Reading Your Own Recovery Between Sessions

Most athletes track what happened during a session — sets, reps, load. Far fewer pay attention to what happens between sessions, even though that’s where the actual adaptation takes place.

A few simple signals are worth watching: resting heart rate the morning after a hard session, how quickly muscle soreness resolves, and whether the first working set of the next session feels like the previous session’s last set or its first.

None of these require special equipment. They require paying attention and being honest about the answer. An athlete who consistently needs an extra day to recover from the same prescribed load isn’t failing the program — they’re providing exactly the information a coach needs to adjust it.

This is also why FORGE keeps Recovery sessions on the schedule rather than treating them as optional. A recovery session isn’t time off from training. It’s the part of training that makes the next hard session possible.