What is Active Recovery? How to Recover Better to Run Stronger
Updated: Nov 10
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What is active recovery?
What is active recovery? Active recovery is a low-intensity exercise that runners can do between their harder runs to aid their recovery and improve their performance. Active recovery can also refer to the running you do between sets.
After a harder day of training that involves a tempo run, some 5k pace intervals, a long run, or even some running-related strength work, it is often in the best interest of the runner to take an active recovery day.
Runners use active recovery to help improve their running and work on things such as aerobic fitness, flexibility, or even their strength. Many runners like to keep their active recovery non-weight-bearing exercises such as cycling or swimming, however, more advanced runners often like to use a recovery run to help keep everything they do specific to running.
Related: What is a Recovery Run?
What are the benefits of active recovery?
There are many reasons why active recovery works well for runners, it improves their recovery, helps them get ready for their next hard session, and can refresh them mentally. So, now you know what active recovery is, what are the benefits?
Reduces muscle soreness
By doing some light exercise on the days between your sessions you get fresh blood to your aching muscles. This helps to get fresh oxygen to your muscles which removes waste products from your muscles. This means your muscles will become less sore and you can expect to be less stiff for your next session.
Improves adaptations
Runners improve during their recovery, not their training. How well you recover is a huge factor in how well your bodies react to the training you put it through. Train hard, recover harder.
Related: How to Improve Post-Run Recovery.
Improves fitness
By adding in some easy activity you can improve your performance in many ways. If you add in some foam rolling then you can improve your mobility, if you do some cross-training then you can improve your aerobic capacity, or if you do a couple of gentle strides and form drills then you can improve your speed and form.
It is easy to justify doing nothing the day after a hard session, however, if you are the kind of runner who does active recovery instead, then over a period of months your fitness is going to be at a level completely different from the runner who does just rests. Think about the person who does 3 30-minute cross-training sessions 3 times a week, in 12 weeks they will have done 18 hours of building their endurance.
Also, active recovery helps us to improve our recovery, meaning we will be able to run better in our next session. If we are consistently running 1% better on every session, we become a much better runner over time.
By consistently doing the small things right, those 1% improvements add up. Sweat the small stuff.
Injury prevention
There are many different forms of active recovery that you can do and some will help with injury prevention better than others. If you foam roll then this will help your muscles to recover and be more ready for your next session, decreasing the likelihood of injury. Also, your mobility will improve and you can start to run with better form.
Light jogging or cross-training helps the muscles to recover by getting fresh blood to the muscles, meaning you will be more fresh for your next session and less likely to get injured.
Primes our bodies for the next hard session
There are many things you can do before a session to get your body prepared to run fast. You can warm up properly, do pre-run core exercises to make sure your core is engaged, or pre-run hip and glute exercises.
However, the things we do the day before a session have a huge impact as well. By preparing our bodies for a good run the day before we increase our chances of having a good run the next day.
We already mentioned active recovery can make your muscles ache less and can increase your mobility. But by going for a very light jog and doing some gentle strides we can decrease the stiffness in our legs a lot, and help us to open up our stride. When I was running competitively, between sessions I would go for an easy run, doing some warm-up drills and doing 4-8 strides, this primed my body well for the next day. You don't have to go to these extents, by just doing some gentle exercise your body will thank you the next day.
Helps us to build consistency
Running is a habit, exercise is a habit, and anything that you wish to start on January 1st is just something you want to become a habit.
By not taking rest days you are deciding that every single day you want to get better. It doesn't matter whether you are doing an hour of easy jogging, endless drills, and strides, or whether you are doing 10 minutes of cycling and a couple of stretches.
When you decide to make getting better a daily habit, it becomes easier over time- you get momentum.
Improves mental health
We all know the benefits of mental health for runners; improved mood, decreased anxiety, and lessened symptoms of depression. Training every day, even light exercise can drastically improve our mental health, it can set us up right for the day and make us feel better. Never underestimate the benefits of getting out in the great outdoors, even if it's just for a walk to help our aching legs recover.
One study, which looked into blood lactate levels following active recovery between sets exercise, found that active recovery helps us to clear lactate better than resting, and also found that doing active recovery at paces closer to lactate threshold helped clear lactate better.
Active recovery vs a rest day
Many people know what active recovery is and assume it is also better to be doing something than not doing something, but there are exceptions.
There are times when a rest day is necessary to keep us running healthy. For example, if you feel something that you suspect could be an injury then resting may be a better alternative to running than cross-training.
It is also worth considering that some people may find passive recovery (a rest day), better for their mental health sometimes. A rest day can help people to mentally recover and avoid burnout. Sometimes it is easy for commitment to turn to obsession and that can lead to a runner's mind only being filled with running, by having a full day off can help some runners to come back feeling better the next day.
Check out this blog from 'Self': The Case for True Rest Over ‘Active Recovery’.
Example active recovery sessions
There are many different forms of active recovery and you should choose the type of exercise you want to do based on your recovery. If you feel very tired then sometimes it can be best to do an easier form of active recovery. Just because you decided that between your 2 hard sessions, you're going to do a 4-mile recovery run, doesn't mean you shouldn't change that just because you wrote it down. It's easy for runners to become prisoners to the schedules they write, however, it is easy for runners to get out of that prison when they realise it's for their own good. If someone told you for certain that you would have a better run the next day if you did a light yoga session than if you did an easy run, which would you choose?
Recovery run
This is like an easy run, but slower. The pace doesn't matter. You aren't going out there for the fitness gains, you're running to improve your recovery. It is wise to stick to soft surfaces like grass so that your muscles get less of a pounding. If you feel good at the end then feel free to do some gentle strides.
Non-weight bearing exercises
Non-weight bearing means "an exercise or motion you can do where you do not have to support your own weight". This can be cycling or swimming or anything where your muscles are going to take less of a pounding. This can be used when you feel extra behind on your recovery or are worried about injuries. The benefit of non-weight-bearing exercise is that it helps you to recover, without putting your muscles through as much strain.
Examples:
Cycling
Swimming
Elliptical machines
Rowing
Foam rolling and stretching
This is a very light form of active recovery and should be used when you feel your most tired. There are huge benefits to foam rolling and stretching such as; decreasing the risk of injury, improving mobility, and improving form. This can be done in the form of Yoga, Pilates, or following a stretching routine on YouTube.
You can also get the benefits of foam rolling from a massage stick or a massage gun.
Check out: Top 6 Massage Guns for Runners.
Light strengthening exercises
If you are doing active recovery then you're not going to want to do a full running-specific gym workout. However, you could do some strengthening exercises which are not too strenuous on the body, such as resistance band exercises of a core routine.
Walking
Walking is a great alternative to running when we feel too tired. It still gives us the endorphins of going outside and getting some fresh air and helps us get some fresh blood to our aching muscles so that we can reap the benefits of better recovery.
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