Recovery Cardio (Active Recovery)

Recovery cardio (active recovery) is low-intensity aerobic movement performed specifically to aid recovery, not to drive new adaptation. The intensity is below even typical easy training — comfortably conversational, in the light range (well under the first lactate threshold, around the bottom of zone 1) — and the duration is usually short (roughly 15–40 minutes).

The rationale is that gentle movement raises blood flow to working muscles, which can help clear metabolic by-products and deliver nutrients, may ease the feeling of stiffness, and keeps the athlete moving on rest days without accumulating fatigue. It is used (a) between hard interval/threshold sessions, (b) as a cool-down after intense work (see warm-up-cool-down), and (c) on deload or recovery days.

The key discipline is keeping it truly easy: if "recovery" cardio drifts into moderate or hard intensity it stops being recovery and adds to the training load, undermining its purpose and contributing to overreaching (see under-recovery-signs). In training- distribution terms, recovery cardio is part of the large low-intensity base, not the high-intensity dose (see training-intensity-distribution).

• Very low intensity (bottom of zone 1, well below LT1), short duration (~15–40 min).
• Purpose is recovery/blood flow, not adaptation.
• Used between hard sessions, as a cool-down, and on deload days.
• Must stay genuinely easy — drifting harder turns it into extra training stress.

• liss — recovery cardio is the easiest end of low-intensity steady state.
• warm-up-cool-down — cool-down is a form of recovery cardio.
• recovery-modalities — broader recovery toolkit in the wellness domain.
• under-recovery-signs — keeping recovery easy helps avoid overreaching.
• lactic-acid-replenishment — active recovery and lactate clearance.