Training Recovery in CrossFit
Training Recovery comes in many forms when it comes to High-Intensity workouts. Recovery can come from some much needed time away from the gym spending quality time with your family and friends. It can entail a hike in the park or maybe even a swim down by the lake. You can stretch and work through specific breathing techniques to increase oxidative blood flow throughout your body.
Its is important to note that “Intense Workouts” cannot be done day in and day out. As the intensity increases in work pieces, it is vital that you spend even more time recovering than you actually do “Fitnessing”. What is True Recovery? At Bedlam CrossFit, we believe recovery comes through the form of movement and rest.
Training Recovery through Movement
Movement can come in many forms as listed above but here at Bedlam we genuinely like to disguise a lot of the recovery work without you even knowing. “Open Gym Thursdays” are developed as MAP 10 days which come with the definition as long aerobic and truly sustainable pieces. On Thursdays, we tend to have each of our clients come in and work on some sort of progression within a skill or fall into the 30 Min AMRAP @75% piece. But Why?
It really boils down to us wanting you to recover the right way. Through movement, we can get each and every single one of you who show up on Thursdays to put your bodies back together through sustainable work. What does this day do for us?
We can work on increasing the efficiency of our heart and lungs. At the muscular and respiratory level, every athlete needs to continue to improve on their oxygen efficiency. Thursday’s are perfect to develop this.
It delivers proper Blood Flow throughout different movement patterns. On Thursdays there is always a longer 30 Minute Amrap. These benefit us more so because it gives our hearts the ability to pump proper blood flow throughout the “Entire” body. This comes from doing “sustainable” rowing/ running/ jumping/ sitting and other movements that are conducted as EASY efforts per each athlete. “An active recovery process for anaerobic or sprint training has been shown to reduce blood lactate levels immediately after the recovery as well as 5 minutes post-recovery.”
Thursdays actually are a great tool in developing muscle endurance as well. You ever wonder why you are always able to do 15 Wall Balls unbroken every single time but then we ask you to do 25 Wall Balls unbroken and you are about to faint when you get done? It boils down to your muscle’s ability to contract but a few times before they run out of gas. The Muscle endurance aspect of your legs need to continue to develop and the only way to do that is through repetition. Low-Intensity training is a great tool in building more muscular endurance. So THURSDAY’s actually DO make you a better athlete without you realizing it. So why miss those days as now they seem to be the MOST IMPORTANT? DON’T!!!!
Recovery through Rest
Everybody knows the most important part of CrossFit is actually SLEEP. It is not the training that comes in the gym, but rather the 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep everybody should strive for when you are doing intense training like we do here at Bedlam. Rest helps us as athletes put our bodies back together. Through the intense sessions we have, we cannot continue to beat our bodies down day in and day out. We must ensure we are taking the proper steps in sleeping to put our bodies back together after breaking them down.
Conclusion
Rest and Active recovery are vital aspects of our training and day to day lives. As we prepare through the different aspects of our fitness journey, we are reminded, it is an evolving door when it comes to finding exactly what works for us. Some of us may do better with rest, while others may have a better approach to blood flow for recovery. A mixture of both tends to be the best approach for me.
-Coach Mitch
Reference: http://umich.edu/~medfit/resistancetraining/importanceofrecovery101705.html