The Athlete's Guide to Recovery: Rest, Relax, and Restore for Peak Performance by Sage Rountree

If you've hit a wall in your training, maybe it’s because you aren't giving the gains enough time to take hold. Hard workouts tear down the body, but rest allows the body to repair and come back stronger than before.

The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery is the first comprehensive, practical exploration of the art and science of athletic rest. Certified cycling, triathlon, and running coach and yoga instructor Sage Rountree guides you to full recovery and improved performance, exploring how much rest athletes need, how to measure fatigue, and how to make the best use of recovery tools.

Drawing on her own experience along with interviews with coaches, trainers, and elite athletes, Rountree details daily recovery techniques, demystifying common aids like ice baths, compression apparel, and supplements. She explains in detail how to employ restorative practices such as massage, meditation, and yoga. You will learn which methods work best and how and when they are most effective.

Recovery is critical to performance gains. The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery offers recovery plans that target various training and race distances, in events from short distance bike races to ultramarathons, as well as examining recovery between seasons.

This invaluable resource will enable you to maintain that hard-to-find balance between rigorous training and rest so that you can feel great and compete at your highest capability.