Is Recovery the Key to Optimal Performance?

It has been a while since I wrote the episode called 6 Reasons Recovery is Essential to Your Exercise Routine and even longer since I did the podcast called The Perfect Workout Recovery Day, but I stand by my claim that it is the alternation between stress and rest that moves us to a higher and higher level of fitness. I also still believe that the higher the training intensity and effort, the greater the need for planned recovery. 

Let's face it, when you are under-recovered (or overtrained), your ability to positively adapt to your training (or gain fitness) is zapped, and—in addition to putting yourself at risk of illness and injury—you really are wasting your precious training time. I don’t know about you, but I want results when I train.

So a while ago, to help me keep an eye on that stress/rest balance, I decided to give a device called the Whoop a try. After using it for a few weeks I was so intrigued by the device that I invited the founder and CEO to chat about his background, the science of recovery, and why he has dedicated his life and business to ensuring we all get enough of it. 

The Guest

Will Ahmed grew up loving sports and exercise and many of his childhood heroes were athletes. Will was recruited to Harvard and became captain of the Men's Varsity Squash Team and as a D1 athlete, he was amazed at how little he actually knew about his body. He would often train for three hours a day with his teammates, without knowing what gains (if any) he made in his fitness. He was surrounded by athletes who overtrained, misinterpreted fitness peaks, underestimated recovery and sleep, and got injured. In fact, he felt that whether or not he and his teammates were truly prepared for gameday often seemed random.

Will became inspired by a simple idea: Humans, especially athletes, could optimize their daily performance—not through a random sequence of events and decisions, but rather a systematic approach to understanding the body.

The Interview

When you to listen to the audio interview, you will hear:

• How Will got interested in studying the science behind overtraining and recovery.
• What biometric markers are important to measure for recovery.
• The importance of balancing strain and recovery.
• Is it Ok to wake up feeling tired and sore and still do a workout?
• Can you "manage" what you don't measure? 
• What types of athletes should be focussed on recovery? (Spoiler:...

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