I know how important it is to take a recovery week to repair the muscles, and I am on a recovery week right now, but just a couple of questions.

Is there ever a certain point in a person's life when they don't need a recovery week as often? I am working with the Slim Series, and just finished my first round last week, a 6-week run of the lower body program. It says in the booklet that after the first 6 week round, the other rounds that follow should be 4 weeks each. I am starting the Slim Training program this Sunday. I will do that for 4 weeks before taking a recovery week.

I understand the benefits of a recovery week, in which I stretch and do some walking, and my husband also gives me a professional massage. Do Tony and Debbie and other professionals take recovery weeks as often as they are recommended to us? Last week on chat, Debbie told me that her exercise routine is basically like the Slim Training program in the Slim Series. But how often would she take a recovery week? Does she go longer than 4 or 6 weeks since she is stronger and has more stamina? Just curious!

Bonnie

Good question. The anser is a matter of intensity. For example, if Debbie is always doing the same workouts, then she is probably very efficient at them and may never need a recovery week--though she probably takes them in the form on easy weeks, fun stuff, vacations, etc. But her results will suffer from this. That doesn't matter in her case. She doesn't need to perform any sports and she already looks great. Therefore, her workouts are pretty much for maintenance, even though they'd be really hard to most people, they aren't for her.

The harder you workout the more often you need recovery weeks. For example, when Lance Armstrong is training his hardest he takes one every 3 weeks, which is the shortest "block" you want to use to allow for an adaptive phase and a growth phase.

People that are less fit don't need to change as often because their adaptive phase can be 8 to 10 weeks sometimes, which is why Power 90 only has you change workouts once, and not in a major way.

P90X will be different. You'll take a recovery week after each 3 weeks. If your intensity was off, then it can be increase to 40 or 5 and never more than 6. The harder you work, the more you need the break, get it?

Now, a 'recovery' week doesn't have to be easy. I'd reckon Lance's would kill a lot of people because they feature things like 6 hour rides. But he'll keep his heart rate below his lactate threshold all the time, so for him his body is getting stronger and not breaking down.

The P90X recovery weeks are not easy, and will be very hard for some people. Buy you don't do resistance, the form of exercise that causes the most breakdown.

So in your case a recovery week might feature a lot of low-level cardio, stetching, yoga, pilates, etc. It doesn't have to be a week off. It needs to be a break from what you were doing because chances are that somewhere between 3 and 6 weeks your growth curve has plateau'd with that workout, so you need a week of lower intensity in order for your body to re-build and get strong, when it' s ready to go again.

One more note: if you've gone too long without one you may cause caused what's called excessive cumulative microtrauma, or overtraining. In this case, a recovery week could stretch into two or three or as long as you need to get your strength back.