7 Things You Can Do to Speed Up Exercise Recovery

With the hustle and bustle of today’s busy lifestyle, a lot of people are becoming fitness buffs in their own right. Most of us exercise because we are aware of the benefits we could get from working out regularly. Aside from just looking good, some of the benefits of exercise include; increased endurance, lesser body fat deposits, enhanced athletic performance and an overall feeling of being physically fit.

I know a lot of you would agree that there would be days when you just feel tired and drained from your previous isometrics session and don’t really feel like working out. To be able to sustain your desired exercise routine, it is essential that you understand the significance of fully recovering after your usual workout regimen.

Is it that important to recover after every exercise? The answer is “yes’”. Most of us tend to take this for granted but you should now that exercise recovery is crucial to strength building and muscle and tissue repair especially after an intense weight training session.

Rebuilding our muscles would take around a day or two and subjecting them to another intense workout session would only result to tissue breakdown and would only do you more harm than good. That being said; it is not advisable to work on the same muscle sets for two days in a row.

There are a lot of ways to recover aside from the usual “drink your post-workout protein shake” tip. Listed below are 7 things that most fitness experts would recommend to give you a quick exercise recovery.

 

1. Cool Down – Continuing to move at a very low intensity for about 5-10 minutes after working out helps remove lactic acid from your muscles, therefore reducing the risk of muscle stiffness.

2. Take an after exercise ice bath – Taking a plunge in a tub of ice water is a conventional practice for a lot of elite athletes to reduce muscle pain, and recover faster after each intense workout sessions. Ice baths are said to help reduce swelling/tissue breakdown, decreases metabolic activity, helps flush lactic acid out from the body and when re-warming; increases blood flow and speeds up circulation which speeds up the healing process.

 

3. Eat proper foods at the right time especially after your Exercise – Scientists from the University of Illinois that eating food rich in leucine; a branch-chained amino acid; immediately after intense workouts help sped up recovery. Donald K. Layman; a nutrition expert and professor says that the reason for this is that leucine appears to have a specific, and apparently unique, impact on skeletal muscle. It stimulates muscle protein synthesis, provides fuel for the muscle and helps to maintain blood glucose.

4. Start drinking carbohydrate rich fluids – It is best that you do this while cooling down and stretching. This is the wisest thing to do because this will help you with complete body hydration and start the immediate replacement of your short term glycogen stores.

5. Proper stress management – Let’s face it. Stress is definitely a big obstacle we face in our everyday life as well as when it comes to recovery in between training sessions. There are a lot of factors that contribute to stress and if you are being affected by them; chances are, your training schedules are most likely to be affected too. Always being under stressful conditions impedes the body’s intuitive ability to defend against sickness.

6. Rest – This is probably the best, the quickest and most time tested ways to achieve full exercise recovery. “Time heals all wounds” as the saying goes and one of the best ways truthfully enough. It also helps heal just about any illness or injury and works to speed up recovery after a hard workout. Your body has a natural capacity to take care of itself and; resting and waiting after workouts facilitates the repair and recovery process to happen at a natural pace. Doing nothing is indeed the easiest thing to do.

7. Avoid Overtraining – A very simple way for a faster exercise recovery is by designing a great workout routine that you could stick to. Engaging in excessive workouts, very heavy training sessions and lack of rest days will potentially limit your drive for exercising and curb off your recovery efforts.

The last piece of friendly advice I could give you is that you should listen to your body. Go with what’s comfortable and works with you. If you’re feeling tired and sore after working out; do rest up. Don’t let anybody tell you what’s good for you; after all, you’re the one who hears what it’s telling you. Enjoy your workouts!