Recovery: the Real Key to Progress

Though there has been tons of research in many areas of training and fitness one of the least researched and understood areas is recovery.
And recovery is even more important for the Masters athlete as they can't afford to break down and quite frankly don't have the recuperative powers of athletes that are younger. That is just a fact no matter how much you delude yourself into thinking otherwise my friends!
Many anecdotal methods have been tried and used extensively but most of them have little to no research to validate their efficacy.
Now don't get me wrong about research. I am of the school of thought that the research, esp. in our field, validates what we have been using in the field and know to be effective. It is not the other way around.
That being said there are 3 cornerstones to good recovery that virtually no one can argue about:
sleep, good nutrition and hydration.
Many people are sleep deprived and the amount of sleep, though important, isn't a vital as the quality of sleep. Basically, a mature adult should be getting 7-9 hours of quality sleep daily. Masters athletes that means you!
Sleep is important for several reasons: it is when the body recovers, when a lot of tissue repair occurs from injury or training stresses, and when important hormones like HGH and testosterone are released. You can see how if any of those things are compromised how recovery/improvement would be very difficult if not impossible.
Nutrition is equally important in the recovery process and is starting to get the attention it deserves. You can't out-train poor nutrition no matter how spot on your training program...you are deluding yourself to think otherwise.
Good nutrition facilitates muscle/soft tissue and even bone repair and building, speeds recovery from training and even helps minimize things like inflammation. We are just beginning to understand the widespread impact of good nutrition and many are still well behind the latest information. Simple rule of thumb for good eating: if it doesn't have a Mother or come from the Earth, don't eat it!
Finally, hydration is critical to proper recovery as water esp. literally lubricates the whole recovery process. Proper hydration is critical to good central nervous system function (obviously important for an athlete) which is the key to good, powerful movement. For most people the fluid of choice for most of the time should be water. There has been little independent research backing up the claims of sports drink makers about the efficacy of these drinks in events lasting under 75-90 minutes. Water is easily available, cheap, and has no additives of dubious benefit.
So bottom line is your recovery program should be built around these 3 things: good sleep, good nutrition and adequate hydration. If those aren't in place then you are wasting your time on things like supplements and the like.

Train hard and train smart!
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