Studies on active recovery show that this approach significantly reduces the levels of lactate in the muscles of the body. In addition, a few, though not the majority, of studies show improved athletic performance after active recovery. Compression recovery refers to the use of compression garments that apply pressure on the limbs.

Compression is thought to prevent swelling, regulate blood flow, and stabilize the muscles in the body. Studies have shown that compression clothing can provide a number of benefits to performance athletes, including the following:.

Stretching is another common recovery technique for high-performance athletes. Typically, recovery stretching involves lengthening select muscles for short periods of time after an athletic performance, often for around 10 minutes. However, there have been no negative effects reported from stretching, making it a relatively safe recovery technique for athletes who prefer it.

When it comes to choosing a recovery regimen, athletes often have to try different approaches to identify the one that delivers the best healing and performance for their individual body. Sometimes, a combination of recovery techniques delivers the best results for athletes, so trial and error is often necessary.

Here at XO Physical Therapy , it is our privilege, and our goal, to assist athletes in their recoveries, both from injury and from the normal strain that comes from high-performance activities. Our skilled therapists can help you come up with exercise regimens, recovery protocols, and more to achieve and maintain the high-performance life you crave.

December 12, The new year is a Wearing compression garments during or after exercise can enhance recovery and support athletic performance.

Athletes should consider using compression garments as part of their recovery routine. Yoga and meditation are mind-body practices that help improve flexibility, balance, and mental focus.

They also reduce stress, which can impede recovery and performance. Practicing yoga or meditation several times per week can yield significant benefits for athletes. Proper refueling supports muscle repair, glycogen restoration, and immune function.

Athletes should consume a balanced post-workout meal or snack within minutes after training to optimize recovery. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is paramount for optimal recovery and performance.

This includes managing stress, staying hydrated, and avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. Athletes should prioritize their overall well-being to support their training and recovery efforts.

Cold water immersion, also known as ice baths, involves submerging the body in cold water for a short period to reduce inflammation, muscle soreness, and fatigue. This technique can be particularly beneficial after high-intensity workouts or competitions. Athletes can utilize cold water immersion as needed, but should consult with a healthcare professional to determine the appropriate duration and frequency for their specific needs.

Heat therapy involves applying heat to muscles, either through a warm bath, sauna, or heating pad. This technique helps improve blood flow, relax tight muscles, and alleviate soreness. Heat therapy sessions can be scheduled as needed, depending on individual preferences and recovery requirements.

Proper hydration is essential for supporting athletic performance and recovery. Water is vital for maintaining body temperature, transporting nutrients, and facilitating waste removal. Athletes should monitor their hydration levels and consume water consistently throughout the day to ensure they are adequately hydrated.

Hydrotherapy involves using water in various forms, such as hot tubs, whirlpools, or contrast baths, to promote recovery and well-being.

This technique can help improve circulation, reduce muscle soreness, and promote relaxation. Athletes can incorporate hydrotherapy into their recovery routine as needed, based on individual preferences and recovery goals.

Recovery techniques support sports performance by allowing the body to heal and adapt to the physical demands of training. Proper recovery ensures that athletes can maintain optimal performance levels, reduce the risk of injury, and achieve their full potential in their chosen sport.

While recovery is often associated with physical well being, there are other components of recovery such as mental and spiritual recovery. All of which can be achieved through various recovery techniques, leading to better overall sports performance. The frequency of utilizing recovery techniques depends on the individual athlete, their training intensity, and their specific recovery needs.

Traditionally, most people will tell you to stay off your feet and let your body rest. Types of effective Active Recovery strategies may include:. There are many recovery accessories to add to your recovery routine. These include:. Recovery accessories are just that, accessories that complement the foundations of recovery which are nutrition and sleep.

Pick a few recovery accessories to see if they work for you. The key is not to add too much, as adding more to the process may increase stress to the body. This post on recovery strategies for athletes was written by Precision Athletica exercise physiologist Justin Trang , is you would like to know more or seek specific guidance from Justin, you can contact him by email here.

You can call our bookings team to schedule a session:. Evolving with the current environment, we are also now offering online appointments, meaning that we can support anyone who is unable to leave their home. Sessions are done via our state of the art Telehealth system and as long as you have a laptop or tablet with an inbuilt camera, or a phone with camera, we can help!

Online consultations would be especially effective for guiding you in how to use your foam roller. To learn more about online consultations , please call us on any of the numbers listed above.

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One competition game, 60 min of competition and 4 h of training per week were the most common responses for the competition and training demographics. All participants who performed at an international level indicated using massage for recovery Fig.

