SubscribeReview: Testing the Recovery Pump
Posted on Sep 20, 2012 under Factoids, Geek Out!, Raves | Comments are offI was fortunate to have borrowed a Recovery Pump system for Ironman Mont Tremblant recovery. I wasn’t sure what to expect or if it’d make any real difference. I wore the legs for 2 hrs after the race and for 30 minutes the next morning, and while I saw people in the village hobbling around, my legs felt really good. Was this the Recovery Pump, my pacing, my physiology or some other factor.
Ian and I decided to put them to a test. Here was the plan:
On 2 subsequent Saturdays (Friday is a rest day), I’d do the following workout at 8am and again at noon. Before the 8am I’d have my normal breakfast (yogurt, bran buds and a banana), after the 1st workout I’d have a First Endurance Ultragen. During each test I would drink 1 bottle of water with First Endurance EFS Drink.
The workout was controlled as a programmed .ERG workout with the computrainer, as follows:
- Warmup: 120w-200w progressive increase over 10:00
- quick computrainer calibration
- Long Intervals: (seated) 3x 10:00 @ 30w over FTP with a 3:00 easy spin between
- 10:00 easy (during which I exited the power workout and started spinscan to be able to set a fixed grade)
- Sprint Intervals: 6x 0:10 seated sprint with 0:50 recovery
- Cooldown: 5:00
On the 1st week, we did the control. No specific recovery between the trials, just nutrition, tv, web surfing, etc. The 2nd week I used the recoverypump legs for 45 minutes after the 1st workout.
The Results
The Control
| Trial 1 | Trial 2 | Delta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long Intervals | 7 micro-rests | 13 micro-rests | Performance drop by ~40% |
| Sprint Intervals | Max 626w | Max 603 (but most ~590w) | Performance drop by 5% |
(micro-rest: just can’t keep the pedals going any longer, 3-5 sec rest and go again)
The Recovery Pump Test
| Trial 1 | Trial 2 | Delta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long Intervals | 12 micro-rests | 10 micro-rests | Performance improvement by ~17% |
| Sprint Intervals | Max 675w | Max 736 | Performance increase by 9% |
To me these results are pretty compelling and corroborate my gut feel that the Recovery Pump system was making a difference. I was actually surprised to see a performance INCREASE when using the system. It wasn’t just that my performance didn’t decrease as much, but the invigorated legs were able to do MORE than just “morning fresh”.
Ongoing Testing
Obviously, I’m not done with my investigation of the power of the Recovery Pump system. I’ve used it before track workouts to pump up my legs before the speedwork and after to refresh them. I have to say, I’m pretty convinced that this system lives up to every claim on the Recovery Pump website.
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