Enhancing Recovery: Preventing UnderPerformance in Athletes

Enhancing Recovery: Preventing Underperformance in Athletes is the first book to address the multifaceted aspects and significance of recovery in maintaining high-level athletic performance. In this text, 21 contributors take an interdisciplinary approach to assist you in preventing overtraining and underperformance in athletes you work with. Enhancing Recovery focuses on recovery as a required component of training and the devastating effects of underrecovery, giving you new insights into treating and preventing overtraining and underperformance.

The editor, Michael Kellmann, PhD, combines a wealth of information from medicine, physiology, periodization training, and psychology as well as studies of people's motivation, health, and lifestyles to explore all aspects of underrecovery—not just in sports, but also in everyday life.

The four-part text features
-theoretical models that draw distinct connections between overtraining and underrecovery,

-applied strategies for preventing underrecovery,

-case studies that provide practical examples and illustrate the importance of integrating recovery into daily training routines, and

-full descriptions of how underrecovery affects athletic performance as well as everyday work and overall health.
Part I, “Conceptualizing the Problem,” explains the concepts of underrecovery and overtraining by clarifying definitions and providing real-life examples that support the assertion that underrecovery is often the precursor to overtraining and underperformance in athletes.

Part II, “Determinants of Underrecovery,” addresses the physiological factors that are indicators of overtraining in athletes and explains how athletes are constantly pushing the envelope of positive training adaptation to obtain small improvements in performance.

Part III, “Intervention of Underrecovery,” focuses on the significance of correct competitive scheduling and training sequencing, which together underscore the processes leading to optimal performance. Emotional and mental factors in underrecovery and overtraining are also discussed.

Part IV, “Transfer to Related Areas,” examines the relationship between recovery and both physical and psychological health. The importance of attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions are also addressed.

Addressing recovery as a key factor of performance, the text illustrates how a constant lack of recovery can result in overtraining in athletes you work with. Further, it shows how being even slightly underrecovered over an extended period results in underperformance in athletes and nonathletes alike. Enhancing Recovery: Preventing Underperformance in Athletes is a critical resource for anyone researching or practicing in the exercise science field.

Michael Kellmann, PhD, is an assistant professor in the faculty of sport science at the University of Bochum in Germany. He completed his habilitation at the University of Potsdam in Germany in January 2002. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology and Psychology in High Performance Sports. He serves on the executive board of the German Association of Sport Psychology and the editorial board for The Sport Psychologist.

Dr. Kellmann's works have appeared in more than 50 publications, and he is coauthor of the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes: User Manual. He has consulted with and conducted research for the National Sport Center in Calgary, Canada, the Canadian national speed skating team, and the German junior national rowing team. Dr. Kellmann lives in Potsdam, Germany, and enjoys running and playing soccer.

For more information about the work of Dr. Kellmann, please log on to http://sposerver.sportdekanat.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/sportpsych/