How To: Recover from a Workout

Since I have been dealing with a few back-end site hiccups the past two weeks I thought I would use it as a round about way to discuss the importance of an oft-times overlooked, but vital, component of a fitness regimen. Recovery time!

First off, before I lay out how to recover from a workout, let’s talk about what really happens after a workout and why we get sore.

Muscle soreness (not the burn you feel while performing an exercise, but that sucky dull ache we all experience the day after a workout) is caused by tiny microscopic tears that occur in the muscle as a result of high intensity exercise. After the workout, the muscle begins to rebuild itself. This is the process which creates new muscle that is bigger and stronger than before. In other words, the pain you feel is your muscles growing! Unfortunately this soreness is proof of a successful workout as it means you’ve trained hard enough to break down muscle tissue; so now, as a result, you are rewarded with muscle growth. Yay!

Luckily the human body is an amazing machine that adapts to whatever you throw at it. So don’t worry true believers, the workout that initially felt like it crippled you will eventually be a walk in the proverbial park. The cruel joke of it all though is that we need to constantly “shock” our body with new exercises in order to steadily stimulate muscle growth and improve our fitness level. So expect the soreness to return every time you try something new at the gym. It is a never-ending cycle, but there is definite truth to the old adage “No pain, no gain!”

The good news is that there are ways to cut down on the miserableness of post-workout soreness, so let me arm you with a little knowledge on how to recover from workouts and to help mitigate the suck factor.

Your muscles grow when you are resting – not when you’re exercising.

The fact is we need recovery time. This is why we don’t work the same muscle groups every day. Skipping recovery actually cheats you out of gains! (And makes working out miserable…) So while recovery methods can range anywhere from a simple post-workout stretch to the extreme of an ice bath I like to divide how to recover from a workout into two categories. Active and passive.

Active Recovery

Active recovery methods are things that you do specifically to diminish the miserableness of the day after. Primarily there are two things you should be doing…

Compression – Just like performing a brief cool-down helps contracting muscles shed excess soreness-generating fluids, techniques such as a massage (SMR – self myofascial release) with a foam roller not only assist getting inflammatory fluids out of the muscle by promoting circulation, but also can remove tight spots from the worked muscles. It might be a little uncomfortable during, but generally the 10 minutes of discomfort that happens as you break down scar tissue, adhesions in the muscle and restrictions in the fascia (a type of connective tissue) is a lot better than feeling like a mule kicked you in the thigh every time you try to stand up the day after a hard leg workout. Just saying.

Hydration – While properly hydrating is something you should do throughout the day, you definitely should be feeling thirsty after a good workout; so don’t deprive yourself! If you are training hard, you will be sweating so you should probably be guzzling down 20 or so ounces for every 45 minutes or so you are crushing a workout. Not only is being not properly hydrated unhealthy it also make you fatigue faster and will lower your performance when you exercise. Good rule of thumb, if your pee is yellow enough to neutralize the Green Lantern’s powers, you need to drink more!

Passive Recovery

Passive recovery methods are things you should be doing through the day that, if done properly, will make the recovery process a little less painful…

Stretching – Working out will disrupt whatever sort of balance your body lives with on a day-to-day basis by introducing the repetitive contraction of muscles, so in order to maintain a healthy balance we also want to introduce stretching into the picture to elongate those same muscles. Don’t be that guy who does hammer curls all day and has huge biceps but can’t straighten his arms anymore! Setting aside 15-20 minutes a day to stretch will do wonders for how you feel overall, but more importantly remembering to stretch as part of your post-workout cool down routine will assist with circulation; which, as we noted when talking about compression techniques above, helps flush out the fluids that build up in your muscles while exercising them. So many people overlook this ultra-important facet of fitness training but let me tell you, the older I get the more important my flexibility is to me!

Nutrition – Depending on how you look at it this could either be identified as passive or active, but since your overall diet has more of an impact than what you eat for your post-workout snack I am sticking it in the passive bucket. Having a well-balanced diet (if you need help improving your diet, look no further!) full of fresh vegetables, lean proteins and chock full of essential vitamins and amino acids will definitely make you feel better all around; which, in turn, will make the recovery process that much easier on you. Make sure you are getting the right balance of Omega 3s and 6s, that you eat a lot of foods rich in anti-oxidants and that you have enough lean protein in your diet to support muscle growth. Without getting too specific, prior to a workout (I like to eat an hour and half or so before a hard workout) you want to fuel up with some light carbohydrates and a healthy dose of protein and, conversely, your post workout snack should be heavy on the carbs and light on the protein. It is important to remember that since your body refuels glycogen at a higher rate for 30 to 60 minutes after an intense workout you will burn those calories much more efficiently within that time!

Sleep – In addition to just being all around awesome, sleep is a necessary component of any fitness routine. It has been shown that lack of adequate sleep can reduce tolerance to training and increase the perception of fatigue (duh!) The problem with cheating yourself of glorious sleep is that it negatively affects the physiological mechanisms responsible for adapting to the stress of training. The secretion of hormones during sleep is one of the most important factors influencing recovery; after all, the purpose of sleep is to induce a state of recovery in the body! During sleep anabolic (muscle-building) hormone activity increases while catabolic (muscle-wasting) hormone concentrations decrease. Getting a crappy night’s sleep will negatively influence the effects of these anabolic hormones and therefore reduce the effectiveness of your workouts.

Finally, let’s talk about the the question everyone asks. “Should I workout if I am sore?”

The fact is, if you are a relative beginner, waiting until you feel 100% fresh means you probably are letting too much time lapse between workouts. When I am sore I always perform a vigorous warmup before making the call to skip a muscle group, because often that soreness I feel mostly melts away as the muscles loosen up and the blood gets flowing to them. If you are still suffering from excessive soreness then by all means modify your workout to avoid angering the offended muscle, but remember… “No pain, no gain“!

So how do you recover from your workouts? Let me know what you do to survive the dreaded day after by dropping a comment below! Also, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Twitter and be sure to Sign up for our free newsletter! (No spam, I promise!)