8 Recovery Techniques Every Fitness Fans Needs to Try
Doing fitness is a great way of staying healthy and looking after your body. Everything you can do to stay healthy is important, which means taking your fitness routine a little more seriously this year where possible.
In order to improve your fitness output, you also want to manage your recovery techniques so that your body recovers well and quickly enough to get back to it when needed.
Whether you’re a fitness junkie or just looking to better your efforts when it comes to quicker recovery times, here are eight recovery techniques every fitness fan needs to try out.
- Use recovery boots
If you’ve never tried recovery boots before, then you’ll certainly want to consider them if you’re someone who regularly runs or does intense workouts involving the lower body or extreme weight bearing on the upper body that impacts your legs and feet.
Recovery boots are a form of compression that is designed to reduce muscle soreness, decrease swelling in the feet and legs, as well as speeding up recovery time and improve circulation.
Many people tend to avoid them out of a lack of knowledge of how they work or not knowing where to start. While there are a lot of recovery boots out on the market, many of them will do the same thing. So it’s worth looking into recovery boots if your legs and feet are often in discomfort after a race or intense workout.
- Get plenty of sleep
Getting plenty of sleep is a given when it comes to the recovery period after working out. If you’re not getting enough sleep every night, then this is likely to affect your ability to recover and always your ability to perform in the gym or whatever sport you’re playing.
A lack of energy doesn’t do well when you have a big match coming up or a race that will require you to dig deep. At the same time, if your body hasn’t fully recovered due to a lack of sleep, then you’re likely to cause more injury to yourself as a result.
Think about how much sleep you’re getting every night and try to improve that where possible. Whether it’s going to bed earlier or trying techniques that will help you to fall asleep quicker.
- Hydrate your body
In order to aid your body’s recovery, you want to give it as much hydration as possible. Ideally, after a workout, your overall water consumption for the day should be hitting around two litres. While that sounds like a lot, you lose a lot of water in your body when working out. That’s why it’s important to hydrate your body wherever you can.
If you’re someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy drinking water, then you could always try to add certain fruits and vegetables to very subtly change the taste of the water.
Alternatively, you could add some cordial to your water to add flavour if you’re struggling with consuming a larger volume of water and you’re not particularly keen to drink it.
- Get a massage
A massage is a great way to help relieve some of the aches and pains that come with fitness recovery of any kind. Whether you’re not used to working out and perhaps only just started, or you’re finding that the workouts you’re currently doing are having much more of an intense impact than usual.
Massages are great to give yourself the relief that’s needed when you’ve got tight muscles or strains that need a professional touch. There are plenty of massage therapists who specialise in fitness-related massages so that they can provide targeted relief in the right areas.
- Eat the right snacks
The snacks and food in general that you put into your body can do well to aid recovery and ultimately strengthen your body so that you can work harder and recover quicker.
There are lots of different snacks available for eating before, during or after a workout. You should do your research to see what you’ll need and which ones benefit you best. Some people who go to the gym or workout will take a pre-workout shake, which contains all of the nutrients and good stuff needed to help optimise your workout to the best of your ability.
Think about what snacks you can take to your workouts or what to stock up on in your home to aid recovery.
- Do some active recovery
Active recovery is often a great way of helping to recover, even if it feels a bit contradictory. Surely you should be cooling down rather than doing more exercise?
In order for your body to recover and wind down from the intensity of a workout, it’s good to do a bit of light exercise to help with that transition between the workout and the cooling down.
You could go for a brisk walk or slow run to help as a form of active recovery.
- Use a foam roller
When you don’t always have the available time to get a massage, you could always consider purchasing a foam roller. Foam rolling can help to relieve tension in muscles and joints and works fairly similarly to getting a professional massage.
When using a foam massager for the first time, be aware that it’s not always going to be firm, depending on what type of foam roller you get. It’s worth getting a variety depending on the intensity of the massage you need.
- Try an ice bath
Finally, for those who are feeling particularly brave, you could try an ice bath. Ice baths or plunge pools have become quite popular in recent years due to the positive impact they can have on your body.
Ice baths can help with recovery by reducing inflammation, and speeding up the healing process thanks to the benefits it can have to your circulation. Many athletes swear by it if regularly used.
Ice baths help with recovery by reducing inflammation, improving circulation, and speeding up the healing process. They can be especially beneficial for athletes and people who are recovering from injuries.
With these tips, you’ll find that your recovery improves and ultimately, you’ll get the most out of future workouts as a result.
Photo by Jade Stephens on Unsplash