Thoughts
I have been wondering how much of an issue this is.
I feel only certain degrees of regeneration might be necessary post-certain trg sessions in case of diminishing returns.
I only know that if you use same regeneration methods (with the same parameters) over and over again, eventually you will accomodate as with any other mean. Try to bench 100kg all the time (with the same reps sets rest tempo etc) and soon after great results at the begining they will decrease and eventually stagnate and even retard your strength.
That’s my point exactly.
I also have been trying to understand/interpret/consider regneration as a stress also.
Does that make any sense?
I disagree. Massage cannot be compared to lifting weights. Contrast showers/ ice baths seem to lose their effectiveness if placed closer together but the regenrative effect is still in place.
I think massage too often can have a diminshing response also… no?
be careful to not confuse perception with reality. you compare how you feel from this moment to another and memories can be decieving (like that girl you thought was hot at the bar but woke up to her the next morning and screamed “dear god why”). but in a general since your body will adapt to any stimulus given to it. its like if you start to wear a ring at first you always feel it but later you can be looking right at it and not feel the thing on your finger. regeneration techniques such as hydrogen peroxide baths and ice massage inbetween sets will cause a stimuli that your body will inevitably adapt to, but massage i think that would always have a benefit and it feels ooo so good.
You are giving your body a stimulus towards regenaration (hopefully so).Regeneration is a powerful complex bodily event. As such you can righteously consider it something your body will have to mobilize resources to adapt to.
What we usually mean by recovery or therapy actions are interventions merely resetting a perturbated functional state to the desired level . Again: hopefully so…
On what criteria do you judge the effectivness of regeneration means? On feeling good?
Regeneration means should be judged on the performance level (increased performance/decreased fatigue OBJECTIVLY measured) and not on “feeling good phenomena”!
I think Siff wrote about this in Supertraining, noting that some athletes felt excelent after the sauna but performed poorly…
Maybe the massage (what type) have the regenerative “effect” (measured with what?) all the time, but you must ask yourself do you practioner use the same pressure etc all the time or is it increasing it?
Massage have (1) mechanical effect (pumping blood and lympha, breaking adhesions etc), (2) neurological (affecting reflexes and tone), (3) psychological (feeling good phenomena). How is these effects related to performance and recovery processes?
And maybe the most important question that should be adressed, altought is not the subject of this thread is the following:
ARE YOU RECOVERING FROM OR FOR???
Are you recovering from speed session or for the following speed session? Are the means of recovery after the tempo aimed at speeding the recovery from tempo (altought tempo is the recovery mean by itself) or for tomorows speed session?
I think we should recover FOR and not FROM!!! Use recovery means that facilitate recovery for the systems that should be stressed, and not for those that were stressed!!!
Not likely. Sometimes we used massage therapy 12 x a week! Maybe 14 would be too much.
The regenerative means are not accomodated, rather, the increasing recovery requirement is due to the intensification of training made possible in part by the existing regenerative means, requiring some or all of the following:
1:increased existing regeneration
2:additional regenerative means
3:increased recovery time
4:increased variability of high intensity work
5:decreased volume of intense work
When you do it often, the required massage session tends to be lighter and less ”stressful” since the musculature tends to be in pretty good shape all the time. Massage can become a problem when, for example, only done once a month and the athlete’s muscles are rock-hard. It’s also possible to look at massage from the point “positive adaptation”; defaulting at a higher level of relaxation, thus improving the body’s sensory system to “know how the muscles should feel” which might help the body in searching for such state on its own – like lights leading to the emergency exit in a plane or doing hills in order to improve acceleration mechanism.
There is a positive anticipatory response to any work- so long as it is recent enough for the feedback mechanism to remember. Unfortunately, changes in tone are so subtle that “memory” of perfect tone is fleeting. Frequent work is also far less traumatic.
This can be a problem, often using massage to fight fires can be counter productive because the muscles are just so tight it causes trauma that then takes a few days to get over. If you can’t get regular massage them I think the answer is to keep as many components going at once as possible to avoid “conditioning stiffness” and use low intensity days to realy work on mobility. Under these circumstances i also think that perhaps less high intensity work relative to low intensity work is required because whats the point of doing more high intensity that you can’t recover from. Best to get the most from what you can recover from rather than 75% of what you can’t.
Too much on the therapist!
Seriously though - point taken.
I’ve just been wondering at the constant use of regeneration techniques and wondering if we need to assess their use and maximise their effectiveness.
And yes not a subject thing - (though Duxx I would suggets this ‘feel-good factor’ is not to be underestimated either)
Regeneration effectiveness should be ojectively assessed criticall on the return performance.
Tc - your piont is very valid because the more the therapist tries to deal with taut tissues the more the tissues react against the therapist in many cases.