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Aleisha Fetters. Medically Reviewed. Nicole A. Solomos, DO. How Pain Makes Gain Importance of Rest Jump to More Topics. Rivadeneyra says. The U. Department of Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend spreading out weekly exercise over the course of a few workouts on at least three different days , rather than performing it all at once, to lower injury risk.

Tips for Working Out: Rest and Recovery. Next up video playing in 10 seconds. Here are some of those strategies: Passive Recovery A complete cessation from exercise, passive recovery is synonymous with complete rest.

Okay — you can lie on the couch and kick up your feet for this one! How much passive recovery your body needs depends on multiple factors, including your current fitness level and how intense your workouts are, Kolba says.

Active Recovery Active recovery means low-intensity, generally low-impact exercise that promotes blood flow and tissue repair without further stressing the body, Rivadeneyra says. Or try a gentle yoga practice to stretch out tired muscles. Think of active recovery as anything you can do without getting winded or fatiguing your muscles.

Cross-Training Cross-training lets you get the most bang for your workout buck. It means changing up the activity you do from workout to workout, so you are fatiguing different muscles during different workouts, Rivadeneyra says. For example, if you generally spend your workouts running, strength training, or boxing even if performed at a high intensity will stress your body in different ways.

By allowing certain muscle groups to repair while others work, cross-training helps promote overall muscle health while minimizing the amount of passive and active recovery days needed.

Myofascial Release Myofascial release sometimes called soft tissue therapy includes massage and foam rolling. Performed immediately before and after exercise, it may help decrease feelings of delayed onset muscle soreness while speeding muscle recovery. Nutritional Recovery The foods you eat provide your body with the building blocks needed to repair muscles and promote recovery, Kolba says.

A whole-foods-based diet rich in antioxidants, whole carbohydrates, and lean protein can help trigger the right changes in your body between workouts, so your system is in better shape when it comes time for the next workout. During sleep, the body produces the majority of its growth factors and hormones that aid in daily muscle repair and recovery.

Getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night allows those growth factors to do their work, he says.

Avoid screen time TV, phones and alcohol before bed and keep the room dark to help ensure quality sleep. RELATED: The Work-Life Balance Conversation We Need to Be Having For example, children, teenagers, and older adults may require more post-workout recovery compared with young and middle-age adults, Rivadeneyra says.

People who are out of shape or new to exercise may need more recovery, or even passive recovery, to repair their muscles and rebuild their energy stores.

Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking. Sources Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. Sports Health. Getting a massage may also make you feel less stressed or anxious, especially before an important event or competition.

Self-care is critical to your physical and mental health. As an athlete you may be tempted to work out every day. While daily physical activity is not harmful, alternating workouts and giving your muscles at least 24 hours of rest between trainings is essential in preventing injuries and sustained soreness.

Contrary to what some people say, sleep is not overrated. The average adult needs 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. While many people can function on little sleep, athletes may not be so lucky.

Getting enough sleep ensures that you have the physical and mental energy needed to train and compete. Sleep also enhances muscle mass and muscle recovery through human growth hormone release. Eating a nutrient-rich diet is crucial to speedy muscle recovery.

Athletes should eat plenty of protein with every meal. Consume these protein-rich foods one or two hours before and after working out to make sure your muscles get the nourishment they need to speedily recover.

Protein bars and protein powders are usually packed with many unwanted ingredients, like sugar or preservatives. Water plays a key role in distributing nutrients within your body to speed up muscle recovery. Drinking water also gets rid of lactic acid buildup—a common post-workout occurrence that exacerbates muscle pain and fatigue.

On average, a person should consume roughly 64 ounces of water per day. However, athletes who train several hours a week may need to drink much more than that to remain hydrated.

For example, if you weigh pounds, you should be drinking ounces of water per day. Are you experiencing prolonged muscle soreness or a sports-related injury?

Our orthopaedic sports injury specialists can help. We offer a diverse range of non-surgical treatments to help you heal your sports injury and restore mobility. Call for more information or to schedule an appointment at our Marietta or Carrollton office. Patients can contact us for purchasing and pricing information at Muscle Recovery Techniques for Athletes.

