Sailing recovery

Fit for Sailng

Recovery - Do I need it?

Good recovery strategies aid peak performance.

Not many Mondays go by during winter without seeing the footballers at the beach, arms crossed standing in the cold ocean, doing a “session” of recovery. Or seeing another glossy ad featuring a “sponsored ambassador” in a magazine promoting the never-ending virtues of expensive black compression clothing. Why is it the latest buzz word in professional sports?

Here are some notes from a recent presentation at the Australian Institute of Sport by Dr Jo Vaile who did her PhD thesis on recovery techniques for athletes.

Jo says, “The ultimate goal is to compete injury-free with minimal residual fatigue (i.e. showing up on the day feeling fresh) to enable you to achieve your best possible result. Good recovery is one of the key components to help you achieve this goal.”

When Recovery is Most Important:

•Long training sessions or more than one session per day

•Competing in more than one race per day

•Competing regularly

•Competitions over several days

•A history of or current injuries

•High levels of fatigue/muscle damage ( i.e. strong winds and waves)

What is most important?

The big three:

Warm Down Immediately

Jo says you should always warm down after completing an exercise or training session for 5-10 minutes. This begins the repair process and enhances the removal of waste products from the muscular system.

Stretching

Always complete five minutes of light stretching. This is to relax the muscles and in this case the best option is to do static stretches of 5-10 seconds only.

Nutrition

Focus on re-hydrating with fluid, re-fuelling with carbohydrates and re-building with protein. A liquid or drink is a good convenient option here.

Underlying these is the foundation of good recovery – sleep. Sleep is probably the most significant and important thing but one many people ignore or pay little attention to. Sleep is crucial as this is when the bulk of the restorative and renewal process happens within the body. Aim to get to bed half an hour earlier to aid these processes and accumulate 7-9 hours of good quality sleep.

The next level of recovery methods include all the ones that are currently very much in fashion: compression, cold water immersion and other hydro-therapy (water based) methods. The key to remember is to focus on getting the basics right first before moving onto these remaining methods. They are often logistically harder and more expensive but can deliver less of a result compared to getting your sleep, warm down and nutrition right!

Contrast Water Therapy

The application of alternating hot and cold water to the whole body can help recovery by increasing blood flow, stimulating the central nervous system, decreasing swelling, decreasing stiffness, increasing range of motion, decreasing muscle soreness and increasing the removal of metabolites.

Research suggests that an equal ratio of time in hot and cold water immersion in a bath/spa or shower is ideal. For example, two minutes in cold, two minutes in hot water, repeated three times.

Always finish with cold water to reduce body temperature and inflammation. This cools the whole body which is great for recovery.

Cold Water Immersion and Ice Baths

Cold water immersion or an ice bath may be an effective treatment to decrease skin, muscle and core temperatures, decrease metabolism, reduce inflammation, enhance blood flow, decrease pain and reduce muscle spasm.

A very effective temperature is about 15 degrees, for 2-5 mins if you are using a bath or pool but you can get good results using just cold tap water, staying in there a lot longer, e.g. 5-15 mins. Another option is to simply take a walk for 5-10 minutes in the water after you unrig.

Compression Garments

Compression garments, when used for recovery, have been found to decrease muscle soreness, reduce swelling, decrease lactate levels and promote blood flow. The claims made by many manufacturers about their supposed benefits to be used whilst training are yet to be validated.

The most effective garment (especially for dinghy sailors) is full-length tights. They work like a kind of pump, pushing blood up the legs and back to the heart. If you use a lot of upper body (arms especially) then you could investigate the long sleeve tops which work in a similar way with graduated compression along the length of the sleeve.

Recover for better performance

Athletes, including sailors, need good recovery for top performance – the sooner you recover, the sooner you can train well again. The effort and focus you put into recovery will be a major factor in how your body copes – especially over long regattas. Ask yourself – do you ever feel as fresh on day four of a windy event as you did on the morning of day one?

Thanks to Jo Vaile from AIS Performance Recovery and Michael Blackburn (AST Laser Coach and PhD) for providing this content.