Recovering from a workout

What you do after your workout can be just as important as what you do during your workout in terms of the speed of your recovery and your fitness gains. Ensuring your body recovers between workouts will let you stick to your routine as well as to train harder the next time. Muscles need anywhere from 24-48 hours to repair and rebuild. Without that recovery time you run the risk of muscle tissue breaking down instead of building up. Specifically if you are weight training, it’s important not to work the same muscle groups two days in a row.

The first step in recovery is to make sure that you keep drinking water in the hours after you finish your workout. Ideally you are drinking plenty of water during your workout, but it’s hard to be sure you’re drinking enough to replace what you lose, so filling up on water after your workout is a good way to make sure you’re properly hydrated. Water supports all of the nutrient transfers and metabolic functions in your body and having plenty of water make sure your body is functioning at its optimum level. A rule of thumb is that being properly hydrated will make everything you do easier, from working out, to recovering, to staying on your diet, to feeling energetic and focused during the day.

Following a cool down routine of very low intensity activity for five to fifteen minutes following your workout as well as fifteen to thirty minutes of gentle stretching at the end of your workout will support your muscle recovery by removing lactic acid from your muscles – the buildup of which makes your muscles feel heavy and hard to move. Make sure not to sit still for too long in the 24-48 hours following your workout because movement promotes circulation which helps remove nutrient waste from your muscles, which will decrease stiffness as well. For more information on health, nutrition & exercise please visit http://www.weightsmashers.com