Are you recovering??
Rest and recovery is an essential part of any workout routine. Your after-exercise recovery routine has a big impact on your fitness gains and sports performance and allows you to train much more effectively. Unfortunately, most people don't have an after exercise recovery plan. Here are some tips to get your post-workout plans on track.
The Importance of Recovery
Recovery after exercise is essential to muscle and tissue repair and strength building.1 This is even more critical after a heavyweight training session.
A muscle needs anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to repair and rebuild, and working it again too soon simply leads to tissue breakdown instead of building. If you are doing lower intensity circuit training think about taking a day off every 3 days to allow time for your body to replace all of its energy stores.
The signs of lack of recovery or overtraining can be found in the following ways...
1. Decreased performance.
The telltale sign of overtraining is a lack of improved performance, despite an increase in training intensity or volume. Decreased agility, strength, and endurance, such as slower reaction times and reduced running speeds are all common signs of overtraining.
2. Increased perceived effort during workouts.
Not only can overtraining decrease performance, it can also make seemingly effortless workouts feel unusually difficult. A clear sign of this is an abnormally elevated heart rate during exercise or throughout the day. If you are experiencing OTS, you may find that it takes longer for your heart rate to return to normal after a workout.
3. Excessive fatigue.
A few days of fatigue or “heavy legs” is expected at times. But fatigue will accumulate in a body that never has a chance to fully recover from previous workouts. Further, chronic, negative energy expenditure leads to something called “low energy availability,” which means that the body is consistently pulling from its own energy stores (carbs, protein, fat). This can be the result of too much training or too little fueling.
4. Agitation and moodiness.
Overtraining significantly affects your stress hormones, including cortisol and epinephrine. This hormonal imbalance can cause mood swings, unusual irritability, and an inability to concentrate.
5. Insomnia or restless sleep.
Sleep ideally provides the body time to rest and repair itself. But the overproduction of stress hormones, as mentioned above, may not allow you to wind down or completely relax, making sleep much less effective (which compounds chronic fatigue and moodiness).
6. Loss of appetite.
A hormone imbalance can also affect hunger and satiety mechanisms. More training should stimulate more appetite, but the physiological exhaustion of OTS can actually lead to appetite suppression.
7. Chronic or nagging injuries.
Overused muscles and joints can cause constant aches or joint pain. Pain that does not subside in two weeks (or so) should be considered a notable injury. Overtraining taxes all of the body's systems and also makes it more difficult to ward off infections. Thus, frequent illnesses and upper-respiratory-tract infections (URTIs) are signs as well. Medical complications may also include low bone mineral density and low testosterone.
8. Metabolic imbalances.
Long-term low energy availability may lead to nutrient deficiencies, such as iron deficiency anemia, which have the potential to harm both health and performance. Medical complications can also involve the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine, nervous or reproductive systems (e.g., menstrual cycle disturbances in women).
9. Psychological stress and/or depression.
Some people live for punishing workouts and grueling competitions. If this sounds like you, the inability to train or race (combined with an imbalance of hormones and lack of quality sleep) can significantly affect your psyche.
If you recognize these signs of overtraining in yourself, reach out for guidance as there are as many methods of recovery as there are athletes. The following are some of the most commonly recommended by the experts.
Hydrate
- You lose a lot of fluid during exercise and ideally, you should be replacing it during exercise, but filling up after exercise is an easy way to boost your recovery. Water supports every metabolic function and nutrient transfer in the body and having plenty of water will improve every bodily function. Adequate fluid replacement is even more important for endurance athletes who lose large amounts of water during hours of sweating.
Post-Workout
- After depleting your energy stores with exercise, you need to refuel if you expect your body to recover, repair tissues, get stronger, and be ready for the next challenge. This is even more important if you are performing endurance exercise day after day or trying to build muscle. Ideally, you should try to eat within 60 minutes of the end of your workout and make sure you include some high-quality protein and carbohydrates.
Rest and Relax
- Time is one of the best ways to recover (or heal) from just about any illness or injury and this also works after a hard workout. Your body has an amazing capacity to take care of itself if you allow it some time. Resting after a hard workout allows the repair and recovery process to happen at a natural pace. It's not the only thing you can or should do to promote recovery, but sometimes doing nothing is the easiest thing to do.
- After a tough workout, consider gentle stretching. This is a simple and fast way to help your muscles recover.
- Easy, gentle movement (such as a brisk walk or a bike ride) improves circulation, which helps promote nutrient and waste product transport throughout the body.1 In theory, this helps the muscles repair and refuel faster.
Get a Massage
- Massage feels good and improves circulation while allowing you to fully relax.1 You can also try self-massage and Foam Roller Exercises for Easing Tight Muscles and avoid the heavy sports massage price tag.
- While you sleep, amazing things are taking place in your body. Optimal sleep is essential for anyone who exercises regularly. During sleep, your body produces Growth Hormone (GH) which is largely responsible for tissue growth and repair.
The most important thing you can do to recovery quickly is to listen to your body. If you are feeling tired, sore, or notice decreased performance you may need more recovery time or a break from training altogether. If you are feeling strong the day after a hard workout, you don't have to force yourself to go slow.
In most cases, your body will let you know what it needs when it needs it. The problem for many of us is that we don't listen to those warnings or we dismiss them with our own self-talk: "I can't be tired, I didn't run my best yesterday," or "No one else needs two rest days after that workout; they'll think I'm a wimp if I go slow today."
