Derek Jenkins
After a great workout, you have to give your muscles what they deserve.
Recovery.
Many people don’t pay attention to this.
When your workout is done with high-intensity, the muscle tissue “suffers” micro-trauma lesions.
Preventing bigger damages to your muscle is crucial and that’s why you need to think about recovery.
Over-training and not following the recovery methods could result with delayed onset muscle soreness.
You need to follow these 7 simple methods if you want optimum muscle recovery.
They are effective!
Start a workout with warm-up exercises
Very often you don’t do this just to save time.
This is extremely dangerous and if you don’t want to suffer bigger muscle damage, you have to spend approximately 15 minutes to prepare for the workout.
Light jogging followed by dynamic stretching will do the trick.
End a workout with cooling down exercises
Post-workout moves are also important.
The muscle recovery process ends when you complete the workout.
Jump on the stationary bike and do some static stretching in order to slow down your heartbeat.
This will help you prevent muscle soreness.
Separate your high-intensity workout sessions properly
24 to 48 hours gap between these high-intensity workouts is the best healing period for your muscle.
Preventing injuries needs to be on your mind.
You can do a light training between high-intensity training.
But make sure is light!
Ice bath
Lots of professional athletes do this.
If you can’t “survive” an ice bath simply put an ice pack on the sore muscle.
It will reduce inflammation and smooth the pain caused by the high-intensity training.
Wet heat for sore muscles
If your gym has a steam room use it!
Steambath after the workout is the best treatment for your muscles.
If a steamy bath is not an option, simply have a hot water bath after your session.
The wet heat increases sweating which flushes out the toxins stored in your body.
Stretch out!
After the high-intensity training or heavy sparring session, you could feel some muscles sore.
Stretch them out!
You will improve the elasticity of the muscles and make them react better the next time.
BONUS tip: start your day with a stretching routine. It will take you 15 minutes.
Sleep
Yes… get some sleep
I know how much you hate wasting time on sleeping, but it’s crucial for your body energy.
Eight to ten hours of sleep is the best when you are doing these high-intensity workouts.
During the sleep, your growth hormones are released and help the muscles recover faster.
There you have it.
You just need to follow these simple steps and everything will be fine.
In fact, you’ll have better results in the next couple of weeks.
