The Importance of Recovery in Sports
This blog is directed towards athletes at the collegiate level and below. This is due to their lack of access to nutritionists/chef’s/therapists etc like the professional athletes have.
Recovery is extremely important in sports because if an athlete doesn’t recover from the training/games/meets their likelihood of injury dramatically increases. A big rule I coach by is you can only train what you can recover from. So, starting with training the volume and intensity must be appropriate to the experience level and type of sport the athlete is in. Listed below are some of the most important ways to recover from the training.
- Sleep: When I speak with great coaches and ask them what they have their athletes do for recovery the first thing they say is ‘sleep.’ As an athlete you want to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep and a maximum of 10 hours of sleep a night.
- Eat: Most athletes workout too much and eat too little. This can lead to them gaining body fat and losing lean tissue. I’m not a nutritionist nor do I focus much on learning a lot on nutrition so going to someone that went to school for it or a coach that has the background in it is important. But, to keep it simple, whatever you’re eating make sure you are getting in enough protein for your body mass and activity levels.
- Hydration: Ensure you are drinking enough water, and rehydrating after activity to retain it. Supplementing with the appropriate amounts of BCAAs and sodium can help greatly.
- Mobility Work/Body Tempering/Passive Stretching :These 3 are important and in my opinion the order of importance are mobility-body tempering-passive stretching. For mobility work FRC (Functional Range Conditioning) is the best I’ve seen out there. For body tempering I follow the inventor, Donnie Thompson. For passive stretching focus on a few key areas in the body where you’re tight and do 10-20 minute stretching sessions in the morning or night a few times a week.
Kalil Sherrod
-Westside Barbell Personal Training and Athletic Coaching Certified
-Byrd Sports Performance Certified Coach
