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Best Workout Recovery Methods
The Best Recovery Methods You're Not Using
If you train regular with weights then you will know that more is not always better when it comes to weight training and this applies to recovery as well. The central nervous system (CNS) and muscle tissue need regenerating as efficiently as the rest of your body, here are some of the best workout recovery methods that you are probably not using.
Sports scientist Dr. Stu McGill says that walking is the most effective way to spark off your recovery by adding pressure to your vasculature aiding the lymphatic drainage and removing waste and fluid build-up in what Dr. Stu McGill calls the "active muscle pump."
Without going into the specific details on Dr. McGill's clinical study that he did, walking has proven to be the most effective form of active recovery while protecting you from future injuries. Making the time to walk in the park for 30 minutes is often thought of a waste but it gets the best results.
An important consideration to speeding up recovery from training and getting better results started with the post-workout window which has been a bit exaggerated in the general media as studies now prove that one can get better results by using intra-workout nutrients shown to enhance muscle recovery.
Studies now clearly show that a good pre-workout together with the required nutrients in the middle of your workout, limits protein breakdown and the inflammatory response (good for muscle growth) while at the same time increasing the growth hormone (GH) response speeding up recovery.
Another method of speeding up recovery is by using the Self Myofascial Release (SMR) technique which has produced more measurable results in a much more efficient manner than any other form of post movement help. It takes some anatomy and physiology knowledge to perform correctly as you need to know where the origin and insertion of the muscle you have been working on is situated.
The last point in speeding up recovery is to carefully monitor your breakdown of form when doing any movement. Rather than use bad form to complete a movement you need to reduce the weight lifted, cut a few reps or do a variation of the movement that will reduce the stress.
The micro-trauma done to the connective tissue as well as the potential joint and tendon damage from doing bad form is simply not worth it as it increases recovery time and can put you off training for weeks or months at a time. Always focusing on perfect form you will be demanding adaptation from your neuromuscular system while authenticating your motor pattern recruitment ability, helping to speed up recovery.