We Break Down the Necessary Recovery Modalities to Help You Train Harder & Avoid Injury
Do you feel like you’ve hit a fitness plateau? Or that the soreness in your legs from yesterday’s workout is limiting you from pushing hard today? Or that you can’t seem to improve your strength-to-weight ratio? Recovering properly may be the missing ingredient you need to move to the next level. Properly refueling your body after exercise will accelerate the rate of recovery, allowing you to schedule workouts closer together and truly elevate your performance. Although active recovery techniques like stretching and foam-rolling are important, diet plays the largest role in post-workout recovery. Choosing nutrient-dense foods can accelerate the six key elements of recovery: muscle glycogen replenishment, hormonal support, soft-tissue repair, immune-system support, inflammation reduction and rehydration.
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The Six Principles of Proper Exercise Recovery
1. Muscle Glycogen Replenishment, Muscle Tissue Repair and Protein Synthesis
When you work out for longer than one hour, your body starts to deplete the levels of glucose in your blood, and must turn to glycogen — carbohydrates stored in your liver and muscle tissue — to fuel your activity level. Replenishing muscle glycogen with a 4-to-1 carbohydrate-to-protein snack will help you to push hard tomorrow. Immediately after a workout I have a handful of almonds and dried fruit to replenish muscle glycogen before my high protein meal.
Once your muscle glycogen has been replenished, then you can start to repair muscle tissue and start to synthesize new proteins. Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) are especially important amino acids post-workout. They act as signaling molecules which stimulate protein synthesis. Within an hour of exercise, I consume a meal that is high in plant-based proteins — such as nuts, seeds, beans, or organic soy.
2. Hormonal Support
Although exercise is a complementary stress, it does still physically stress the body and have the potential to elevate the stress hormone cortisol. Consuming minimally processed foods while avoiding uncomplementary stress (such as work stress) will help to reduce cortisol levels. Sleep is also an important part of post-workout hormonal support. Your body regenerates muscle cells during sleep by releasing growth hormone. If your stress levels are too high, your body will not be able to get into a deep phase of sleep for this to occur. Some relaxation techniques, such as meditation and yoga, can also be helpful.
3. Soft Tissue Repair
What if you’re feeling soreness in your joints after a long run? Or the beginning of tennis elbow? While carbohydrates and protein can fuel your muscle tissue, these macronutrients don’t repair your soft tissue, which connects and supports all of your organs, joints, and muscles. A daily glucosamine supplement can help maintain joint health, keeping them strong and well lubricated.
4. Immune System Support
Your immune system keeps you healthy in a world full of bacteria and viruses. However, periods of heavy athletic training have been shown to impair your immune system — while training heavily, you are much more at risk for illness. Eating a diet that is nutrient-dense and rich in vitamins and minerals can help to support your immune system, while doing basic things like ensuring you get enough sleep and wash your hands multiple times a day will help keep you healthy for longer.
5. Inflammation Reduction
Inflammation is your body’s way of healing from the micro-muscle tears and increased cortisol levels that exercise has caused. Inflammation is necessary, but it does reduce your recovery time because of muscle soreness and stiffness. To be able to train again shortly after, you’ll have to fully recover — which you can do by incorporating more antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, whole grains and omega-3 fatty acids into your diet, which will help your body fight back against inflammation. Saturated and trans fats, as well as highly processed foods, actually increase the inflammatory response, which means that clean eating is an essential part of your training regimen.
6. Rehydration
Replenishing the electrolytes that you eliminate during exercise is the last crucial step in recovery. Calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium and sodium are the chief electrolyte minerals, which regulate the flow of nutrients and waste in and out of cells, making them essential for muscle contractions, heartbeats and general nerve function.
In addition to ongoing, proactive hydration outside of, before and during your workouts, remember to replenish with a good volume of electrolyte-enhanced water immediately post-exercise. If you don’t like the taste of plain tap water, try adding electrolytes, lemon juice, coconut water, or sliced fruit to your bottle.
Now you can take actionable steps to recover faster with all six key elements of recovery: muscle glycogen replenishment, hormonal support, soft tissue repair, immune system support, inflammation reduction and rehydration. Remember that there will always be weaknesses in your training to work on — your focus has to be on getting better through constant improvement. Head to FuelYourBetter.com to address your training weaknesses and become better.
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