By Dr. Laura Barreca, PT, DPT
Nowadays, most people have a GPS watch whether that be Garmin, Apple, Coros, you name it. For those that have a Garmin, you know that after a hard effort or workout, your watch will buzz on your wrist to say 24, 36, or even 72 hours until recovery. This alert is called a recovery time feature and is used to provide an estimate on how long it will take until you are fully recovered and ready for your next workout. According to Garmin, this number is determined by the training effect of the workout you just completed, a specific algorithm, and the countdown of your recovery time from the start of your next workout. Newer watches can incorporate stress levels, sleep, and other metrics into this algorithm to determine recovery time.
This is a great stepping stone to figuring out the right recovery time for you but this small metric is not the end all be all! Our Garmins or GPS watches do not always account for outside life stressors and unmeasurable factors such as nutrition, time spent on feet outside of running, illness, etc. Be mindful to keep this in the back of your head when listening to everything that your Garmin says and account for recovery time on your own as well!