How do you know when you have “recovered” your energy from one of our weeknight workouts? What does it mean to be recovered? A related question is: How would you know when you are “fully” recovered from a race or workout? These questions require an understanding of your body’s energy dynamics.
You wouldn’t know how recovered you were unless you took a run and felt your energy as it develops from moment to moment during a run. Running energy is in a constant state of flux, going up and down on this scale: no energy, little energy, some energy, ample energy, and abundant energy (see the graph on the left). These fluctuations are not random; they develop in patterned ways, according to four metabolic forces: transition, warm-up, expansion, and fatigue. Note, running energy decreases at first (trans-ition), then it increases (warm-up and expansion), before deceasing again (fatigue).
You wouldn’t know how recovered you were unless you took a run and felt your energy as it develops from moment to moment during a run. Running energy is in a constant state of flux, going up and down on this scale: no energy, little energy, some energy, ample energy, and abundant energy (see the graph on the left). These fluctuations are not random; they develop in patterned ways, according to four metabolic forces: transition, warm-up, expansion, and fatigue. Note, running energy decreases at first (trans-ition), then it increases (warm-up and expansion), before deceasing again (fatigue).
During a workout, your energy reveals itself in one of five workout energy patterns: sluggish, tired, lazy, ready, and eager (see the graph on the right). The five workout energy patterns extend in time from start to finish of a workout. During any workout moment, you can feel your energy evolving as one of the recovery patterns. Moreover, you can identify a pattern as it evolves.
So, Let’s say you were feeling ready-to-train-hard for a Monday evening workout. You’d be “recovered” when your energy returned to the ready level. In other words, you wouldn’t be recovered for the Wednesday evening workout if you were feeling sluggish, tired, or lazy (the workout energy patterns below ready).
“Ready” is the pattern of running energy that begins at the some-energy level, becomes ample as you warm up, and drops off as fatigue sets in. Your capacity for workout effort is greater at the eager-to-race level than at the ready-to-train-hard level. So, which would you rather have for a race? And how would you arrive at eager the morning of a race?
Furthermore, the adaptive purpose of any workout is to expand your capacity for effort. Once fatigue sets in, you should end the workout immediately because further training will only increase your risk of injury, while prolonging the time needed for recovery.