Recovery strategies undertaken by team sport athletes competing in local, regional, state, national and international competition. Two-hundred and five athletes completed survey sections 3—7. Across all combined competition levels the athletes that performed STR 4. These ratings were somewhat supported by free-text explanations regarding why the athletes believe that each specific recovery method is or is not effective.

When the free-text responses for the effectiveness of each recovery method were classified, the highest percentage of responses for ALB and STR were classified as physical benefits, followed by psychological benefits and physiological benefits.

In contrast, for water immersion recovery the highest percentage of responses was classified as psychological benefits Table 2. This investigation has identified that a range of recovery strategies are used by athletes across varying team sports and competition levels; and that athletes have varying perceptions of the reason for effectiveness.

While stretching was the second most frequently used recovery strategy by the international-level athletes in the current study, it was the most frequently used recovery strategy by all other competition level athletes national, state, regional and local , partially supporting the hypothesis that stretching would be the most used recovery strategy by all level athletes.

Stretching was also rated either the most effective state, regional and local or second most effective national recovery strategy. Furthermore the athletes that used STR rated it to be significantly more effective as a recovery than the users of ALB, AWB and CWT.

The frequent use of stretching by athletes across all competition levels may be attributed to a combination of factors including it can be self-administered, ease of use and accessibility, mainstream popularity, can be performed as a team and its common practice across the fitness and sporting industries.

More specifically, stretching requires no equipment, can be performed with minimal space and also has been recommended as a post-exercise recovery across mainstream literature and research for decades [ 17 ]. Research evidence somewhat supports these notions. Thus showing that athletes may not always understand the influence that stretching has upon physical recovery.

The second most effective recovery strategy according to the surveyed athletes of this study was CWI effectiveness rating 4. The most commonly provided reason for the effectiveness of CWI was to reduce swelling and inflammation 16 free-text responses and importance rating of 4.

Cold water immersion has been found to cool the body [ 25 ] and may also provide an enhanced perception of relaxation [ 26 ]. A reduction in muscle soreness is supported by the literature [ 11 , 27 ] with the mechanism linked to a reduction in neuron transmission speed within the body which decreases experienced pain [ 28 ].

This may explain the common analgesic effects reported for CWI [ 29 ], and might also improve some sensations associated with tiredness. Notably, CWI received the highest importance rating 3. The revelation that athletes place importance on whether or not elite athletes are using the CWI recovery also supports the potential belief effect of CWI.

Contrast water therapy was considered to be the third most effective recovery strategy with a score of 4. All recovery strategies were found to be most commonly used within 1 h of completion of exercise. In contrast CWT has been found to be most commonly used immediately post exercise by elite New Zealand athletes [ 10 ] and 12 min post exercise by elite South African rugby union players [ 13 ].

The within 1 h post-exercise time frame is mostly likely commonly used as some athletes state they do their recovery at home, so this time frame would be accommodating. Athletes mainly undertook recovery strategies of 10 min duration, CWT approximately 6 min.

This study found the most utilised durations for CWT to be 1 min in each temperature for 3 cycles whereas Hing and colleagues [ 10 ] found the most used times to be 30 s in cold, 1 min in hot, for 3 cycles. This study found the most utilised duration for CWI to be 10 min, although Van Wyk and Lambert [ 13 ] found CWI of 2 x 3 min immersions to be most commonly used.

Versey and colleagues [ 33 ] state that CWI needs to be min and CWT up to 15 min for optimal results.

This study has found differences between levels of immersion used for CWI and the cold component of CWT. The differences though are minimal with the regions being neck, shoulder and whole body all being very similar when considering water immersion. Halson [ 34 ] states that whole body immersion be used to increase effectiveness of water immersion protocols.

While this study identifies the use of recovery strategies by team sport athletes and their perceptions of recovery strategies and effectiveness, this study has some limitations. Misinterpreting information when completing the survey may also have occurred.

While five competition levels were represented in the sampling, most athletes were based in northern Queensland and therefore results are indicative of that region, and may not represent the whole of the country. Another limitation is the difference between the physiological demands of the sports that the participants played, although all of the sports represented by regional, state, national and international athletes were also represented by local athletes.

Future research should continue to look at the usage of popular recovery methods, including the use of mental techniques [ 35 ] within Australia coverage of multiple states and cities and their reasons for use.

In summary, to our knowledge this is the first study to explore the post-exercise recovery practices of Australian team sport athletes and which identifies and explains their perceptions and preferential use of particular strategies.

It was found that international athletes utilise massage the most and consider sleep and massage to be the most effective recovery strategies.

This may be due to greater access to massage practitioners at the elite level of team sports as all other levels of athlete utilised stretching the most and considered it the most or second most effective recovery strategy. When asked to rate the five discussed recoveries, STR was rated the most effective with ALB considered the least effective by its users.

