How do you best recover after exercise?

Mathieu van der Poel rode the Tour de France in the past few weeks and will ride the Olympic cycling road race on August 3. There are barely two weeks in between. How does he get to the start as fresh as possible?

Dick Thijssen, professor of Cardiovascular Physiology:

'Recovery is crucial in top sport. Both during an effort and between stages or competitions. We know that Van der Poel is very good at the first aspect. After 250 km, he often can do just that little bit more than the rest. Supplementing glucose and salts during the race is critical to pull this off. Nutrition is obviously also important between efforts, but adequate rest even more so. Remember Joop Zoetemelk, who said: “You win the Tour in bed.” And Van der Poel performed poorly at the World Championship in 2022, because he spent the night before in a police cell. That is disastrous.

Temperature is also a hot topic among professional athletes. For example, some of them take an ice bath after an effort. However, there is no hard scientific evidence that tis enhances recovery. Watches that indicate the degree of recovery are also popular. These measure the variation in time between each heartbeat, which provides information about the stress level. A high stress level may indicate insufficient recovery. But research shows that training based on what such a watch indicates does not improve performance. So above all: rest and eat well, Mathieu!'

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