Last Updated on 10 November 2021:
Your cycling performance improvements don’t happen on the bike – they happen off the bike and during the time when your body is recovering. With this in mind, giving your body a helping hand might be the difference between being able to complete the next training session 100%, versus just 90%. You might not think that 90% will be noticeable and it might not, not right away at least. Yet keep adding those 10% ‘s together and you soon have a lot of lost opportunities.
Covered in this blog:
- Recovering immediately post training
- Cooling down
- Stretching, foam rolling, and other recovery tools
- Avoiding sickness
- Replacing fluids, electrolytes, and carbohydrates
- Further recovery opportunities
- Sleep
- Massage
- The recovery mindset
- Recovery rides
- Time off the bike
- Top tips for optimising recovery from endurance training
Recovering immediately post training
Immediately post training or racing, you have a golden window of opportunity to really kick start the recovery process. Most experts agree that this period of time is between 30-45 minutes long, and there are several things you can do to maximise this opportunity.
Cooling down
Cooling down might not be my most important element of recovery, but it is certainly the one you will do first. Before you even get off the bike, we want to return your physiological state to the same (or at least very close) to how it was before you started your warm-up.
There are some more complicated methods, but I recommend simply anywhere between 5-20 minutes of easier pedalling, easy gear, high cadence. Your pedalling will feel very light, you might feel like you are spinning a little faster than you normally do, but you won’t be going all out. You can determine the time based on two factors. The first is how intense the session was you’ve just finished – the higher the intensity, the longer the cool down. The second is by your heart rate. Ideally we want your heart rate to return to the same beats per minute (BPM) as before your warm-up.
If you’ve just come back from a hard ride and need longer, jump on your indoor trainer to spin your legs. It’s very easy to just skip this step, but it is very noticeable when you do – your legs might be a little more stiff.
Stretching, foam rolling, and other recovery tools
There’s a lot of misinformation about whether stretching is actually worth it. Personally, I do recommend it, but most science suggests it doesn’t really do anything for recovery.
What does work is foam rolling, compression wear, percussion recovery tools, and other pressure based tools. These will just aid your muscles by helping circulate blood, flush out the waste products caused by training, and reduce any damage done while on the bike.
These vary in price from compression socks and foam rollers on the cheaper end, to the percussion tools and air pressure recovery trousers on the more expensive end. At a minimum, I recommend a foam roller and compression socks, but most people see significant value in purchasing the more expensive gear too.
I recommend using these tools immediately after training, but provided you don’t do any of this while your body is cold, anytime of the day can be of benefit. Note that I do recommend you look to replace fluids, electrolytes, and carbohydrates before this step.
Avoiding sickness
This might only apply if you’ve finished a race or group training session, but avoid other people like they have COVID. The time immediately after you’ve finished is when your immune system is most compromised. If COVID has taught us anything, it is how to protect ourselves from other people’s sickness!
While this won’t necessarily aid recovery, it might save your season if you avoid getting sick.
Replacing fluids, electrolytes, and carbohydrates
There are some more complicated ways of testing how much you’ve sweat during your training, but I like to get clients started with this simple test courtesy of Precision Hydration.
The least accurate way, despite what we may be told, of determining how dehydrated you are is checking your urine colour. The darker the colour the more dehydrated you are. While we should be aiming to get urine clearer (not clear though), it’s easy to manipulate this, go over the top, or misunderstand it. The best time of day to check your urine colour, to determine if you’re dehydrated or not, is actually first thing in the morning.
Forget the hype around protein immediately after training, this is just marketing crap. Your body knows exactly what to do with protein, provided you eat enough per day, the priority is replacing the glycogen you’ve just spent (eating protein after training might actually slow your recovery as your gut is busy digesting that instead of what it needs). This comes from carbohydrates. Depending on why you’re riding, choose something healthier here. Ultimately, do you want your muscles made of high quality food or crap quality cake?
Here’s a simple recipe that will help your body turbo charge your recovery:
- 100-150 grams of oats
- Shake/smoothie made with:
- Plant based milk (soy, oat, or nut)
- Handful of greens (kale or spinach)
- Half a banana
- Handful of your favourite fruit (strawberries are great)
- Blueberries to top (frozen work great if you’re cooking your oats)
There’s an awesome five portions of recovery boosting fruits and vegetables in this meal, plus around 750 calories including 125 grams of carbs. For convenience, you can add the oats to the shake and blend them in. You might not get 100-150 grams of oats in there, but it will give the fruits and vegetables an extra boost of carbs.
I am not a huge fan of measuring protein, carbs, and fats, nor counting calories. I don’t really like to worry too much about percentages or ratios. It often creates challenges around hyperfocusing on food intake, which can turn into eating disorders. Providing you continue to eat healthily for the rest of the day, this will continue to aid your recovery.
Further recovery opportunities
Now that you’ve taken advantage of the golden window after training, you should try to make smarter decisions about your recovery for the rest of the day. While the recovery gains might be smaller (in some cases), than immediately post-training, you can get a good boost from some of these additional opportunities.
Sleep
For me, sleep is the undisputed champion of recovery and, as such, deserves its own blog post (check via that link). Ideally, you will get a little nap after completing the steps immediately post-training, but I understand that this might be highly unlikely. In lieu of this, you should be aiming to get 7-8 hours of sleep per night, crucially this will be high quality sleep – so ensure you are practising positive sleep hygiene.
Massage
One of the best methods to boost recovery. A trained professional will be able to help your body really recover post-training. No doubt the professional will be able to go deeper than you will on yourself; with your percussion tool or foam roller, for instance. If you regularly see the same therapist, you will build a good relationship with them, and they should be able to start working on trouble areas, or offering advice based on your body.
The recovery mindset
Like sleep, the recovery mindset is worthy of its own blog post. To summarise, forget a lot of the rules you have on being more active in day-to-day life – taking the stairs for example – and start to think more about what will help your body recover.
Asking yourself whether you are adding to the time taken for your body to recover or reducing it when going about your daily life will really open your eyes to how much more you can do to help your body.
Recovery rides
Most people get this horribly wrong! Recovery rides might be something that replaces a rest day or sits the day before a key, more intense, session.
Sadly, people get this wrong by going too long (90 minutes is max), going too hard (you should be going so slow it’s painful), or doing this outside (for obvious reasons). If your recovery ride doesn’t follow these rules, it’s not a recovery ride and is actually adding to the stress your body is trying to recover from.
End of season breaks
Prolonged rest is the final part of the recovery puzzle. Of course, we only want this to happen once per year and, ideally, this is after you’ve finished your last “A event” of the year. Cumulative, or chronic, fatigue is often really hard to notice as it takes ages to build. A good long break of a week or more (depending on how long and hard your season has been) is wise to ensure you can build on this year, progress this growth into next year, and ensure you don’t need a break at a more untimely point of the year. Ask yourself if you want a break at the end of the current season or before your main event in the next one?
Top tips for optimising recovery from endurance training
It’s a lot of information, but it’s not a real challenge to implement any of these and, mostly, these are affordable or free. Bottom line is that recovery is a fundamental part of training, getting this right will help take your cycling performance to the next level.
- Cool down for 5-20 minutes after session
- Get a recovery meal, drink or snack inside you along with replenishing lost fluids
- Stay away from sick people
- Focus on quality sleep of 7-8 hours per night
- Utilise your foam roller, percussion device, and get a massage
- Remember to focus on healthy daily nutrition
- Only use recovery rides if you can keep it short and easy
- Think RECOVERY and make every opportunity count to build that recovery mindset
