Rugby League Coaching Manuals

He says recovery should be considered for a variety of time frames - intra-set recovery, recovery between units, recovery between sessions in a day, recovery from one day of training to the next, recovery between performances and recovery during different phases of a season or career.

Intra-set recovery refers to the resting time for example between sets of resistance training or between sprints, jumps, laps etc. "If it is continually less than a minute's rest between sets, you will not get the best adaptation from the athlete," says Burgess.

Recovery between units then would refer, for example, to the break between a sprint drill and a tackling drill for a rugby league side or between heavy weights and plyometric exercises for a sprinter. "I'd go for a light activity as a transition between the two, say like a passing drill," is Burgess's take.

Burgess says the rest break between daily sessions should at least be enough to allow for proper consumption and digestion of fluids and food, not like some representative sports teams and lifters who train at 9am and then again at 12noon.

Similarly, he advises the importance of enough digestion and sleeping time between consecutive days of training and also the consideration of a rest day each week, which almost all activities require.

It is important to note that the small muscle fibre tears created by weights training do not adequately heal until roughly 48 hours.

Burgess's view on recovery between performances is something he analyses in depth and will be discussed later in this article......