After a nice Sunday run yesterday, I took a few minutes to stick me feet into an adjacent creek for a brisk ice bath. (Post-workout ice/cold has an anti-inflammatory effect, by the way.) As I sat and shivered, I of course turned my thoughts to the importance of recovery. This is a repost from 2014, but I thought as the weather gets better and better, and many of us (myself included) change our modes of exercise and up the volume, recovery needs to be kept in the front of our minds! Don’t get caught this spring on a 2-legged stool!
I recently attended a clinic on endurance sports performance. There was a simple concept one of the speakers referred to that I thought was I nice way to look at our health outcomes, whether you are training for a marathon or just trying to lose a few pounds. It is the 3-Legged Stool model. This model has been used for many ideas, but it works well with athletic performance or health outcomes. Think of a 3-legged stool. What would happen if you were sitting on it and one of the legs broke? The three legs are essential—working together to support what rests on top. Here’s what the performance model looks like:
The three legs are Work, Nutrition, and Recovery. Let’s quickly look at each, and why they are so important.
Work. Think of this as the total volume of exercise you get each week. This can be measured in many…
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