4 Tips To Help Personal Trainers Optimise Their Clients’ Recovery

Introduction

Every good personal trainer knows that recovery is just as important as performance.

In fact, the better your clients’ recovery, the faster they will notice results. But what influences your client’s recovery? And what does optimal recovery look like?

Personal trainer and performance nutritionist Ben Coomber has decades of experience helping his clients maximise recovery, and consequently, reach higher levels of performance.

In this video, Ben explains the four fundamental factors that influence recovery and how supplements can help your clients find peak performance and achieve eye-catching results.

Or, if you’d prefer, you can read what Ben had to say in the article below.

What factors contribute to recovery?

We can break these lifestyle and nutrition factors down into four key groups.

1. Sleep

Probably the fundamental factor. If your client is not sleeping well and waking up feeling refreshed, it is going to be very hard to get them to perform optimally.

2. Overall calorie intake

If your client is burning a huge amount of energy and under-eating every day, they are at risk of burning out and losing muscle mass.

3. Training volume and intensity

Even when your clients are dieting, you need to be wary of how much volume and intensity they can handle. It is important to make sure you are not setting your clients up for failure by ‘beating them up’ over time leaving them feeling weak and demotivated. It’s not a good place for anyone to be in. They will likely feel grouchy, crave sugary foods, and find it difficult to carry their diet forward.

4. Macronutrients

First, it is important that your clients’ protein intake is consistent. Most people training intensely should eat around 1.4 to 2 grammes of protein per kilogramme of body weight. Ideally, that should be spread across three to five meals. You also need your clients to eat a variety of fats. Anywhere from 25% to 35% of their diet should consist of fats depending on individual circumstances. There should be a blend of saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and monounsaturated fat whilst making sure your clients consume enough omega fats. If your client is training intensely, it is going to be hard for them to recover well without eating carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are essential after training to replace the glycogen our bodies lose.

What supplements support recovery?

Certain supplements have an important role to play in client performance and recovery. However, as mentioned above, they should only ever be supplementary.

For example, supplements can support your clients who do not get a sufficient amount of carbohydrates or train for long periods of time. You could recommend a carbohydrate and electrolyte formula during or after training to replenish glycogen stores.

These supplements come in a number of different forms and are generally pretty cheap. Let’s say you are working with an endurance athlete. They might go out for a four-hour bike ride at the weekend. In this instance, you might recommend a carbohydrate and electrolyte mix, alongside a banana or energy bar to mix up their carbohydrate sources.

Another example is protein powders. Protein powders (whey or vegan) are a quick, convenient, and easy way for your clients to bolster their protein intake. You should also consider magnesium, fish oil, and vitamin D supplements for your clients. All three are very important and contribute towards the recovery process.

How to periodise training for effective recovery?

Aside from what this article and personal training courses teach you on recovery, you must understand how to periodise your clients’ training to make sure they are recovering as effectively as possible. Your client should know how to scale up their training, but also understand how to recover effectively. For example, if you were coaching an athlete, you should periodise their training over the course of a few weeks and break their program into macro cycles throughout their training year.

To illustrate, week one might be moderate intensity, week two would slightly increase in intensity, week three increases in intensity again, and then you might have a challenging training bout for four days. Then, that client would take a week off training.

Calorie intake would then fluctuate based around how intensely and frequently your client is training. In short, you should always make sure your client is not trapped in a Monday to Sunday training cycle where intensity and volume remain the same for a number of months. Instead, there should be periods of intense training and less intense training to allow time for recovery.

If you are interested in learning more about evidence-based diet and nutrition practices and how these relate to healthy eating, take a look at our range of nutrition courses and qualifications. Alternatively, take a look at our specialist supplements for sport and exercise course.