I donated plasma twice a week before the pandemic hit. I found that some adjustment was necessary. When I first started the next day was a no go for any intensity or longer endurance efforts so I treated those days as active recovery days. The longer I did it the easier it became to train even day of. Sweet spot would usually be as high as I would go for intensity though. You will notice a reduction in endurance/stamina post-donation.
My tips would be:
- Plan to have some degradation of performance short-term
- Day of plan to workout BEFORE donating with plenty of time between for your body to reset back to baseline. Don’t smash yourself for this session so probably no VO2.
- Take it easy after for at least a day until you adjust (this took a while for me), so endurance to sweet spot while you figure out how your body handles the stress
- You may need to reduce volume, especially if you’re a mid to higher volume athlete.