Study: Fewer Intense Workouts, More Recovery for Maximum Performance
Posted January 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 PM by thefinalsprint.com
Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
How much time should you spend working at your maximum level in your sport, compared to miles or days spent going at a relaxed pace?
Researchers at the University of Madrid in Spain divided competitive distance runners into two groups. One group did frequent intense workouts and fewer slow recovery miles, while the second group did fewer intense workouts and more slow miles (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, August 2007).
At the end of five months, the runners who did fewer intense workouts and more recovery miles improved far more than those who ran fewer miles and spent a lot of their time trying to run very fast.
All competitive athletes from marathon runners to weight lifters know that they must exercise intensely to compete successfully in sports. However, every time you exercise intensely, your muscles are damaged and you feel sore on the next day. If you try to exercise intensely when your muscles are sore, you are liable to injure yourself, break down, or become chronically fatigued with muscles hurting all the time.
So athletes train by taking a hard workout that makes their muscles sore, and going easy for as many days as it takes for the soreness to go away. This study shows the importance of allowing adequate recovery time between intense workouts. Recovery workouts make your muscles more fibrous so they can take more abuse when you exercise on your hard days.
Written by: Dr. Gabe Mirkin, TheFinalSprint.com Guest Contributor
***Note: We encourage EVERYONE to see a doctor before altering their diet, taking a supplement and/or performing athletic, fitness or other strenuous physical activity. It is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of any information, instruction, opinion or advice contained in the content. Please also see our complete disclaimer.***
Tags: exercise, fatigue, fibrous, hard days, injury, intense exercise, intense workouts, intensity, marathon runner, muscle soreness, muscles, performance, recovery miles, recovery time, running, sore, speed work, weight lifting, workouts
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The Final Sprint
[…] Study: Fewer Intense Workouts, More Recovery for Maximum Performance unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt***Note: We encourage EVERYONE to see a doctor before altering their diet, taking a supplement and/or performing athletic, fitness or other strenuous physical activity. It is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, … […]
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt***Note: We encourage EVERYONE to see a doctor before altering their diet, taking a supplement and/or performing athletic, fitness or other strenuous physical activity. It is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, … […]
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:06 pm[…] Conventional wisdom: you need to do intense workouts to improve your performance. Actual study results: Via The Final Sprint, a study done by researchers at the University of Madrid compared a group of runners who did more intense workouts and fewer recovery miles against a group who did fewer intense workouts and more recovery miles. Their result showed greater improvement by the latter group. Seems like a good reason to keep doing those base pace/recovery pace workouts! […]
January 27th, 2008 at 10:44 am[…] Study: Fewer Intense Workouts, More Recovery for Maximum Performance […]
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 amAlso if anyone’s interested I found an article on working out in the gym - Find out how long you need to work out for maximum results. It offers fitness tips too.
http://www.fitness-nutrition-plan.com/workout-time.html
March 28th, 2008 at 11:18 pm