This should say ‘how I recover‘ rather than claim it for absolutely everyone and by ‘quick’ I mean as soon as POSSIBLE.

‘Possible’ being the key word.

I could provide sources for most of this information, evidence given by some other ‘reputable’ website.

However, after years of experimenting and hundreds of strenuous races/training sessions, the following is what 100% truly WORKS for me.

 

HOW TO RECOVER IN GENERAL

The most profound and true advice I have ever been given that is significant to my training today is:

“Listen to your BODY”

What does this mean??

This can be hard to explain if you don’t know your own body signals well enough. Basically there is a difference between:

“I don’t want to train at 6am because it’s cold and dark and I’m sleepy”

AND

“I feel exhausted more than usual, this is extremely mentally draining”

OR

You’ve started your session and the muscles aren’t working the way you know them too (slower pace/speed, lower power, harder to increase). Knowing your body would help you to understand whether these messages are because you are overtrained a bit OR you may have fatigue and just need a longer warm up.

Experience is what will make the difference here. Ironically you need to do more training to find out if you are training to much or too little!

Tools such as Heart rate monitors and Power meters can make it easier to analyse.

For example MY Heart Rate is roughly 140bpm (beats per minute) when running at 4:20minkms pace (on flat pavement). IF I find it hard to run at this speed and I struggle to raise my heart rate over 125bpm then I may persevere for another 15mins, if it remains a struggle I will RETURN HOME and cancel my planned session.

That’s right, even though I paid my coach to tell me to do that session I still return home.

I have enough experience to know that I can recognise the symptoms by feel on whether I simply need to warm up more or need to return home and rest those muscles (or more severely, my brain)

YOU COULD force yourself through that session (be it 1 hour or 5 hours). BUT you are likely going to have a miserable time and be of poor quality. I’m sure you’ve heard this before:

 QUALITY VS QUANTITY

So you might think the above is more talking about training rather than RECOVERY? It’s the same rules. You must understand YOUR body’s symptoms to know what REST it needs. A bit of common sense usually does wonders too.

Now we’ve covered that part:

HOW TO SPEED UP THE RECOVERY PROCESS

I’ll keep this simple:

R.I.C.E

Rest – Relax, sleep, rest your muscles and your mind.

Ice – This doesn’t necessarily mean ice. My favourite is running the muscles down with cold water in the shower then hot water alternating between temperatures about 3 times and 30secs to 1min each temperature.

Compression – The classic tights, full legs, or just calves, ever arm one’s/upper body. I use knee high compression socks the most often.

Elevation – the legs or specific muscle high in the air above the chest. My usual is lying on bed with the legs reaching high up the wall at one end. Leaving there for 5-10mins while reading a book or playing on the phone.

Important extras:

FOAM ROLLING (This is self massage. Light before sessions and heavier rolls before bed) https://www.instagram.com/p/BPtv6epgys6/

SPORT MASSAGE (Once a fortnight for me during high training periods, I would have more often if I could afford too) 

SLEEP! (8 hours per night and occasional 20-30min power nap in the day if feel necessary)

STRETCHING (See Video below)