I frequently say “recovery doesn’t just happen.” Recovery requires deliberate choices and consistent execution. Despite being a loud advocate for great recovery habits, I am the worst about my own recovery habits. But even with the best recovery behaviors, there are some situations you just can’t ever be too prepared for.
Brett Jones of StrongFirst said that his favorite recovery strategy is proper programming. That means following an appropriate, progressive training process specific to your situation. My recent performance experiences directly support that statement. There is a difference between being specifically prepared for the task at hand (“fitness”) and being athletic yet unprepared. Further, there’s a dramatic difference between performance to a standard and maximal performance.
175 hours for 21 minutes
In early June 2025, I competed in a fundraiser Rugby Sevens tournament. I was part of the motley crew, which meant I could be thrown onto any team at any time. I was only available for about half the tournament day so I played about three seven-minute halves across 4.5 hours. I would even argue I played rather poorly. I hung out at the wings of the field, limited involvement in tackles and rucks and mauls, avoided scrums, and had few opportunities to touch the ball because we were playing in discarded prom dresses (which makes for hilarious but unproductive ball movement).
In the course of 21 minutes of rugby, I only accumulated a few minutes of moving time, but every one of those minutes was maximal. Full speed sprinting, hard changes of direction, collisions while making and taking tackles, rolling on the ground to present the ball, etc. Despite being strong, fast, and fairly well conditioned for movement on the field, I could tell going into that third half that my body was going to be in a world of hurt the next day.
Even with that observation, I dramatically underestimated just how much hurt there would be. I couldn’t even consider training until a full week later.
1 night for 20 hours
Rewind two months.
I flew out to Tucson, Arizona, to be a part of a StrongFirst level one kettlebell instructor re-certification process. This workshop is 6.5 hours on a Friday, 6.5 hours on a Saturday and 4 hours on a Sunday. Navigating the certification weekend means hundreds of heavy kettlebell swings per day, plus consistent development, evaluation, and strength testing on each of the six core movements in the StrongFirst strength training philosophy. Across three days, I racked up nearly 20 hours of serious training time with very limited recovery while buying food supplies from a gas station.
When the whole thing was done Sunday afternoon, I gave some high fives, stretched a little in my hotel that night, flew home, and got right back to training the next day.
How is it possible to work hard for 20 hours then train the next day…yet work all out for barely 21 minutes then be laid flat for much, much longer?
TRAINING TO STANDARDS
First, let’s talk about being prepared versus being unprepared and just how specific the idea of preparation is.
I’m a well-rounded athlete. I train with both variety and intensity during a track and field season. I sprint, hurdle, throw heavy & light implements, and jump. I tumble (because I coach field sport athletes). I lift as often as I can handle (because I’m a meathead at heart).
My training develops a lot of physical qualities and I use kettlebells frequently. That means my forearms, the skin on my hands, and my whole perspective is conditioned to kettlebell training. I know how to turn the volume knob up to 11. I also know when to turn it down to 2.
When it came time to show up for my kettlebell recertification process, even though there was a lot of heavy work to be done, there were clear performance standards to be met. I knew in advance that I needed to be capable of doing certain movements in certain volumes with a 24 kg kettlebell. I built up to doing those same movements in comparable volumes with 32 kg or 40 kg in training. In every quality tested that weekend, I was much stronger than necessary.
When “hard” is actually “medium” for you, you can do a lot of it without many consequences. That’s what it means to be prepared. That’s the advantage of performing to standards.
TRAINING TO PERFORM
By contrast, I hadn’t played a single minute of rugby in over 12 years.
It mattered that I was fast in a straight line and that I could change direction well and even that I had been rolling around on the ground four times a week for months. Those qualities made it possible for me to play the game at all.
But they weren’t enough to save me!
This is the key difference between standards and maximal performance. When there’s a very clear standard you’re evaluated against, a standard above which you don’t earn any additional prizes, you don’t have to perform any harder. All you have to do is meet the standard.
Your goal should be to make it as easy as possible.
With any physical fitness test, the job isn’t to just barely get through the test. The job is to have excess capacity to perform the test.
In sport, there is no standard. Every bit of additional performance that you can squeeze out of your body can be used on the field. When you use 100% of your capacity from any given physical quality, you’re going to be a wreck after it. The only thing that prepares you to be less of a wreck is to perform frequently.
Because I was not playing rugby, what was my body ready for?
PERFORMANCE IS EXPENSIVE
My body was ready to handle impact. My body was ready to output big power for multiple steps, both while changing direction and while running in a straight line (up to about 30m at least; this Achilles rehab is ongoing). My mind was ready for the types of decisions in the game of rugby because I have some history with it and understand the game.
But when you layer all those different types of fatigue after my hamstrings, adductors, calves, feet, traps, rhomboids, lats, chest, abs, shoulders, forearms, hands and brain are tired…everything I do on the rugby pitch after that point is taxing the reserves that I had so carefully built in other domains.
In my 21 minutes of rugby sevens, I worked at 100%. Working at 100% is massively draining on the body.
In my kettlebell instructor re-cert weekend, I worked at 60%. There were standards to be met, so I made sure I was far better prepared than the standard required.
20 hours of kettlebell work was easy to manage with good recovery habits because I was prepared in excess of the demands of the activity. But 21 minutes of rugby play put me down for over a week.
After 7 days licking my wounds, I resumed training. I was still a little tired and beat up. I got more sleep that week, stretched and foam rolled both the mornings and evenings, and worked really hard to get the right nutrients at the right times.
21 minutes of rugby wrecked my body because I wasn’t ready to play any minutes of rugby. Nearly 20 hours of kettlebell work was easy to smile about because I was ready to use those loads for hundreds of hours.
Remember that recovery doesn’t just happen.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR PERFORMANCE
Recovery starts with your habits. It is affected by your chronic behavior. It is influenced by your acute behavior. It can be optimized when you address pre-, intra-, and post-training fueling. It can be assisted when you manage fatigue proactively. And the most important recovery action you can take is to be prepared for the task at hand.
The thing I’ve relearned this year is that there are some contexts where you can be over-prepared. When you’re in that context, smile, play, and enjoy yourself.
Then there’s maximal performance where it’s never possible to be over-prepared. Every bit of extra capacity you create is more opportunity to make an impact on the field.
Mark Reifkind has built a personal brand around the phrase, “if you seek your limits, you will find them.” When you’re in a maximal performance context, accept that you’ll suffer after all that output.
Recovery does not just happen. But, as Brett Jones suggested, it actually starts with well-planned training. Train smart and train hard for your sport. Go perform. Note your weaknesses, then repeat the cycle as often as you can. The post-performance suffering will diminish in direct proportion to how much physical capacity you build and how often you apply it to your sport.
As for me, I might need to find a pickup league…you know, just to stay ready.