Recovery Driven Training

The Work Mindset

The work mindset is still very prevalent in fitness culture and revolves around the belief that achieving substantial results is contingent solely on the level of effort exerted during training. But current scientific insights challenge this perspective, suggesting a more nuanced understanding of energy allocation, stress, and recovery is important for fitness and performance gains

My nuanced understanding started when I stumbled upon Whoop in 2019 and I have been a user since.  Whoop isn’t really a fitness tracker (although it does make a reasonable attempt to capture my daily activities) the core of it is as a recovery tracker that calculates recovery on a scale of 0 to 100% during your sleep, looking at your heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate, respiratory rate, SpO2, sleep performance, and skin temperature to see how your body is adapting to physiological and psychological stress. 

Now this isn’t a plug for Whoop, I’m sure there are other even better ways to get the data, and I can’t say I set out deliberately to pivot my mindset towards ‘Recovery Based Training’, but in the end that happened by accident, and I can’t complain about the results. Personal bests in all distances between 3000m and the marathon after the age of 50!

It would seem logical to assume that energy expenditure aligns linearly with our efforts, however, this isn’t the case. Our metabolism operates within limits; it can only produce a finite amount of energy per unit of time. Moderately active individuals, after a period of stabilization, expend energy similarly to highly active people. This isn’t surprising when considering the priorities ingrained in our brains through millions of years of human evolution—firstly, ensuring survival, then managing immediate stressors, and only finally, enhancing our fitness.

Focusing on Recovery

The concept is simple, the more intensely we train and the longer we train, the more energy our bodies must distribute to our working muscles and other tissues. Simultaneously, the process of repairing cells, rebuilding muscle, fortifying tendons, and enhancing countless cells demands an immense amount of energy. If, at a cellular level, we’re not equipped for the task, the desired results won’t manifest – our expected output won’t match the input.

Less can be more!

So, is the reason someone is performing better in a race a consequence of their training, or is it something more holistic? After all, it is not the work that makes you fitter, it is the work plus successful recovery. Recovery is key to the equation. If our biological system is forced to prioritize it will choose survival and stress management. So could the reason for the lack of progress in performance simply be that many of us are living in a constant state of recovery debt?

Recovery Energy  =   (Innate Stress Resilience + Recovery) – (Physical Stress +  Mental Stress)

If Recovery Energy is negative we have a Recovery Debt

I recently heard of a user of Morpheus which is an app and sensor used to estimate daily optimal cardio heart rate-based training zones (which did change day to day) based on its recovery scores and he was commenting on how well that lined up with his lactate testing on the day. Interesting indeed! I don’t know any users locally (currently US-based but they will ship to Europe) but it could be something worth looking at, so if you are a user please let me know.

I think you can make it even simpler. If you are training at the right balance of stress and recovery about a third of your sessions will feel great, a third okay, and a third feel crap… more than a third in this last category and you probably have too much stress, whether this be over-training or other stressors.

This concept of ‘recovery debt’ aligns with broader scientific findings indicating the body’s finite energy capacity. When rigorous workouts and life stressors consume excessive energy, they create an energy deficit, hindering proper recovery and tissue rebuilding – essential aspects for achieving fitness goals. This aligns with research highlighting the importance of energy allocation for vital biological functions, managing physical activity, and supporting tissue repair and adaptation.

The Zone 2 Debate

One over simplistic side effect of this line of thinking is the prevalence of the “Zone 2” training maxim. Let’s put aside the many conflicting definitions of what it is and just say that in the context of someone just interested in general fitness, sub-LT1 exercise is great. It is a low-risk approach to guaranteed gains. Also as training volume increases it becomes an obvious necessity for recovery balance over the training block. But what I don’t like is when it comes paired with a blanket demonization of training in Zone 3. For performance-oriented athletes, I find this problematic, but I do understand it – Huberman et al, have millions of followers on social media, and coaches want a slice of that cake!

This is a tagline from a post by a coach on the TrainingPeaks site:

“If you find yourself struggling to improve your run performance despite consistently tough training sessions, chances are you are in the dreaded Zone 3 plateau. Here’s how to bust out of this rut, avoid overtraining, and reach your running potential.”

As context is king, it lacks scientific or even principled coaching rigor. For a start I wouldn’t call Zone 3 “consistently tough” for a trained individual… they should feel moderately hard and most certainly controlled. The reason Zone 3 is prescribed as a training stimulus by coaches (as opposed to Zone 4 and 5) is to avoid overtraining, as the recovery debt is much lower at intensities below LT2.

In another post, the father of TrainingPeaks Joe Friel writes:

“There is nothing inherently wrong about training in zone 3 so long as it is beneficial for your race goals. If you are racing in events that are longer than about 2 or 3 hours and shorter than about 6 or 7 hours you will spend a lot of time in zone 3. For example, an experienced marathon runner will be in Zone 3 and even Zone 4 for much of the race…  I have athletes do a considerable amount of Zone 3 training in Base 2. It’s great for building muscular endurance early in the season. But as we progress into Base 3 and the Build period the training intensity becomes more like the race – whatever that may be for the athlete in question… So don’t rule out Zone 3 as being wasteful. It may not be. The bottom line is … your training (which is mostly intensity-oriented for the advanced athlete) should become increasingly like the race as you move closer to the event on the calendar.”

When we move from a general fitness orientation to a race performance orientation, our goals and training methods change. This “dreaded” Zone 3 is present in all the leading training systems; the Kenyans and Norwegians being called out because of it. Also, the Japanese distance running culture is interesting due to the commercial importance of their National sport of Ekiden, long-distance relay racing, where considerable work at tempo and threshold intensity is a mainstay of their training programs.

This isn’t a plug for sweet-spot Z3 training, I merely want to make the point that optimizing the duration intensity balance doesn’t have a single answer. So where does that leave you and I? If we have the Zone 2 culture coming from the lifestyle/wellness influencers and “hard work works” coming from some of the Elites, what do we do? 

This is what makes progressing my own performance goals and those of the athletes I support so interesting. Neither extreme is likely to be the best approach for us. What is needed is a highly individualized process of meeting the athletes where they are and moving them to where they want to be.  At the center of that process is determining the optimal training stress given the individual’s genetic predisposition, and accounting for other lifestyle stressors to minimize their recovery debt on a day-to-day basis.

In Conclusion

Technological leaps in fitness monitoring, encompassing heart rate variability, sleep analysis, and recovery tracking, emphasize the pivotal role of proper recovery in maximizing fitness gains. These tools grant insight into our bodies’ responses to training and stress, highlighting the importance of adequate recovery in minimizing injury risks and augmenting overall performance improvements.

We must acknowledge the far-reaching impact of stress, both physical and very importantly mental stress on energy distribution. Stressful situations trigger a biological cascade that mobilizes energy stores, impacting the overall energy balance and potentially hampering the recovery processes.

Embracing a ‘recovery-driven training’ approach involves prioritizing strategies that facilitate our bodies’ recovery states. By optimizing recovery through targeted interventions like sufficient sleep, rest, balanced nutrition, and effective stress management, individuals can allocate ample energy for tissue repair and adaptation. This approach underscores the significance of comprehending energy limitations and giving precedence to recovery for optimal fitness outcomes, tailored to each individual’s unique circumstances.