News Muscle Recovery Techniques for Athletes. January Developing strong muscles and exceptional endurance propels athletes toward great physical heights. Active Recovery As the name suggests, active recovery means engaging in low-impact exercise to recover after a strenuous workout.

Hydrotherapy Hydrotherapy uses water to alleviate a variety of conditions.

Designing your program so you work alternate muscles groups in different workouts is a good way to increase the recovery period between sessions. For example, if you are lifting weights three times a week, try a schedule like this to give each muscle group a full week to recover:.

Athletes training for specific sports, like sprinters or Olympic lifters, often train the same body parts almost every day. They often alternate high- and low-intensity days to give their muscles time to recover.

Repeated stress from exercise causes small tears called microtears that lead to muscles feeling sore and inflamed. An accumulation of tears puts you at risk of developing torn muscles, also called muscle strains or pulled muscles.

Muscle strains can range from mildly uncomfortable to complete ruptures that may need surgery to repair. Muscle injuries can range from mild to complete tears.

Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. VIEW ALL HISTORY. Not all muscle soreness is the same. Acute muscle soreness is felt during or immediately after exercise. With delayed onset muscle soreness, your….

You may find that you feel less tight, sore, and even have more energy to exercise after active recovery. Here's how it works. Eating the right foods after workouts is important for muscle gain, recovery, and performance.

Here is a guide to optimal post-workout nutrition. Targeting heart rate zones as you exercise is one way to maximize the benefits you get from your workouts. Learn about your different heart rate zones…. There are several causes of numbness in your toes and feet when you run, ranging from poor-fitting shoes to health conditions like diabetes.

For people who run or do other aerobic exercises on a regular basis, starting up a low heart rate training program may be frustrating at first.

The average 5K time depends on a few factors, including age, sex, and fitness level. But, you can expect to finish a 5K in roughly 30 to 40 minutes. Thinking about using an AI tool like ChatGPT to help you get in shape?

Here are the pros and cons health experts say you should consider. We're testing the Lululemon product for you and weighing in on whether the trend has past or if it's still worth the hype.

When designing a workout, it's important to move in all of the body's planes. What are they? Here's an anatomy primer to help. A Quiz for Teens Are You a Workaholic? How Well Do You Sleep? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Get Motivated Cardio Strength Training Yoga Rest and Recover Holistic Fitness Exercise Library Fitness News Your Fitness Toolkit.

Medically reviewed by Daniel Bubnis, M. Foods Drinks Supplements Lifestyle Things to avoid Recovery time Injury prevention Potential complications Takeaway Living an overall healthy lifestyle is the most important step you can take to maximize your recovery from working out.

Was this helpful? Things to avoid. Natural creatine reserves are depleted within a minute of high-intensity exercise. However, creatine is also the rate-limiting and backbone of providing cellular energy in general in the form of ATP. ATP as discussed earlier drives waking performance and the rapid replenishment of ATP reserves is a natural biological recovery process.

Creatine supplementation has been shown to sustain waking performance during the day and in some cases may facilitate better recovery sleep at night.

In general, dosing is 10 g daily for two weeks "loading" phase followed by 5 g daily afterward for maintenance. Magnesium: Magnesium is also an essential biological factor. Athletes and high-performers are also oftentimes magnesium-deficient due to daily work demands. Magnesium supplementation at night ranging from - mg has been shown to alter sleep architecture possibly promoting sleep consolidation and more recovery sleep.

But again, always aim to get magnesium first through food before resorting to powder. There is a wealth of recovery options out there. Recovery is far from being a one-size-fits-all. Depending on daily demands, needs, and even financial restrictions, there are options for everyone.

Schmidt, T. Swang, Hamilton, J. Best, State-dependent metabolic partitioning and energy conservation: A theoretical framework for understanding the function of sleep, PLoS One e Freitas, L. Sleep Debt Favor Skeletal Muscle Injuries In Athletes: A Promising Hypothesis.

