6:30am: wake up, drink water, coffee, something small to eat, try to find some kit to wear
7:30am: kids have gone to school, still dark outside, time to climb onto the indoor trainer.
9:00am: climb off the trainer, totally dead, and now have to do some work.
Trying to recover fitness
It’s mid-January and I’m now into my third week of trying to recover some fitness after the Christmas break.
Like most of you, I love to ride outside as much as I can but in the depths of winter this is often not really practical, not to mention sometimes a little dangerous.
I’m trying out the Zwift 12 week FTP builder programme. I started out with an FTP test, which then sets the levels which I ride at for all of the sessions that Zwift proposes. This wasn’t actually as bad as I expected, really only the last couple of minutes are hell, and then it’s over.
Taking the test means the workouts are perfectly pitched, and I have managed to complete them all so far, the training is pretty tough on my body and I’m trying to figure out what works well for me to help my recovery.
Sleep is important, but what else?
As discussed in last week’s blog, I think sleep is the most important tool we have to help our recovery. I’m usually in bed by 10:30pm and it really helps when I get 7-7.5 hours a night. My Garmin watch is helpful just to double check on my sleep – but to be honest I can feel it if I haven’t slept well.
So after sleep, what else can we do to help our bodies recover from this shock to the system that is starting a new training plan?
Below you’ll find five tips that have been shown to help you recover from a ride or heavy workout.
Recovery Tips – Five Steps to Recover Faster
- Hydrate: Leave a recovery drink chilling in the fridge; you’ll look forward to devouring it after the ride
- Stretch: Long stretches of each muscle group for 20 seconds will help flexibility. Also try getting into regular yoga practice, I use the yoga sessions that come free with a Wahoo SYSTM subscription, but there are loads of good free yoga tutorials on youtube.
- Self massage: Simple self massage can help flush out toxins and help muscle recovery – I’ve got a Theragun which really helps when you don’t have a massage therapist on hand.
- Compression: Compression tights can often help reduce muscle soreness and speed recovery
- Listen to your body: Sometimes your body will be sending you a strong signal to rest but you may try to ignore it and keep the plan on track. If you don’t feel up for a planned session and still aren’t feeling good 10 minutes into the session then turn around and head home; it could be the body sending you an early warning signal.
All that said, I’m off to do some yoga (not something anyone needs to see) …
What I’ve been listening to while writing
Turnstile – Never Enough
If you need something to smash into your ears while you’re on the turbo trainer this January, you could do far worse than this new album from Turnstile. I’d describe it as a mix of great 80s synth pop with hardcore rock. It’s bloody good and it’ll blow out the cobwebs for sure. Enjoy!
