Greetings from your team at Restwise!
After nearly a month of data entry and reading emails about the science and philosophy behind Restwise, it must have been a relief to read our previous email on integrating your daily recovery score into your activity. Finally, the rubber meets the road! In a process of recovery-aware training that we call 'Recovery Evaluated, Scientific Training' (REST), when an athlete applies training stress can become just as important as what training load is applied. Since this approach may be unfamiliar (not to mention provocative!) we continue this conversation in this email, but focus more on the behavioral and psychological aspects of this type of training. Before we do so, however, we want to emphasize a critical point: REST does not mean 'easy training'. In fact, it may mean you train harder than you have ever trained before. But it does mean that you understand the importance of recovery within the context of adaptation, and that you understand that adaptation is the key process to getting stronger, fitter and faster. The two are linked, and REST simply makes that link explicit by revealing when your body is ready to go hard, and giving you the confidence to do so.
To kick-start the conversation, we encourage you to check this brief interview with Ryan Hall, Restwise subscriber and America's fastest marathoner. In it, he describes his evolution from a guy who admittedly ran himself into exhaustion to a guy who 'responds to training rather than just survives it.' We couldn't say it better ourselves.
Seen through the REST lens, Ryan reveals one key insight: that it is during the seriously hard workouts when you can trigger all those adaptations we've been writing about for the last month. But in order to make sure these key workouts drive meaningful adaptations, you need to enter the workouts fresh, strong and ready to punish yourself. Most athletes arrive at key training sessions fatigued - generally a result of insufficient recovery over a long period of time - thereby undermining their capacity to respond positively to the training stimulus. But since they are accustomed to the sensations of 'surviving' tough workouts, they perceive this experience as 'normal'. Now that you've read our thoughts on the matter, you can anticipate our position on this. But the larger question remains: why, when committing so much time and resources to training, do so few athletes actually behave in a way that optimizes results from that training?
Here's where it gets interesting. After interviewing hundreds of elite and amateur athletes, and talking with nearly as many coaches about the challenges they face guiding their athletes, we have come to the conclusion that... (deep breath).. the athletic culture in most sports simply does not support the fundamental premise behind REST. We believe this disconnect is due to four factors:
- First, athletes are by definition competitive. They always want and/or need to prove themselves. Particularly those who train in groups, but even those who train alone, are susceptible to the need to demonstrate their fitness during training - even when doing so may actually impede developing the fitness they seek.
- Second, every athlete knows that a lot of damn hard work is necessary to change one's body, and to adapt to increasing training load. The logic which takes this fact to its frequently flawed conclusion ("If X hard work is necessary, than surely 2X hard work is better, and 3X must be better still?) is understandable. More problematic is the fact that for a period of time, the conclusion is actually correct. The short-term positive feedback loop from doing a lot of hard work eventually and slowly evolves into a long-term negative feedback loop in which the same workouts which initially made the athlete strong and fast now make that same athlete tired, weak and slow. This evolution takes place over such a long time that most athletes don't recognize it until it is too late.
- Third, the fitness culture usually supports 'toughness' over 'awareness'. This is inescapable for many reasons, not the least of which fitness and competition requires a lot of toughness. Changing your body through the introduction of stress is not a comfortable process. However, it is critical to remember that what defines the athlete is not the same as the training which creates the athlete.
- Finally (and we're going out on a limb here), we have come to the conclusion that many athletes define themselves by their ability to handle brutal training, rather than by the results that come from that training. How many people do you know talk about how tired they are, or how they are having a hard time balancing their lives with their training, or how they did a massive training session over the weekend because they had to make up for a challenging work schedule? OK, now ask yourself how many people you know say they felt crappy at a race, or feel they never perform up to their potential, or simply feel that their training should make them faster? Do you think for a moment that these two concepts are not linked? And don't you wonder why those people never seem to focus on performance rather than on piling up the training miles/hours?
The fundamental problem is that a constellation of peer pressure, competitiveness, a culture of hard work and suffering and the recognition that you can't recover your way to victory, all conspire against REST. Your challenge is to harness all the benefits of those forces, yet to develop an independent well-developed awareness of your fatigue state and to make smart training decisions based on it. Restwise was built to help you do this.
As a closing comment, check out this article about a guy who defies the mythology about balancing training with life demands by competing at the very top level. Yes, he has great genetics, but more importantly, we think he is simply training smart. What do you think?
Until the next email... Intelligent recovery - Superior performance!
Matthew and Jeff
PS If you missed an earlier email, would like to reread one, or want to jump ahead, they are all posted here
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