Tips to Enhance Your Workouts
By Sara Butler
Working out regularly helps you to feel good. But the muscle soreness and a little bit of pain you can experience after a grueling workout certainly aren't much fun. Recovery is a crucial part of your workout too. Recovery is about more than what you eat after your workout or how much time you take stretching or foam rolling, it's what you do before, during, and after your workout. Here are a few recovery strategies you can incorporate into your workouts to make the most of them.
Keep on Moving
Active recovery needs to be a part of your workout regimen. Walking, tai chi and yoga are all ways you can actively recover. By incorporating low-intensity exercises into your plan, you can help reduce muscle soreness and fatigue as well as make recovery a bit speedier.
Try to do about 10 minutes of active recovery after you do an intense workout to help.
Sleep More
You know that how much sleep you get has an impact on your performance, but did you also know that your body needs sleep in order to recover? The time you're asleep is the time your body uses to rejuvenate. It secretes hormones that help build bone, reduce inflammation, repair muscle, and oxidize fat when you're asleep. If you don't get enough then you'll feel it.
Most people need about seven to nine hours of sleep per night. If you're in the elite athlete category, you may need as much as 10.
Take a Cold Shower
Yes, cold water really can make a difference -- specifically, a cold bath. While it might encourage you to make sounds that you didn't know where possible, it can also help to reduce muscle aches, inflammation, and feelings of fatigue. In fact, it can reduce your overall recovery time by decreasing the temperature of your skin, which can help to mitigate the inflammatory response of tissues impacted by your workout.
Go See the Chiropractor!
An effective recovery strategy may just be a visit to your friendly chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic. Removing joint dysfunctions and restrictions can help your body to recover faster and may help to accelerate recovery too.
If you want to know how to get more out of your workouts, then talk to the chiropractors at The Joint. They may have some tips you can use to take your workouts, and your recovery, to the next level.
To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Englewood, Colo.