Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Active Recovery: A Must to Progress!

This week is my second week of "active recovery" workouts. I learned about these from Leo Costa and his company Optimum Training Systems in the early '90's. Active recovery workouts are scaled back workouts to let your body rest, but not regress.
Leo Costa of Optimum Training Systems
Basically, I decreased all my volume, decreased the amount of weight I use, and let my body hyper adapt to the hard and heavy training I have been doing for the last nine months. By pushing so hard for such a long time, the body uses up all its recuperation abilities and goes into over-training. Some people over-train quickly; however, I have learned to train just on the edge of over-training, where I get the best results just by listening to my body.

Although I may feel like I'm strong when I begin training, I may discover that I can't move much weight, so it becomes a more moderate weight and higher volume day. Sometimes I feel the opposite - tired and not strong - when I arrive at the gym, but the next thing you know, I'm setting new personal records.

You never know from day to day how things are going to go in the gym, in life, at work; it's a daily surprise and I look forward to what the next day will bring. The problem now is knowing when to keep it scaled back and when to let loose again. We always want to be improving and getting the most out of every workout, every meal, every day, so sometimes it's hard to remember that the body needs down time. You just have to remind yourself and maybe even talk it out with yourself and stay the course until it's time to hit it hard again.
Me, resting between Active Recovery sets.
So today it's back to the gym. I keep listening to my body (as everyone should do all the time) and I'll see what it says, then I'll think it over and decide which way to proceed.

Take-home lesson:
Hyper accelerate your body just to the point of over-training, then
Hyper adapt to let your body catch up and heal, then
- Do it all over again. Even when you get to the look and weight you desire, using these two techniques will keep you where you want to be.

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