Welcome to the final section of Back to Recovery Basics. In part one of this series, we focused on the foundations of recovery. This serves as an answer to the “why” question of recovery. It outlines the large role that recovery has in improving performance and maintaining your health and longevity in athletics. In part two we presented the big three, which must be the foundation of any successful recovery plan. If you are just joining the series, I highly recommend you take the time to read and understand these first two articles before moving forward.
Now that we have established why a solid recovery program is essential to your growth and what makes up the foundation of any recovery program, we can address how to supplement a recovery plan to specifically address your needs. By supplementing a recovery plan to fit an individual need, we are effectively personalizing that plan. However, I chose to use the word “supplement” rather than “personalize” in the title to reiterate the role of the content in this article. We have already built a large part of our recovery plan in part two by addressing sleep, nutrition and hydration (the big three). Therefore, the information contained in this article is to supplement and build upon our foundation of the big three. Just like pouring your time and money into whey protein and creatine won’t yield many results if all your diet consists of is frozen pizzas, putting all your effort into the supplemental side of recovery will not yield optimal results if you have not first nailed down the big three.
This is also not to degrade the benefits of these supplementary recovery options. Let’s say the big three was 65% of the recovery equation and supplementary recovery methods made up the remaining 35%. It doesn’t mean the supplementary 35% holds no value. In performance, no one gives a shit about only realizing 65% of their potential. The goal is always optimal and many would probably rather not compete at all than to do it half-assed at 65%. The 35% is absolutely necessary, but you need to remember where the biggest piece of the pie is coming from. You cannot completely bomb a test worth 65% of your grade and then expect to rally on the remaining 35% and end up with a good grade. Rant over, we can move on now.
1. Identify Your Needs
a. Know Your Sport
b. Know Your Body
c. Know Your Training
2. Select Your Recovery Methods
a. Active Recovery
b. Passive Recovery
c. Professional Services
3. Form Your Plan
To learn more about your supplemental recovery options, visit the full article by Dr. Detweiler on EliteFTS.com, Back to Recovery Basics: Supplementing Your Recovery Plan.