When will exercise stop making me so fatigued?

2»

Replies

  • carpe_vinum
    carpe_vinum Posts: 53 Member
    ^^^^^ Actually, no; I don't do any of those things. I am learning so much from this post. Is there a link/place where I can learn more about your suggestions?
  • alathIN
    alathIN Posts: 142 Member
    I learned the recovery cycle from the coaches of my fitness group and it has changed my life ;-)
    I do think this is an under-emphasized concept in fitness.

    Here are a couple of links that discuss the concept:
    http://voices.yahoo.com/foundations-effective-exercise-program-design-the-6954442.html
    http://strengthrunning.com/2010/08/running-recovery/
    http://strengthrunning.com/2011/08/how-to-taper-for-a-race/

    The last two are running oriented, but the concept is the same for any kind of fitness activity.

    In our group, we do a three week cycle.
    Medium week: this is where we do our "normal" level of workouts - it does increase over time, but we're always working at a level of volume/intensity/speed we've been to before
    Big week: this is when we increase volume and intenisty; push distance, add things we haven't done before
    Recovery week: decrease overall volume and intensity by 20-30 percent. Use the extra time for extra sleep. Do not do anything at 110% intensity level. Lots of easy aerobic work. Do not go too lean on the diet, especially do not restrict protein

    Personally I do not like recovery week because I miss the longer workouts - there is a temptation to cheat and "sneak in" extra work. But when I do follow the plan, I find that I come up to the next Big Week really energized and rip-rarin' to go.

    There is a similar concept called tapering when we're coming up to a race (covered in one of the links above). We don't go quite all the way down to recovery level, but we do take some of the edge off so we are have that "superchaged" feeling on race day.

Categories