Recovery

RECOVERY

Training hard is only half the battle.  You might have the greatest work ethic and willpower imaginable, but if that’s all you have you’re not going to get very far.  You also must be able to train smart and pay attention to your body. One individual might go

out every single day and run 15 miles followed by 2 hours of weight training followed by

2 hours of jump training.  This would sure require a lot of dedication and it would create a lot of perseverance and the ability to push through fatigue, but what kind’ve improvements do you think this person would make?   I can tell you they’d probably increase their endurance but make no progress whatsoever and their performance in the vertical jump would actually decrease considerably! In contrast, another individual could go and dedicate to training 1 hour total per week on a consistent basis and from experience they could get results that could be earth shattering! It is fairly rare too find a young individual who does just the right amount of training and not too much or too

little.

The body only has so much energy available to perform and only so much adaptive energy to recover from the demands you place on it.  Progress is basically just adaptive energy being utilized to enhance performance.  When you train you’re placing a stress on your body.  When you rest your body it then adapts to this stress so that it can better handle the stress you’re placing on it.  Progress doesn’t happen when you’re training but rather when you’re resting! If all you do is train or you train too much then the body doesn’t have enough time to adapt to your training.  If you don’t eat a good high quality nutritious diet then the body doesn’t have enough raw material from which to repair itself.

In contrast, if you don’t train enough or at all then your body has no stress, and thus, nothing to adapt to in order to increase performance.  This is why the right amount of training and recovery is of utmost importance.  The workouts are designed to take care of both.  Just realize that it takes time for your body to adapt to the stresses put upon it and you can only make progress so fast. I can say that in about 99% of the cases with athletes, if you’re doing the training programs as designed and you’re not making progress it is because you’re overtraining rather than under-training.  This goes for any program not

just my programs.  This over-training isn’t happening from the programs per se, but rather all the other activities that you’re doing.  If you expect to make progress following a vertical jump specialization program while you’re also playing full court basketball for

2 hours per day 7 days per week your progress will likely be either zero or very little.  In fact, in this situation, many people actually regress!

Here are some tips or some guidelines you can use to make sure you’re getting enough recovery.  If you’re training consistently simply ask yourself these questions to help assess your state of recovery and thus your state of adaptation:

1) Do I feel stronger and more explosive every week?

2) Do I remain excited about training every week?

3) If my goal is to put on weight, is it happening?

4) Am I sleeping well?

5) Do I wake up feeling refreshed each morning?

6) Am I completing each workout feeling as if I could go back and do more?

If you answer "yes" to all of these questions, then you’re on the right track. If you answer "no" to a couple of them, then it’s time to take a closer look at your other activities, your rest, and your nutrition.  Are you spending too much time playing other sports or spending too many hours on the court?  Are you eating plenty of good, clean, nutritious food?  Are you getting enough sleep each night?  If you answer no to some of these then simply pay more attention to them.  If you answer yes to all of these then you may just be burned out and need to take ½ to a full weeks rest. Remember, long-term progress!!

There is nothing at all wrong with taking a planned rest period.  In fact, one of the

greatest performance coaches in the world, Ian King, has all his athletes take a mandatory

½ week of active rest after every 3 weeks of training! The reason he does this is because he has found his athletes actually get much better results following this approach.  They come back to train renewed with energy and excitement and within a week surpass their previous performances.  This is also the reason that active rest is already built into the programs I’ve designed.  This can be a few days to a week of "active rest" if you want. You can and should take in some outdoor activities and occasional light exercise. Just stay away from the heavy iron during this time.

The training programs I’ve put together are designed to be “stimulatory” in nature.  That is, they are designed to stimulate your body to increase strength, power, speed, and explosiveness.  All these factors combined lead into increased performance.  The workouts are not designed to kill you! Stimulate is not the same thing as annihilate! Generating fatigue is not the same thing as generating results.  A workout doesn’t have to be extremely tough and long in order to be effective.  In fact, the reverse is usually true. You could run around with lead boots on holding 50 lbs overhead until you threw up and this would surely wipe you out but what kind’ve improvements would it stimulate? Probably none.  You should finish each workout feeling slightly refreshed, not totally worn out.  You should feel as if you could go back and complete 50% of the workout again no problem.  If you’re feeling totally drained you’re probably doing too much and need to cut down on volume.