thanks for the response angela! i’ve actually ended up doing a slightly different routine:
-stretch after every workout
(all post stretch)
sun-off
mon-ice
tues-massage
wed-contrast bath
thurs-ice
fri-contrast bath
sat-ice
being up in ithaca NY, i can actually just turn the 15’ walk back to my dorm as my icing as its very cold and i just dont need to wear as much clothing. and i’ve realized i like the contrast baths much better. i’ve been using the 3x3’ hot, 1’ cold for the contrast but have varied to 2’/2’ sometimes. maybe i’ll consider some more time variation if i find they are becoming less effective
and by get the head under you mean like everything but the face, right? because i can’t hold my breath for that long a period of time (i’ve been using tubs and sometimes a shower for the warm)! haha. i’ve just being up to my neck so far. also, i’ll consider doing contrast on mondays if i have time, but practice tends to go very late on those days
wed-
I like your answer tb2010. I think it’s cool ( no pun intended) that you view walking back to your dorm as a method of reducing inflamation. Why not?
I think one of the most important things you are telling us is you are actively thinking about how to recover and doing something about it. Are there better ways? Perhaps. You are learning what works for you and over time you will learn and experiment more.
As for getting the face wet… umm, I am not sure why everyone has such issue with this. The forehead is part of the head and I do think it’s important not to isolate body parts.
Try this. Next time you do a cold cycle challange yourself to relax and visualize your facial expression. Is your face all tense and scrunched? Are does your face look like your practicing meditation? Does it make sense to work against yourself or try and relax? Just try it and see what you think. Relaxation promotes circulation and tension restricts blood flow.
Ideally dunk tanks are the way to go. But once again you sound like you are doing a thoughtful job at addressing CNS build up and finding benefit from your chosen methods.
about the face i actually am concerned about breathing. if the cold cycle is the short one and is 1’ long, and my whole head is underwater, i can’t hold my breath for that long, haha. since it seems best to get everything, i assume the best strategy is to have everything under but then come up to take breaths?
and i do prefer the dunk tanks, easy to control the temperature and make sure the whole body gets hit, though i’ve had a shower act ok as the hot portion when i’ve needed to (still used an ice bath for the cold)
Yes, I know the cold water is breath taking. You are doing a good job I think. Just keep doing it and I hope things continue to improve for you as well.
For those in cold climates with outdoor hot tubs, I have had athletes go from hot tub to pile of snow as their cold treatment. They would lie in the snow on their back and throw snow on their front side.
Ange used to have an avatar of her in the snow doing something similar.
Last winter I experimented with a few different water therapies. I found the book the “Complete Book fo water therapy” to be a great book for everyone’s collection.
One method is water treading. I bought two rubbermaid containers big enough for my feet but short in height. I fill both with cold water and walk in place for several minutes. It is very soothing on the feet.
I used this when I was sick and found it helped my recovery.
I am not sure if I should start a new thread for this, but it is on literally the exact same topic as this one so I figured I would post it here.
Anyways, my main question is around timing of massages. I have never included massages as part of training until the last couple weeks. Right now my HI days are MWF, and I have been getting massages on Tuesday and Fridays. I know that Charlie recommended to get deeper massages on low intensity days, so I think optimally, massage on Tuesday/Saturday would be better, but my therapist doesn’t work Saturdays. I could do Tuesday and Sunday, but I thought it would be better to have the massages more spaced out over the week. I also think that in the grand scheme of things, actually getting the massage work done is probably more important than the timing of it. What do you guys think?
On other days, from what I have read here, contrast baths/showers should go on HI days, and pulsing EMS can go on these days, and likely low intensity days as well.
One other question, what is the consensus on epsom salt baths? When I searched, there was some concern that it lowered the muscle tone too much, so I wasn’t sure where the best place to put something like this would be?
Ideal vs Real at work in your situation! Since it appears you have the option for massage, make the best of it. Charlie recommended priority given following tempo runs on low days first. Try a week getting work on tue and thur following tempo work. Then try a week doing tue or thur and then saturday. See how you feel.
I found with high school aged kids massage before speed work was better than after tempo. They had higher quality sessions when I could work on them before. When Waldemar was asked about this, he felt because in kids and their growth, they face the muscle tightness issues and could be the result of the differences.
