MEANING: Recovery refers to the time required to allow muscles (or injuries) to recover sufficiently so that they are ready to be worked out again.
TYPES: There are two main types – recovery between training sessions and recovery from illness or injury.
There are several distinct types of sleep and it is worth learning about what they are and how to promote better quality sleep, because sleep is probably the most important part of any type of recovery. Without enough quality sleep, everything else will start to break, performance will plummet and injury will come knocking.
TIPS: Study for yourself about how you can improve your own sleep. The use of regular daily routines, and monitoring and control of bad habits or poor diet will all help to improve sleep and promote faster recovery.
DETAIL:
Sleep is just one part of recovery, although it is certainly a very important part. The need for sufficient recovery is often overlooked by inexperienced athletes and this leads to health imbalances. Every athlete, coach or mentor MUST give serious consideration to recovery time and recovery types when planning a training schedule. Rest periods can be from several hours to a whole day, several days, or even weeks or months in some cases.
Obviously, if you have broken a leg then the recovery requirements are quite different to just letting your muscles relax and stop hurting after a tough gym session.
Some different ways to recover are:
Injury Recovery
Periodisation Planning (as part of a longer term training roadmap)
Variety (a change is as good as a rest)
Diet and Nutrition Planning
Sleep and Relaxation