hydration-recovery

Building lean muscles and getting a stronger body is not just about intense workout. As a matter of fact, it has been discovered that a planned recovery and downtime are equally important. Rest and recovery are also important components to any workout program. Trainers and coaches would definitely argue that they are equally, or even more important compared to the actual lifting itself. Recovery needs to happen before you proceed. This is very important in order to stay injury free, as well as to ensure a long term consistent training. There are some things that you can do in order to recover after a workout session. Here are some of them:

 

1. Schedule Recovery Workouts

The process involved in recovery needs to be very proactive. Because of this, it should be planned well and executed effectively. It is very important to remember that you need to schedule your recovery workouts. A lack of appropriate recovery process may lead to over fatigue. This type of exhaustion may happen if the training stimulus is too frequent or too high. In line with this, it is very important that you plan a recovery week every 3-5 days. For instance, for your main lifts, do half the number with just sub-maximum loads. Do fewer loads with sub lifts in order for your body to become energized and refreshed.

 

2. Schedule Recovery Period in Between Workouts

Muscle soreness is a very common condition among people who do weight lifting. There are some who feel that they are more successful in their training sessions if they feel the soreness in their body. Continuing your workout while experiencing muscle soreness will actually not makeup for the soreness and the fiber damage, but it will just increase the risks of injury. In order to deal with this, make sure that you have at least 24-72 hours of complete rest in between intense workout sessions.

 

3. Adequate Amount of Sleep

According to studies, lack of adequate amount of sleep may decrease your body’s tolerance to hardcore training. It can also result to a bad mood, and increases fatigue in your body, thus negatively affecting your body’s physiological mechanisms that are responsible for the adaptation to stress during training. In order to experience full recovery, it is important for the body to enjoy a good night’s rest as this is the only way for hormonal secretion during sleep to occur. Make sure to try developing a regular sleeping routine at a same time every night of the week. For this, you can remove distractions such as phones, light and television. If all possible, you need to get 8 complete hours of sleep every night.

 

4. Hydrate Yourself

Dehydration may reduce your maximum performance, and at the same time delay the entire recovery process. An increase in your metabolic rate can result to an increase in your body’s need for both electrolytes and water. The recommended fluid intake every day is 3.7L everyday for males, and 2.7L per day for females.