This season in my brain Iāve basically started 100% conflating āsleepā with ārecoveryā and itās been a game-changer, hitting all time numbers for me with less volume. The recent TR podcast on the topic was a huge vote of confidence for this approach. In my brain Iām basically like massage, good meals, putting feet up, relaxing, all nice! But SLEEP = RECOVERY. That thinking has led me to try and track hours slept, and try and find correlations to training and performance (something Iāve never done).
In past seasons during periods of high volume Iād thought Iād hit a āphysiological ceilingā turns out I was probably just too tired week in, week out. I used to think missing #'s in a workout was a fairly regular thing but this season Iām hitting the numbers and progressing. Iāve had to change my work schedule to get the sleep in but itās been worth it.