Athlete Recovery Module
Every athlete has a goal, but as a coach I also have a goal for every athlete. It’s simple! To develop their performance as much as possible whilst minimizing the risk of injury. To do that we have a few systems in place, one of which I already wrote about in a blog last month titled “Why a pre-training questionnaire?”. The other system we use is a post-training rate of perceived exertion (RPE) ranking.
We ask our athletes to rank how difficult their session was with 1 being super easy and 10 being super hard. The score they give will provide the athlete and myself as coach feedback on how to move forward with their training. The athlete is given a task to complete a certain number of points based on the RPE of their session.
· An RPE score of 8 or higher would mean they need to accumulate a total of 50 points within 24 hours of their session
· An RPE score of 7 or lower would mean they need to accumulate a total of 30 points within 24 hours of their session
· An athlete will always complete a total of 50 points within 24 hours post game/ competition
The athlete will accumulate points by completing recovery tasks. Sometimes they will even lose points if they perform tasks that are detrimental to their recovery. Some examples are:
· Getting 8+ hrs sleep = 15 points
· Getting < 6 hours sleep = minus 10 points
· Ocean swim / dip = 10 points
· Hot / cold shower = 10 points
The reason for accumulating points is to ensure the athlete is well recovered for their next session thus allowing for injury prevention. The process is quick, simple and very effective!
If you’d like to see our full recovery module you can download it here.
