Recover Faster and Train Harder
We’ve all been there - barely able to walk up the stairs after leg day, struggling to lift up the puppy after a heavy back session.
Muscle soreness is a natural part of building muscle, but it shouldn’t interfere with your training - or your life! Luckily, there are some easy strategies you can employ to speed up muscle recovery, and prevent soreness and injury.
Nutrition
The first key to promoting faster muscle recovery, and increasing strength and stamina over time, is to nail your nutrition.
Protein is the foundational building block our body needs to maintain and grow muscle mass. Protein synthesis is the process by which our body breaks down ingested protein, and puts it to work building and repairing muscle tissue.
Carbohydrate and specifically glucose also play a key role in muscle recovery. When we train, our body uses stored glucose for fuel - so in order to recover effectively we need to replenish our stores by eating carbohydrate-rich foods post-session (eg oats, fruit, bread and rice.)
In terms of diet, collagen is also a beneficial peptide to consume based on its role in joint and skin health.
Rest
When it comes to pushing your body to its limits, sometimes less is more. It may seem obvious, but allowing your body to rest and regenerate between training or other forms of exertion is critical to muscular recovery - and is neglected by many.
Strength competitors, olympians, and endurance athletes all know the benefit of adequate down time between picking up the weights or hitting the track.
While you might feel volume of training, and day after day in the gym, is going to make you stronger and more muscular, there's clear evidence that rest plays a vital role too.
Because the process of muscle building is essentially tearing the fibres, and allow them to heal to grow stronger, we should be just as mindful of scheduling that healing time and accounting for rest periods to fuel growth and performance.
Exercise
It seems counterintuitive - but continuing to move helps our muscles stretch, relax, and recover. Movement between heavy training sessions is called active recovery - and it’s more beneficial than inactivity or complete rest, because it encourages blood flow and relieves tension.
Try incorporating light recovery exercises like walking, gentle bike riding, and swimming allows us to increase our cardiovascular fitness while giving our muscles a break.
Targeted Recovery Techniques
If you are serious about maximising recovery and, by extension, improving your performance, there are a range of products and services you could be adding to your routine. Dedicated recovery facilities are popping up all over the place, and offer
a range of treatment options including:
- Infrared saunas
- NormaTec
- Ice baths
- Remedial massage
- Acupuncture and needling
- Physiotherapy and exercise physiology
- Cryotherapy
- Float / relaxation tanks
It's worth doing some research into the different available services, to determine the various costs and benefits of each - it's important to choose a recovery strategy that's going to specifically target your muscle recovery needs.
Supplementation
Protein is a non-negotiable in muscular recovery, and an estimated X% of us don't get enough in our diets.
A premium protein supplement like Recov.... is specifically formulated to be easily digested and quickly available, so our body can immediately utilise the peptides to go to work addressing muscle soreness, and aiding in muscle recovery.
Buy Yours Online
Recov is an ultra-powerful and potent protein concentrate, scientifically designed and tested to optimise healing, recovery, and strength. Purchase yours online today.