing” metabolic waste and replenishing the muscles with the nutrients that it needs in order to more completely recover and be ready to perform.

The aspect of recovery has been a long know factor to help increase athletic performance for individuals as well as teams, yet it is often one of the most overlooked. This could be do to the various and constantly changing factors that encompass recovery, a lack of understanding or willingness to implement the methods. Regardless of the excuses of how or why it can’t be done, if not addressed somehow, the negative aspects of athletic performance will out weigh them all.