Strengthening and Improvement: What Happens in Your Body During Muscle Recovery
Recovery is a critical part of sports and physical training. But, unfortunately, it is a part that is often neglected by today’s athletes. Some may pay little attention to recovery because they do not understand the scientific process behind recovery in the body. What happens in your body during recovery is very important for making sure you stay healthy and perform your best during athletic competition and training.
Why Recovery Is Necessary
When you exert yourself physically, several things happen in your body that make recovery important. When you lift heavy weights, for example, it puts stress on your muscle fibers. When you run or walk for a long period, it can put pressure on your skeletal system. Lactic acid is also created by the body during recovery; this acid must be removed from your system so that your blood maintains sufficient pH levels. Luckily for modern athletes, the body is capable of recovering relatively quickly from most kinds of athletic exertion, as long as conditions are right.
The Biological Processes Involved In Recovery
What happens in your body during recovery will vary depending on the specific person and the nature of the exercise, but several things commonly occur during recovery in the human body:
- Muscle fibers rebuild: when you exert stress on your muscles, it damages the muscle fibers, causing them to break apart. During recovery, these fibers heal stronger than they were before, which in turn, make your muscles stronger.
- Restoration of fluids: during physical exercise the body sweats, causing a loss of fluid. When you properly hydrate your body before, during and after exercise, you can maintain sufficient levels of fluids. These fluids are important in delivering nutrients to vital organs and muscles of the body through the bloodstream.
- Protein synthesis: this is especially common after weight training. A study published by the National Institute of Health stated that muscle protein synthesis in humans goes up by 50% four hours after a bout of intense resistance training. Protein synthesis is what grows your muscles, giving them the capacity to handle more exertion.
These are just a few of the more important elements of recovery. It is important to remember that athletes need to aid recovery by giving their body the right nutrients and rest.
Other Ways To Aid Physical Recovery
Besides maintaining a healthy diet and getting enough rest, you should also be sure to look for ways that you can take advantage of technology to improve recovery. For example, you might consider using a technique like ion therapy or electrical muscle stimulation to help your body do what it needs to recover much more effectively.
What happens in your body during recovery is vital for keeping yourself in the best possible health. If you want to make sure that your body is strong and you can perform at the highest level possible when you engage in athletic competition and training, do what you can to facilitate recovery in your body during your downtime.