Active recovery is important for players to recover from a long, hard season and from hard off-season training.

Hockey players need to train hard in the off-season. But they cannot, and should not, train hard all the time. As was mentioned in a pervious article published in July, Training all Components of Fitness During Off-Season Conditioning, one the best methods of training is called a ‘Periodized Training Program.’ This means there are periods of training which focus on different aspects of fitness. The active recovery phase comes after each period of training to give the body and mind time to rest, recover, and get ready to train the next component of fitness.

I know we’re nearing mid-August and your training for this upcoming season is well underway, but stick with me here coaches, parents and players, you might learn a thing or two to help you and your athletes thrive.

What is Active Recovery?

Active recovery is when a player is still exercising, but at a much lower intensity and volume and he or she is actively resting or recovering. Active recovery lasts between 3 – 5 days depending on how hard the previous training phase was. And the “active” part of this phase is usually doing a completely different kind of exercise such as: yoga, riding a bike outside (road or mountain bike), pilates, body weight training, doing a walk-run work-out, stretching, or foam rolling.

Active recovery is important so an athlete can stay focused, prevent burn out overtraining, and feel refreshed going into the next phase of training. Active recovery is beneficial for an athletes’ muscles to rebuild and repair the microscopic tears in muscles that occur from training, which will enhance fitness.

Active Recovery After the Season

Even though we are into the final month of training in preparation for the hockey season, it is important to talk about the active recovery after a hockey season. For many hockey players, the hockey season ends in March or April. Considering training camps, evaluations, and try-outs can start in late-summer or the fall, it makes for a long season. Therefore, it is important for players to take between one – three weeks of an active recovery. Active recovery after the season is important for the following reasons:

• Enhances recovery from nagging injuries.
• Helps the mind recovery from a long and intense season.
• Recovery from training/game induced muscle fatigue.
• The athlete can do a form of training that is fun, such as mountain biking.
• Prepares the mind and body for higher intensity and volume of training the rest of the off-season.

Active Recovery after each Training Phase

As mentioned above, players cannot, and should not, train hard all the time. High performance training requires dedicated phases of training, with periods of recovery and rest between the training phases.

There are 3 – 6 training phases in the off-season. Each phase has different intensities and volumes of training. Some phases are harder, and require longer active recovery, while others are not as hard and require a shorter period of recovery.

During and after high intensity training phases there can be more muscle pain (delayed onset muscle soreness [DOMS]) which is caused not by a build up of lactic acid or “waste products” rather, microscopic tears in muscle fibers that aggravate nerve endings deep within the muscle. Delayed onset muscle soreness is common for athletes to experience. During the recovery phase, DOMS can be reduced by doing one of more of the following:

• Static or dynamic stretching.
• Mobility training.
• Foam rolling – foam rolling is kind of the “new stretching.”
• Low intensity exercises such as a walk-run work-out, yoga, or riding a bike.

One of the primary reasons an active recovery is important is to let the muscles rest and repair themselves so they become bigger, stronger, and more powerful. Without rest and recovery, the muscles continue to have tears (and pain) and do not get the chance to recover and enhance strength. Ironically, it is the rest and recovery the muscles (and body) get that enhances strength, power, endurance, and game-performance fitness. There can also be active recovery the day between high intensity training sessions.

Active Recovery can Prevent Injury

Constant high intensity training can put a player at risk for injuries. Training hard all the time causes the muscles to be chronically fatigued. Muscles get injured when they are “tired.” Hamstrings and groins, the muscles of the back, calf muscles, and upper body strains can occur when a player trains hard and is suffering from chronic fatigue.  The active recovery the day between hard training sessions or after a training phase gives the muscles and body the ability to repair the microscopic tears and recover from training fatigue.

Enhance Mental Energy

The same as a long hard hockey season can be mentally draining, so can an off-season of training. As such, an active recovery gives the player a good chance to take his or her mind off the constant mental focus of training that is needed to improve performance.  This is especially true if a player is doing easy recovery training like a run-walk work-out, but this is true for a player trying something different like playing tennis or pickleball, which are fun activities.

Myths of Active Recovery

Careful what you believe when reading many sites on the internet. The most common myths about active recovery are the following:

• Active recovery improves blood flow. For a normal healthy hockey player, he or she most likely does not have impaired blood flow. Therefore, suggesting that an active rest will improve blood flow is false. If we talk about increasing blood flow, any physical activity increases blood flow. Therefore, active recovery does increase blood flow, but to a lesser extent than higher intensity exercise. That is to say, the harder a player trains, the more blood flow there is. Active recovery is not about blood flow.
• Active recovery flushes muscle waste products. One of the most misunderstood aspects of sports conditioning is how lactic acid affects the muscles. First, it is not lactic acid that causes muscle soreness when training. It is a build up of hydrogen ions that changes the pH of the muscle to make it more acidic which causes the burning sensation (lactic acid is the joining of lactate with a hydrogen ion). Moreover, lactic acid or lactate, does not cause delayed onset muscle soreness. Delayed onset muscle soreness is caused by microscopic tears in the connective tissue of muscle fibers. Lastly, players do not need to “flush” lactic acid, lactate, or hydrogen ions, because even if a player exercises as hard as he or she can then sits down for an hour or two, the waste products are removed from the muscles through normal blood flow.

Conclusion

Active recovery is important for players to recover from a long, hard season and from hard off-season training. During active recovery, it is best for players to do something different from the training they are doing for conditioning, ie: playing tennis or pickleball, doing a run-walk work-out, riding a road or mountain bike, yoga, stretching, and/or foam rolling. Active recovery during the off-season happens after each training phase and lasts 3 – 5 days.