This study also highlights how the perceptions of athletes do not always align with scientific evidence. It is suggested that the availability of particular recovery strategies may also impact upon recovery strategy selection.

It is encouraged that athletes and coaching staff are informed about the effects different recovery strategies have upon the body to ensure recovery strategies are selected and implemented for the correct reasons.

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Use of mental techniques for competition and recovery in professional athletes. However, some athletes may need to drink more than that to be adequately hydrated. A good tip for drinking enough water each day is to take a reusable water bottle with you to work or school so that you can space out your water drinking and maintain hydration throughout the day.

Why are coconuts considered valuable to the muscle recovery process? First, coconut products contain compounds known as medium-chain triglycerides, which are fats that the body can absorb into the bloodstream more easily than other types.

This makes it an ideal form of fuel for the muscle recovery process. Coconut water is becoming a popular alternative to traditional sports drinks for athletes, because of its effectiveness at restoring hydration after a workout.

Coconut water contains electrolytes and plenty of potassium, which means that it is one of the best muscle recovery techniques for athletes who want to reduce their downtime between workouts.

Many athletes have decided to stop drinking the traditional sports drinks on the market in favor of coconut-based juices and water drinks. Rolling your muscles is a great way to release tension in your body by removing knots in areas like the legs, arms, and sides. This can be done with a specialized foam roller, a medicine ball, or other similar devices that are meant to move easily along the muscles.

There are different kinds of techniques employed for muscle rolling depending on the areas and specific muscles that need to be rolled.

When you roll your muscles, it results in better flexibility and less painful movement of the muscles in question, because you break up tightness and knots that cause stiffness and pain.

Muscle rolling is one of the great muscle recovery techniques for athletes because it helps restore range of motion and eliminate the tightness and pain that often comes with inflammation as a result of intense competitions or training sessions. Muscle rolling is also a good recovery technique because it gives you more control over the specific areas that you target for recovery, which can provide highly effective relief.

Most serious athletes have some type of routine set up that alternates between conditioning, which gives the body strength to complete the necessary athletic actions, and practicing, where the athlete works on improving skills that they use in their sport.

No matter what kind of routine or split athletes decide to engage in, it is important that enough time is left for rest. This is particularly true for those athletes who engage in a lot of strength training, as muscles that are trained intensively will need at least 24 to 48 hours of recovery before they should be trained again.

If an athlete neglects to properly account for rest days in their routine, it can negatively impact performance since the target muscles will be overworked. For this reason, most athletes decide to vary the days on which they train different muscles.

The specific amount of rest that each of your muscles needs will vary depending on your body and your specific schedule, as well as how long you have been training. Thanks to forward-thinking specialists, many devices have been created over the years using technology to assist athletes with their muscle recovery.

Tools like the Marc Pro and Marc Pro Plus take advantage of natural biology to give athletes a recovery boost. These products work through electrical muscle stimulation, which elicits a muscle contraction through the use of a gentle electric pulse. This muscle contraction helps to improve the way nutrients are delivered into recovering muscles, and waste from the recovery process is delivered out of the muscles.

The Marc Pro Plus is also a valuable pain relief tool ; the contractions can help improve the flow of blood into a muscle that is stiff or sore, which allows the muscles to relax and recover faster.

Whether you are dealing with pain or simply want to help improve your recovery time between workouts, electrical muscle stimulation is one of the best options available.

Electrical muscle stimulation is especially valuable as one of the best muscle recovery techniques for athletes because it is completely customizable. Adjusting the intensity levels on the Marc Pro and Marc Pro Plus devices, you can control exactly how strong the impulses are so that you get the stimulation that works best for your body.

Although recovery might not be the most exciting part of what an athlete does, it is still a critical element of making sure that the body is in sufficient shape to compete and train properly.

Without effective recovery, muscle growth and athletic performance will both be limited. In the worst situations, this may even lead to a muscle strain or injury. Following these muscle recovery techniques for athletes will help you do a better job of recovering, which will minimize your downtime so that you can devote more of your time to getting better at your chosen sport.

Download or share this eBook. Summary For athletes, muscles are the foundation on top of which all success is built. Eating Enough Protein Getting the protein that is needed by the body is extremely important for muscles to recover, since protein is made up of some of the essential amino acids that the body needs to successfully repair and build up the fibers of the muscles.

Consuming Coconut Products Why are coconuts considered valuable to the muscle recovery process? Rolling Your Muscles Rolling your muscles is a great way to release tension in your body by removing knots in areas like the legs, arms, and sides. Spacing Out Your Routine Most serious athletes have some type of routine set up that alternates between conditioning, which gives the body strength to complete the necessary athletic actions, and practicing, where the athlete works on improving skills that they use in their sport.