Training, Recovery, Supercompensation
One of the realities of running is that if you do a hard workout today, you won’t be a faster runner tomorrow. In fact, tomorrow you will just be tired, and therefore a bit slower. At some point, however, the fatigue of the workout will dissipate and you will adapt to a higher level. This leads to two questions: 1) how many days after a workout do you actually reap the benefits of that workout?; and 2) how much time should you allow between hard workouts or between a hard workout and a race? Let’s try to answer those questions. To optimize your training, you need to find the correct balance between training and recovery. Hard training causes immediate fatigue and tissue breakdown. Depending on the difficulty of the training session (and other factors discussed below), you may require from 2 days to 2 weeks to completely recover. Your training session also provides a stimulus for your body to adapt to a higher level (called supercompensation). Training provides the stimulus for your body to adapt, but time is needed both for recovery and to allow your body to adapt and improve. Turning Genes On and Off The intensity, duration, and frequency (# sessions per week) of your training all influence the rate at which your body adapts. The adaptations in hormone levels, fat burning ability, capillary density, etc that result from endurance training occur due to repeated training bouts rather than as a result of one workout in isolation. It is as though your body must be convinced that you are really serious about training before making the physiological adaptations that let you reach a new level. The process of adaptation begins with your genes. Training provides stimuli (for example, glycogen depletion) which turn specific genes on or off. By altering the expression of genes, training changes the rates of protein synthesis and breakdown. For example, endurance training turns on genes for the production of mitochondrial protein. More endurance training leads to more mitochondria in your muscles so you can produce more energy aerobically. Your muscles and cardiovascular system adapt over days and weeks due to the cumulative effect of repeated training.
Factors affecting improvement There
is great variability between runners in how long it takes
to recover from and adapt to a workout. Differences in
recovery time and improvement rate are determined by
genetics and lifestyle factors. Your genetics determine
your predisposition to adapt to training-some of us are
programmed to adapt more quickly than others. Lifestyle
factors such as diet, quantity and quality of sleep,
general health, age (we tend to recover more slowly with
age), gender (women’s muscles tend to recover more
slowly than men’s due to lower testosterone levels) and
various life stressors such as work and relationships all
influence how quickly you recover from, and adapt to,
training. Because there is great variation between runners
in how many workouts they can tolerate in a given period
of time, you should not just copy your training
partner’s running program. Only through experience will
you learn how much training you can handle.
Time
Required for Recovery and Supercompensation
Unfortunately,
the scientific literature does not provide clear evidence
of the amount of time required to realize the benefits of
an individual training session. Personal experience and
discussions with coaches indicate that 10 days is an
adequate amount of time to recover from and reap the
rewards of most hard training sessions. Given that any one
workout provides only a small benefit (on the order of
magnitude of less than 1 %) but that a workout can cause
severe short-term fatigue, it is wise to err on the side
of caution and allow enough days to fully recover from
training before an important race.
The
table below provides guidelines for the time required to
reap the benefits of 3 major types of workouts. The column
“# days before tune-up race or next hard workout”
indicates typical amounts of time necessary to fully
recover from a workout of each type. Although you will not
see the benefits of this week’s workout in this
weekend’s race, if you do the workout early in the week
you should recover enough so it does not have a
detrimental effect on your race performance. The table
acknowledges that we often do a tune-up race or the next
workout when the fatigue of previous training is reduced
rather than when supercompensation has occurred. Only for
a goal race do we generally allow enough rest and time to
obtain optimal results.
Tempo
runs are the easiest to recover from because they do not
break down the body as much as the other forms of hard
training. Tempo runs are not fast enough to cause much
muscle damage nor are they long enough to totally deplete
your muscles of glycogen. Long runs have a large degree of
variability in recovery time between runners, although
replenishing glycogen stores only requires 48 to 72 hours.
The variability in recovery time depends both on the
genetic and lifestyle factors discussed above and on the
type of course (downhills causing more muscle damage and
requiring greater recovery time). Interval workouts
generally require the longest time to completely recover
from because they put your muscles and cardiovascular
system under the most stress.
Minimum
Time Between Hard Workouts and Races
Type
of Workout Sample
Workout Days
before tune-up race or next hard workout Days
before goal race Tempo
run 4
miles @ 10 mile race pace 3-5 6-8 Long
run 17-20
miles 3-6 7-10 VO2
max Intervals 6
x 800 @ 3 km race pace 4-6 8-11
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article: Credits: Pete Pfitzinger
is co-author of two successful books: |
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This article has informational purpose and isn't a substitute for professional advice. |
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