Original article written by Robyn Braun-Trocchio, Austin Graybealm Andreas Kreutzer and colleagues.
Background
Recovery is a crucial component of an athletes program to adapt to the stressors placed on them so that they can perform optimally. Recovery is not just physical recovery, and needs to be accounted for with respect to psychological, emotional, behavioural and social perspectives too. High-performance athletes typically undertake high training loads – which need to be balanced with sufficient levels of recovery to ensure proper adaption and reduction in injury risk. It is also important for practitioners to understand athlete beliefs around certain recovery strategies, as some athletes may have a desire to utilise interventions that are not evidence-supported, based on marketing or attraction to “gimmicks”. The “big rocks” or basics of recovery should be solidified before attempting to add further recovery strategies.
What the authors did
This research examined current recovery strategies, beliefs, and sources of information utilised by endurance athletes. The participants in this study included 264 self-identified endurance athletes across 11 different sports; made up of 122 males, 139 females, 1 non-binary, and 2 people that did not specify their gender. Participants completed an online questionnaire made up of 5 distinct sections (demographics & sport, current recovery practices, beliefs, evidence, and sources of information) that asked a combination of open and closed questions. The authors assessed the most common recovery strategies, but also attempted to identify if differences existed between competition and training, males and females, and top 3 overall compared to non-top 3 overall.
What the authors found
The authors reported a number of interesting findings demonstrating the most commonly utilised recovery strategies across training and competition, and between male and female athletes. The most common recovery interventions across both training and competition, and in both males and females, were hydration, nutrition, sleep, rest, and stretching (see Figure 1). Sex differences revealed that females use more massage to recovery from training, and stretching to recover from competition, compared to their male counterparts.
A large majority of participants believed in the benefit of the most commonly utilised strategies; namely – hydration, nutrition, sleep and rest. This belief was high in both training and competition. The belief for other strategies diminished, such as for compression garments, mindfulness, and socialising. Interestingly, athletes largely perceived and believed in a positive benefit of massage and self-massage, however less than half of those who believed in these strategies used them. However during competition, top ranked athletes had a greater belief in the benefits of self-massage, compression garments, active recovery, and socializing, compared to athletes who did not rank top three.
Athletes most commonly received their information about recovery from coaches, fellow athletes, websites, physical therapists, research articles and social media. Athletes subjectively determined if they were recovered from training by feelings of soreness, energy levels and desire to train, with a small number of athletes mentioning they also use heart rate measures alongside these.
Limitations
- The largest limitation with this study was that it was completed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such may have a large influence on training and competition, but also the strategies and resources available to the athletes.
- The major resources to the athletes (coaches and fellow athletes) may have also created bias towards strategies that could be implemented at home during the pandemic (nutrition, hydration, sleep), and less-so on the active recovery strategies due to constraints associated with movement and training restrictions during Covid-19.
- This research relied solely on subjective athletes answers, and as such may have been influenced by their own interpretation of questions and recovery strategies, or athletes answering how they believe their coaches may want them to answer.
- The research also did not account for previous injury of athletes, which can have a large and lasting impact on the strategies and belief athletes have over recovery in trying to prevent injury.
What this means for coaches
- There does appear some differences reported in endurance athletes compared to team sport athletes – the authors did describe a lower uptake for some strategies such as cold water immersion, which appear more popular in team sports.
- Differences in recovery strategies of top 3 vs non-top 3 athletes are evident, and whilst we cannot assume causality between these, it is certainly interesting to see differences – particularly in recovery strategies in addition to hydration, sleep, nutrition and rest.
- It is important for coaches to remain up to date on the most effective and efficient recovery strategies. If athletes rely so heavily on their coaches for information and recommendations, it is up to us as practitioners to ensure we remain educated in the recovery research, but also cautious to the noise – and act as an appropriate filter to our athletes.
Reviewer’s comments
- The methodology used in this study could be easily replicated with other sporting populations, but more specifically with your own sporting cohort. Consider the value of this insight from your own players – and how powerful this information would be around building your training and recovery program.
- It is promising to see (in endurance athletes in this study) the strong beliefs and emphasis placed on the “big rocks” of recovery; namely hydration, nutrition, sleep and rest. It would be interesting to see if this is found in other sports, which often see a rapid uptake of ‘new’ strategies for recovery.
- Identifying sources that athletes digest recovery information is of high importance to coaches. Ensuring they not only receive information and advice from the right people, but also are directed towards the right places to ensure they are being efficient with their time and resources, but also not potentially placing any harm on themselves.
Recommended resources
Article – Gimmicks or game-changers: Assessing the evidence for 10 recovery tools and techniques – Matt Driller
Article – Recovery strategies implemented by sport support staff of elite rugby players in South Africa – DV Van Wky and Mike Lambert
Article – Team sport athletes’ perceptions and use of recovery strategies: a mixed-methods survey study – Fiona Crowther and colleagues