Too much recovery?

In the Fall of 2012, I will be 43 years old. Thanks to a fellow iron freak (who is half my age), I find myself training for a summer power lifting meet while desperately trying to keep up with his mind boggling gains in strength. Fortunately, there are still a few recovery methods that I can use to keep up. We were talking about how important it is NOT to overuse these tricks and the paradox of recovery popped into my head. My recovery methods still work and I utilize them with better timing than in the past. Is it possible to recover too much or too quickly so that it negatively impacts strength gains?




Most serious students of iron have a basic understanding of super compensation. They understand that in order to get stronger, you must tear the body down and let it heal beyond it’s initial starting point.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you should be familiar with general adaptation syndrome and specific adaptation to imposed demands. With that in mind we load, heal, and load again in order to move ever higher weight. Sometimes it is necessary to use restorative methods like sauna, massage, or contrast showers to fully recover or to speed up recovery.


Talyshev (1977) performed studies that indicated that the timing of the application of restorative methods was much more important than previously thought and could have a large impact on an athletes work capacity. His work tested various groups of athletes using restorative methods at different intervals of time AFTER intense training. Dr. Siff further analyzed this work and concluded that if restoration application occurs too soon after intense training, the training effects are reduced. I may be oversimplifying, but that's the gist of it.

I experimented with this countless times during years of strength training and found a correlation between how soon I apply restoration and how much of a training effect carried over. This directly affected current adaptive reserve and there in lies the paradox. In order to continually grow stronger I had to super compensate from the sustained training effects of intense training periods that depleted my current adaptive reserves (CAR). If I used restorative methods to early, I replenish my CAR at the cost of prematurely reducing the training effects which reduced my super compensation. If I used restorative methods too late, I ran the risk of over-training, illness, and even injury due to depleted CAR.

The perfect timing changes with environmental factors like your age, type of training, and even your diet. I highly recommend researching this topic thoroughly before you mindlessly jump into a hot tub or sauna after your next workout. In reality, you could be partially undoing some of what you just did. As a rule of thumb, try to limit restoration to at least a few hours after intense exercise for strength related sport unless successive training periods are spaced too close to do so. Try to let your body deal with the damage you just inflicted before you help it out. Again, I over simplify for brevity.

Research for yourself and stay strong!!!