Medical Hypotheses, Spiegel, R. Leproult, E. Colecchia, M. L'Hermite-Baleriaux, Z. Nie, G. Copinschi, et al. Knutson, K. Spiegel, P. Penev, E. Van Cauter, The metabolomics consequences of sleep deprivation, Sleep Med.

Plante, G. Trksak, E. Jensen, D. Penetar, C. Ravichandran, B. Riedner, et al. Leproult, R. Effect of 1 week of sleep restriction on testosterone levels in young healthy men.

JAMA, 21 , Scott, J. Effects of sleep deprivation and exercise on cognitive, motor performance, and mood. Kox, M. Voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system and attenuation of the innate immune response in humans.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Brager is a subject matter expert in behavioral genetics, sleep, and biological rhythms research. She is passionate about discovering new factors that promote resiliency in extreme environments.

She also serves on the NCAA task force for mental health and sleep , contributing to the first edition of the NCAA student-athlete mental health handbook. She is author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain , which debunks the myth of the 'dumb jock' and serves as a performance manual for functional athletes.

If you are still sore one or two days after your workout, a cool bath or shower may help reduce inflammation and support recovery. For muscle recovery, some athletes also enjoy cryotherapy cold exposure, like freezing cold and contrast therapy alternating between hot and cold temperatures in a single session.

Alongside getting hours of sleep each night, prioritising your rest days can also help to speed up the muscle repair process and leave you feeling refreshed and ready to take on your next workout. Remember, your muscles repair and grow when during rest, not during the workout itself.

With any demanding physical activity, the American Council on Exercise ACE recommends scheduling at LEAST one day of complete rest as opposed to an active recovery day every days to allow your body to recover and adapt. Every Sweat program has rest days included, but if you feel like you need more rest - take it.

Your body knows best! Light movement in between your workouts, such as walking and stretching, can help to promote blood flow, bringing nutrients to repair the muscles and assisting with the removal of metabolic waste. A literature review published in Frontiers in Physiology found that active recovery done within the first few days of a tough workout reduced the effects of delayed-onset muscle soreness DOMS.

Research from on the effects of compression garments on recovery observed significant positive effects on performance, with the researchers recommending athletes wear compression tights immediately after intense exercise based on these results.

Compression clothing may also help reduce your perception of muscle soreness, inflammation and swelling. The tightness of the fabric can help to promote blood flow through the deeper blood vessels rather than those on the surface, which may aid with clearing waste and providing nutrients to the muscle fibres.

Did you know your emotional and mental wellbeing can affect your muscle recovery? A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research looked at whether chronic mental stress affects muscle recovery, perceived energy, fatigue, and soreness after strenuous resistance exercise, over a four-day period.

The results showed that higher levels of stress resulted in lower recovery and, conversely, lower levels of stress were associated with superior recovery. Stress can also impact everything from your sleep to eating patterns, hormones and general wellbeing.

All of these things can impact your immune response, which is essential for muscle recovery. Your stress levels can be impacted by a number of internal and external factors, and if stress is having a consistently negative impact on your daily life, reach out to a healthcare professional.

Ideally, any resistance training program will gradually increase the intensity of each workout, within your limits. This is called progressive overload, a principle used in many Sweat programs where your training routine undergoes regular small adjustments to your workout volume, intensity, density and frequency.

All of our bodies are different, so keep checking in with how you feel during your training sessions and as you recover. If an exercise feels too strenuous, take a modification. If a weight feels too heavy, go lighter. Based on their findings, Sports Performance Bulletin highlights that while technology can be a useful way to monitor performance and fatigue, you should never neglect the power of self-monitoring.

Only YOU know how you truly feel - both in relation to fatigue, soreness and your training. To avoid burnout or overtraining , be aware of telltale signs like poor sleep, fatigue, lowered immunity or constant achy muscles. Feeling rested, recovered and ready to get back into it?

Check out our trainers' top workout tips. The above information should not be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or medical condition.

Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet, sleep methods, daily activity, or fitness routine. Sweat assumes no responsibility for any personal injury or damage sustained by any recommendations, opinions, or advice given in this article. There are some errors in your form.

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