Why Speeding Up Muscle Recovery Time After Workout Is So Important
Best Kept Recovery Secret
Some of the best kept Sports Medicine secrets are not about healing of injuries but how to get the body to recover faster and more efficient. Since a 4-6 hour sleep is not enough, the Athlete must turn to technology for recovery. This is where the Marc Pro comes into play.
In order to understand why the Athlete and Trainer need to have a Marc Pro, first you have to understand why the Athlete needs to recover.
Rest days are critical to sports performance for a variety of reasons. Some are physiological and some are psychological. Rest is physically necessary so that the muscles can repair, rebuild and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest days can help maintain a better balance between home, work and fitness goals.
Too few rest and recovery days can lead to over training syndrome– a difficult condition to recover from.
What Happens During Recovery?
Building recovery time into any training program is important because this is the time that the body adapts to the stress of exercise and the real training effect takes place. Recovery also allows the body to replenish energy stores and repair damaged tissues. Exercise or any other physical work causes changes in the body such as muscle tissue breakdown and the depletion of energy stores (muscle glycogen) as well as fluid loss. However, most athletes view this time as a waste and think “Every time I rest, my competition is training.”
Recovery time allows these stores to be replenished and allows tissue repair to occur. Without sufficient time to repair and replenish, the body will continue to breakdown from intensive exercise. Symptoms of over training often occur from a lack of recovery time. Signs of over training include a feeling of general malaise, staleness, depression, decreased sports performance and increased risk of injury, among others.
Short and Long-Term Recovery
Sometimes called active recovery, this occurs in the hours immediately after intense exercise ( This is when the Marc Pro is so vital). Active recovery refers to engaging in low-intensity exercise after workouts during both the cool-down phase immediately after a hard effort or workout as well as during the days following the workout. Both types of active recovery are linked to performance benefits. The Marc Pro offers the Athlete a “Low intensity” muscle workout, only the athlete can accomplish this at home, in travel, at a hotel or while watching TV.
Another major focus of recovery immediately following exercise has to do with replenishing energy stores and fluids lost during exercise and optimizing protein synthesis (the process of increasing the protein content of muscle cells, preventing muscle breakdown and increasing muscle size) by eating the right foods during post exercise. Using the Marc Pro after eating will get these nutrients to the muscle in a more efficient manner. This is also the time for soft tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments) repair and the removal of chemicals that build up as a result of cell activity during exercise. Food in, waste out!
-Dr. Terry Weyman, D.C., C.C.S.P. Chiropractic Sports Institute www.gotcsi.com