In our article last week, we spoke about the proposed benefit of compression garments to enhance recovery following an intense cycling test. We are sticking to the recovery theme this week, but we are changing exercise modes and athletes. Triathletes are challenged to improve their performances in three different exercise modes. In order to achieve this they will often perform more than one session in a single day and often train in two modes of exercise (swimming, cycling and running).
Triathletes will often perform their swim sessions in the morning. Pool availability and access to swim coaches and squads will probably be the main reason for the early morning sessions. Recent research from the University of Western Australia suggests that triathletes may benefit from performing their swimming training in the afternoon after more strenuous morning sessions.
The researchers recruited nine well-trained male triathletes for the study. The triathletes all had VO2max values of ~72.3 ml/min/kg, indicating that these were elite level athletes. The study aimed to determine if water-based active recovery (a low-intensity swimming session) was more effective than passive recovery (rest) in improving recovery and subsequent performance following a high-intensity interval training session.
The triathletes underwent two performance tests separated by 24 hours. The first test was a maximal incremental (VO2max; peak treadmill speed) test performed on a treadmill and the second was a 1 km swimming time trial. The data collected from these initials performance tests was used to set the intensity of the training and active recovery sessions that followed.
The participants arrived at the laboratory early in the morning and followed a standardised warm up procedure, which consisted of 5 minutes of running at 60% of their peak treadmill velocity. This was followed with 5 minutes of stretching. The high-intensity interval training session consisted of eight 3 minute running intervals at 90% of their peak treadmill speed with 1 minute rest between each. The participants cooled down with 5 minutes of running at 60% of their peak treadmill speed.
The triathletes then returned to the laboratory after 10 hours and either performed a low-intensity swimming session or watched television for an hour. The study had a cross-over design, which means that the athletes received both treatments in a randomised order. The athletes gave a subjective rating of their fatigue upon their return to the laboratory. The active recovery session consisted of four sets of 5 x 100 m freestyle at 85 – 90% of the triathletes’ 1 km time trial speed. The work to rest ratio of the repetitions was 3:1 and a 2 minute rest was allowed between each set.
The following day the athletes returned to the laboratory, where they were required to run until exhaustion at 90% of their peak treadmill speed. The triathletes were able to run, on average, 102 seconds longer following the active recovery swim performed the previous day. Interestingly, there were no differences in the triathletes’ perceptions of recovery following the active or passive recovery. The proposed benefit of a water-based active recovery session could be related to the hydrostatic pressure of the water, which has been suggested to speed up recovery.
The findings of this research study suggest that there may be a benefit to including a water-based active recovery session following an intense workout in the morning. Triathletes should consider afternoon swim sessions following big sessions on the bike or run in order to enhance recovery.
For those of you who are interested, the paper is available at the following link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19908172
Till next time.
About the author:
Benoit Capostagno completed his BSc degree (cum laude) specialising in the Sport Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch in 2006. He continued his studies at the University of Cape Town’s Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine completing his honours with a first class pass in 2007. He is continuing his postgraduate work with his PhD at this same unit and is investigating training adaptation and fatigue in cyclists. He has been a consultant with the Sports Science Institute of South Africa’s High Performance Centre’s Cycling Division since 2009. In addition, Ben has been an active cycling coach with Science to Sport since 2010.
