5 Tips for Faster Recovery After Exercise

5 TIPS FOR FASTER RECOVERY AFTER EXERCISE

Introduction

After exercise fast recovery for the ageing athlete.

What is recovery?

Athletic recovery is a normal cellular process that allows injured muscle cells to repair and recover. Exercise causes muscle injury. Muscle can adapt to regular exercise but still, some muscle damage does occur. Muscle recovery, however, is critical to performance.

How long does muscle recovery take?

Faster recovery after exercise varies with damage caused to muscle cells, free radical production, and ageing. When we exercise we cause damage to muscle cells. If a little muscular injury has occurred recovery is rapid. Free radical production does cause some damage but is a normal process of cell turnover. Ageing causes joint degeneration and loss of connective tissue elasticity and therefore decreases normal mechanics and increases damage to muscles with lower levels of activity.

How can you shorten or improve your recovery time?

5 Simple tips to faster recovery after exercise.

1. The first thing is proper training. So that you're not overusing your muscles and you're not excessively damaging cells.
2. Make sure you're taking in adequate carbohydrates, lean protein, and all essential vitamins and minerals to allow your muscles to work effectively.
3. You need adequate sleep and rest.
4. You need to hydrate adequately.

Let's start by addressing minimizing damage to cells through training. One thing we can do as we age is to train to improve our flexibility. As I mentioned above, ageing causes joint degeneration and loss of connective tissue, elasticity or flexibility. Additionally, we lose muscle strength. When those three things occur together, we lose efficiency and increase damage to muscle cells.

So in addition to maintaining strength as we age it's critical that we improve our flexibility as we age. Another way that we can minimize damage caused to cells is to make sure that our nutrition is adequate for our activity. In general, athletes who are taking fewer than 2000 calories daily is inadequate and allows for increased muscle breakdown. Additionally, poor nutrition can cause hindered performance and delayed recovery, increased fatigue, and the risk of injury and illness. So you may be wondering how should I eat during my activity? And in general, I would say that runners and cyclists should try to replenish glycogen stores by eating specifically carbohydrates.

How to eat for recovery, specifically to aid muscles in recovery and decrease the time of recovery. The general public should be consuming about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. When you look at an endurance athlete we actually almost double that to 1.4 grams per kilogram of body weight following activity. When we look at resistance and strength training athletes we're looking at again doubling the general public protein intake to about 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight.

I also want to point out that it is not recommended to exceed high levels of protein, specifically 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight or about 1.1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. The reason is that with high intake of protein we can actually compromise our kidney function.

Now we've also talked about getting adequate nourishment with vitamins and minerals, and there are many athletes who recommend taking antioxidants to achieve just that. The current recommendations based on research do not support that practice. There's little evidence to support the use of antioxidants as there is some evidence that interfering with free radical signals may actually impair muscle performance. So coming back to our overarching issue of improving recovery here we did discuss the importance of sleep, and I really can't stress enough how important sleep is.

Current recommendations based on research to maximize both performances and improve faster recovery after exercise is 10-12 hours daily for adults older than forty years of age. Finally, discussing hydration is a very broad topic but I do want to mention it here in that there are current recommendations for short activities that recommend drinking to thirst. These are also the same recommendations for long-distance or extreme endurance activities. It is, however, important to know that by losing 2% of your body weight due to any specific activity or training an event that will significantly drop performance and may lead to increased rates of injury.

So what about electrolytes?

Electrolytes are a complex and very controversial topic. Consumption of electrolytes in sports drinks or on their own may be beneficial to improve hydration, however, all athletes should consult with their physician to discuss the pros and cons prior to beginning use of any electrolyte supplement. Electrolytes also vary significantly on how to take them, and whether they should be taken for a short and intense activity or long and less intense activity. Your body actually does a very good job of maintaining electrolytes and the addition of proper amounts of carbohydrates and electrolytes to a fluid replacement solution is recommended for exercise events of duration greater than one hour. But it is still unclear whether the electrolytes are necessary or whether this is truly a carbohydrate issue only.

Conclusion:

So in conclusion, in order to improve faster recovery after exercise, we need to train smart, increase flexibility, and train for a specific activity. We need to eat adequate nutrition including a good diet, adequate calories and multivitamins. But there is no added benefit to antioxidants. We do need to rest and we need to hydrate. 

About exercise recovery for the ageing athlete. Information provided in this article is intended for your general knowledge only and does not constitute medical advice. OC2 is a combination of vitamin D3, Calcium Citrate, Magnesium, and Creatine Monohydrate for total frame support.