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After a big event (in my case a weekend tennis tournament), what's an appropriate recovery time before continuing to workout again?

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A good rule of thumb, is one day of rest or active recovery for every one hour of your event.

Active recovery is low intensity, low effort, low impact. A very easy swim would be great active recovery. The ideal is to get your blood flowing a bit and circulate any lactic acid and other post-workout "stuff" to help the body recover. Typically, I would avoid any kind of impact like running, jogging, plyometrics and even an aggressive game of basketball.

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Active recovery would be moderate activity right? Because else in some cases I wouldn't have been allowed to play waterpolo for over a week... – Ivo Flipse♦ Jun 2 '11 at 20:43
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Active recovery is low intensity, low effort, low impact. A very easy swim would be great active recovery. The ideal is to get your blood flowing a bit and circulate any lactic acid and other post-workout "stuff" to help the body recover. Typically, I would avoid any kind of impact like running, jogging, plyometrics and even an aggressive game of basketball. – Ryan Miller Jun 2 '11 at 20:49
I suggest you edit that into your answer then, because its a good advice :-) – Ivo Flipse♦ Jun 2 '11 at 20:52
@ryan-miller - Thanks for the response. That actually helps a lot. I'm not sure what specifics you would need to be able to provide more detail. Here's what I can tell you: (1) Time of actual play varies from 6-12 hours during a tournament. (2) Intensity varies from moderate to very intense during that time period. Tennis is basically a lot of short sprints with short breaks in between. (3) The heat can be a pretty big factor late in the summer. I definitely feel more zapped after a tournament in August than I do after playing on in April. // Is there anything else I can share? – Shane Jun 2 '11 at 20:56
@Shane. No, I actually revised my answer to remove the concern for specifics. Make sure you compensate for the heat with plenty of hydration before, during and after your tournaments. – Ryan Miller Jun 2 '11 at 21:05
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