I’m a massive fan of recovery devices such as ice baths, saunas and remedial therapy. I even have an infrared sauna in my house. But it’s important to recognise that recovery is not that simple. Just adding in a sauna session is not enough if you are training hard for major adaptions as an athlete. Proper recovery is a training schedule non-negotiable that cannot be over looked.
I learned this to my detriment in May of 2023. My second fight was an absolute blur to me.
A massive part of this being such an unpleasant experience was that I had zero concept of recovery and the role this plays in making you not just a better athlete but a functional one. When I say functional, I mean mentally, emotionally and physically.
Not only was I not performing my best, I felt miserable while doing it. If ever there was a time I could have given up boxing, it was after that fight. Here are some things I (thankfully) learned from that experience. Plus-some nuggets of wisdom from my long time strength coach and all round top bloke, Chris Creek.
1. Respect the impact of life outside of the gym
Conditions will not always be perfect, nor be perfectly under your control. I started the draft of this blog over a month ago, then had to stop because my dog became ill.
I lost her 3 weeks ago.
If you think I have cared one bit about training in the last few weeks, nor about boxing, strength or cardio, you are so mistaken. I will be slowly picking up training, being kind to myself with additional rest days if I need them as I adjust to life without her.
That is totally ok.
Remember you are a human being first, and a fighter second, no matter what the Instagram boxers would have you think.
2. Don’t ignore that you are flesh and bone
A major factor in making that fight back in 2023 so unpleasant was that I was quite literally in physical pain.
I had been training through a chronic injury for months, and was just not letting it heal. As it turns out, I ended up requiring cortisol, shock wave therapy and 18 months of rehab and strength work to tame my plantar fasciitis. Would my experience have been different if I had taken more time to rest and recover as part of my weekly training plan? I suspect so.
It was a long road, but I can say with confidence that my injury is now under control, and managed well.
3. Acknowledge the raw material you are working with!
We also need to respect our own bodies, what is the raw material we are working with? Me personally I am stocky and gain muscle mass easily. Terrific, right?
Unfortunately, this also makes me prone to storing a huge amount of tension in my fascia, also to joint immobility and reduced range of motion. Additionally, I am operating a 43 year old perimenopausal body.
When I asked Chris if recovery becomes more important as you age, his response was emphatically, yes!
As he said, recovery is always important, but you can get away with a lot more in your 20’s.
When speaking of older athletes, his main steer was, “You have to train smarter. You have to deload a little bit more. You have to pick the times to push hard…..I do think athletes in their 30s and 40s, they’ve got their heads screwed on a lot better and tend to do better over time-they’re more consistent.”
4. Be deliberate about deload weeks
Chris taught me the value of conscious deload weeks. This means I reduce my load and volume for 1 week out of every 4-6 to allow my nervous system to recover more than usual, then restart the cycle.
His observation after 15 years in the game is that people either underuse or overuse deloading. As Chris points out, deloading is important for recovery, but you also need to earn that deload week, so make sure you are truly maxing out on quality training before you deload.
Again, age will play a role here. When he is training someone in their 20’s, “They might only need a deload once every 12 weeks. Whereas if I’m training someone in their 40s, maybe we’ve got to do it once a month or even a couple of times per month.”
Chris and I originally started mine at 4 weeks. Then as I became more observant of my body, it started to land around 5 or 6 weeks quite naturally, with my body now telling me when it’s ready to deload.
I reframe the deload week to be a focus on other aspects of training. I reduce the high paced balls-to-the-wall training in favour of mastering new or difficult techniques at a slower pace. It’s an oportunity to focus on tightening up technique over conditioning.
5. Plan purposeful rest days in your weekly training schedule
When I started to map my rest days into my weekly training diary the same way I record a strength or sparring session, it really helped me change how I thought of recovery.
When it’s in my training plan, it’s a non-negotiable. It’s a productive part of the training process that serves a purpose. Rather than pushing my already taxed body to squeeze in another workout for diminishing returns, I keep my recovery days “sacred.” I never skip them, and in fact, I sometimes add more if I feel I need to. This is a totally guilt free process, and my performance and body is all the better for it.
6. Respect the deload after a peak in performance!
Deloading over a training block is important, but just as important is deloading after a peak in performance.
Chris points out that, “Quite often, it might not be the connective tissue or muscles that need a break. It might be the nervous system.” He said, “I think the mistake a lot of people make is they do the big events and then think-I’ve done it now. Now I’ll just go back to my normal training. And it’s like well. Your body’s gonna take, the next week to recover and you’re straight back in the gym. Smashing yourself again!”
Indeed, my poor nervous systems has experienced this disrespect before, after a 3 day tournament, or even just a stressful fight that involves travel. Even though my body felt fine, the second I tried to perform my usual activities, I fell into a hole. Taking the time to recuperate a bit after a peak performance moment ensures you don’t cook yourself.
7. Don’t step over a $50 note to pick up a 10 cent piece.
Chris uses a great phrase, which is “Don’t step over a $50 note to pick up a 10 cent piece.”
What does he mean by this? Fundamentals first: sleep, nutrition and stress control. These are all worth so much more than an ice bath and a sauna. If you aren’t adequately fuelling, sleeping well or you are extremely wound up due to other life stressors, an ice bath is not your first priority.
Once you have those basic building blocks in place, you can worry about adding in other recovery methods to enhance the process.
8. Be self aware-not just Whoop aware
When I asked Chris how he identfies poor recovery in his clients, he could answer immediately and with confidence. “They’ll struggle to progress. So they will fail to go up in weight week after week. They’ll feel flat, low energy. Niggling injuries, reoccurring injuries. I guess mood as well is a big one I see too.”
An interesting side note is grip strength as an indicator of nervous system fatigue. Chris watches to see where my grip strength is when I’m lifting. I hadn’t noticed he did this. He explained that it’s a sign the nervous system is under recovered and you have accrued a lot of fatigue if you are failing to fully grip the bar on lifts.
It’s easy to rely on recovery metrics that are being fed to you via Whoop, FitBits and so on. My personal opinion is that listening to your body and being in tune with your performance is the best way to assess recovery.
Chris is a bit more balanced, he feels that “using a bit of science” via a fitness tracking app is great way to supplement your own self monitoring. He did say that, “over relying on one or another can maybe end up with people coming undone” should they follow the metrics blindly.
The key recovery takeaways
Overall, ensuring you build purposeful recovery into your training week, in addition to considering when a full deload week makes sense, is an essential aspect of recovering well from a high training load. Ensuring you focus on the body you are working with, and the context of your life at the time is important. By all means, use fitness apps and other devices, but ensure you suppment this data with a healthy understanding of what your own body is trying to tell you.
A final thougth from Chris. He emphasised that “when you’re training hard, week in week out, fatigue will mask performance. It can be ok to feel flat, that’s all a part of it. You can’t train hard and not expect to go backwards a little bit. As long you know you have a deload coming up, or you know that there’s a means to an end, you are going to get that recovery and then go again.”
Happy training, and happy recovery to you all!
Image L: Celebrating a good win with Chris after my return from the MBA Golden Gloves in 2024
Image R: Chris walking the talk, taking the big dumbells for a spin
