11 Recovery Methods for Athletes

If you’re a serious athlete, you’ll probably be looking for ways to improve your game.  You’ll be looking at ways to train more effectively, become fitter, faster and stronger as well as preventing injuries.  Naturally the first place you’ll look would be your training sessions.  But how many of you have a recovery plan.  It’s quite simple – if you train hard you must recover hard.  Below is a list which you, the athlete, can implement to accelerate your recovery from hard training.

Food

After a hard training session, you must have protein and carbohydrates to help with muscle repair and replenish loss glycogen during exercise.  How much protein and carbohydrates you need to eat would depend on your training goals and the type of exercise session you’ve just completed.  Unless you are competing in multiple events or training session during the day where the type and timing of nutrients becomes more critical, make sure your daily diet includes high-quality protein sources and complex carbohydrates.

Hydration

Dehydration will not only impede on subsequent training sessions, but can also have a negative effect on recovery.  Water is involved in every metabolic bodily function and assists in the transfer of nutrients.  The athlete should monitor changes in body mass from pre-to-post exercise to help determine the amount of fluid to be replaced.  A loss of 1kg is equivalent to 1L of fluid loss.   Because your body continues to sweat after the training session, typically a volume equal to 150% of the post-exercise fluid loss should be consumed over the next 2 – 4 hours to fully restore fluid balance.

Although it is debatable that massage therapy improves signs of muscle functional loss such as fatigue and decrease in strength, massage does help sore muscles feel less sore, which is a good enough reason for any hard training athlete to go see a massage therapist.   Plus the feeling of reduced anxiety and relaxation has psychological benefits.

Active recovery

Active recovery involves low-intensity exercise done after hard training sessions or competition.   Low-intensity active recovery appears to significantly reduce accumulated blood lactate and speed muscle recovery.  It also helps the athlete with psychological recovery as it helps with relaxation.

Don’t Overtrain

Having an effective and safe training program in the first place will help with recovery and help prevent injuries.  Signs of over-training include lack of progress, restlessness, lack of motivation and illnesses and injuries.

More to come…

Article written by Thanh Nguyen (Caveman Training Instructor) for Executive Results.

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