Somewhere in at least one of the products there was or has been how to priority recovery aids. One thing I wish to say more than anything is a little bit more often is better than a lot less frequently. What is ideal for one may not be so much for you. What I also know is the layering of therapies is very useful and seems to accelerate the value of each. Do I have solid scientific proof? No, but I can tell you this is routinely how I was taught to do things. Charlie and I got into multiple discussions as I have said before about therapy and how lazy some athletes were vs how motivated others were. For some it is all about the work. For those who wish to get ahead in my mind it is also about actively pursuing all methods you have control over to revitalize and prepare to come back and hit your training harder or at least as hard as you did the day and week before. Work gets all the press and recovery is not so interesting I guess?
Don’t forget the massages you get during training in off season will differ than when you begin to compete. Try and get whom ever is working with you to divide up more times and spread the value for you. Charlie rarely spent more than 15 minutes most of the time tops when he did routine massages. Sometimes we would do treatment before ( very little at that point) and then after to check and see what has happened. Ok,I get that is not realistic but saying it might allow you to create a solution for yourself. Loosen up with a hot and cold or begin with small 10 min warm ups day of training a few hours before your key session.
I do think getting a massage is more important most of the time than the timing of it providing the therapist is familiar with you.
I did contrast baths on all days all the time as advised by Charlie. If I was not loose how was I going to train? So was it wrong to do before training? I did contrast baths at times before and after training but his was mostly when I was doing a lot of work and needing to repeat large volumes of work and you can not just rely on massage. Charlie worked very hard and expected me and his athletes to do there part in preparing to max out on the benefits of what he could do for them with therapy.
I would not to do a salt bath before training and I would be more careful about doing it post tempo and much more likely to do it after HI days directly after or just before bed. Salts lowering muscle tone? Again might be very individual as how can all people have the same chemistry and therefore response?
You are on the right track. Continue to ask questions and over time you will learn more about what you need.
Rarely does one get optimal anything regarding training and regeneration until they achieve enough success that they are able to create ideal protocols. At some point in the beginning you are trying to find your way. If you want to jump into an Epson salt bath post tempo then you could argue this further removes lactates as would the tempo if done properly. ( providing tempo is having the desired effect and you are getting a proper flush from the work the day before). The last thing I ever wanted to do was to get hotter and jump into a bath after Big Circuit or 2 sets of 10x 100 or push up , sit up workout. Often I did a cool or cooler ( cold) shower if I could or contrast shower with warm water to tolerate cooler or cold.
Thanks very much for the replies Angela. You mentioned doing short 10 min warmups a few hours prior to the main session - I have done this before and I feel it usually makes a big difference if I am tight. If I have kept up with flexibility and am not so tight then it seems to have less of an effect. Do you think contrast showers would have a similar effect to this prior to a workout? When you did this would you end on hot?
Finally, some people think that recovery methods lose there value if used too frequently, what are your thoughts on this? If you were doing multiple contrast showers each day, did they still have the same effect at the end of your career as they did at the start?
When you are talking about high performance I think you will find that spreading work out works well. This general idea might apply to anyone not just athletes. In fact it was this principle that Charlie and I took to " our" post Seoul career . We took our experience from sport and his high level expertise and delivered it to those who might afford it. I have lots of people ask = " what are you training for". My stock answer = " Life". I want to keep up with my son and the adventures that I invite into my life. ( (I digress). But I am not telling you anything you have not discovered on your own am I? I know I go on and on about contrast baths and I do realize they are not for everyone but I felt it was something that really worked for me. I know Ben hated them but I also know he had to do them at times. I also know he had full access for Charlie before, during and after training in terms of massage and later Waldamar when Charlie had the funds to hire help. HOt and colds are done to end with cold. if you are doing them the right way this will be something you enjoy and look forward to.
I believe I had a real advantage on others due to my understanding of Charlie pushing active recovery. As I have said before so many people think it is all about the work. Its about the quality of work and the proper rest and understanding of recovery time between sets and the application of principles as it pertains to how work efffects our CNS. Not once ever in my life have I felt I have over done recovery. In fact this statement makes me laugh out loud. I do remember Marian shooing us out of her room at the Four Seasons because she was getting really sick of all the treatments but this was because she had so much going on day after day after day.
Charlie did do a hot and cold progression for someone once but this was a client and we were wanting to show them on paper how to accelerate recovery over time. Just curious… What would the alternative be to doing frequent recovery methods? If your program is progressively building in higher volumes and higher qualities of work then does recovery stay the same or does the recovery just accelerate your own bodies ability to handle more work over time? I thought the idea of active regeneration is really to shore up more energy and feel better so that you can go hit the training harder the next day and maybe with less effort and have more on reserve? In my experience people are really lazy when it comes to doing non glamourous work. Training is cool. Epson salts baths not so much. What ever … I dont care. you need to proove to your self . I didnt have tons of fights with my coach about this topic for nothing I tell you that.