This is when our body truly recovers and regenerates. All athletes need around 8 hours or more of sleep per night. When you sleep, your body releases growth hormone and relaxes your muscles to accelerate recovery. Set yourself up for success by setting a consistent bed time and sticking to it.

Make sure your sleep environment is conducive to high quality sleep dark room, minimal-to-no noise, comfortable temperature. Stretch: Post-exercise static stretching of all your running muscles is a great way to actively recover from an exercise bout running or lifting.

Even minutes of gentle stretching after a workout can drive much needed blood flow to muscles and keep them limber workout-after-workout. Listen to Your Body: Sometimes you just need a day off.

Athletes who recover the best are the ones who listen to their body. Integrating some element of movement into a dedicated training session, however, often leaves athletes feeling fresh and loose.

There is a fine line between effective movement and excessive movement. This is not active recovery. On the flip side, many online programs will sell the idea of a tominute steady state run as an active recovery session.

With that in mind, here are a few of the rules and guidelines to keep in mind when planning and executing recovery sessions.

Keep cyclical movements nonimpact. Something as simple as a minute evening walk can be especially effective after a long, hard day in the mountains or after a hard effort or race. Even on days off, the light aerobic stimulation of a very easy swim or bike ride will speed recovery.

If swimming is an option for you, take advantage of it. There is something magically therapeutic about water. Over many years and many athletes, we have discovered that swimming—even for nonswimmers—is the most effective recovery workout for loosening up and getting rid of that dead-leg feeling.

An easy few hundred meters of freestyle in a pool, lake, or ocean coupled with some flutter kicking works wonders on heavy legs. For nonswimmers, just hanging on to the side of the pool and flutter kicking for a few minutes can be helpful.

For example, instead of rowing for 10 minutes, it can be equally effective to rotate between a 2-minute row and a 2-minute bike for a total of 10 minutes. Just be sure that the overall intensity is very low.

Prioritize breathing. It is important to understand that breathing needs to be a priority during active recovery sessions. Focusing on nose breathing, for example, helps autoregulate the intensity of the session.

Additionally, focused breathing has been shown to have a phenomenal carryover to the mental side of training think meditation. Again, keep the intensity very low. When planning an active recovery session, the emphasis must first be on the recovery.

Very low-intensity aerobic work has a powerful restorative effect. So, if you are pushing the envelope of what your body can absorb, activity recovery sessions should be built into every training week. The old Finnish trick of rolling in the snow right after the sauna can be duplicated even if you have neither snow nor sauna.

Taking an ice bath followed immediately by a hot bath or wading into a cold stream at the end of a long run can have the same flushing effect of increasing blood flow in your limbs. Electrostim machines have gained popularity among professional cyclists who need to recover quickly during multiday races.

Special sports versions such as those sold by Compex are effective but expensive. We recommend only using these on the recovery setting. They work very much like a massage by increasing blood flow to depleted areas. Massages are one of the best ways to speed recovery. A professional massage therapist accustomed to working on athletes can do a better job than self-massage and any machine, which is why pro athletes use them so much.

Remember: you get weaker during training, and it is during recovery that you become fitter. Equal attention must be paid to each, or your training results will be severely diminished.

Using the tools outlined above will help you train more effectively and recover faster. For more information on any of these topics, refer to pages 72—80 in Training for the New Alpinism. Type above and press Enter to search.

Press Esc to cancel. Close Menu. Facebook Instagram YouTube X Twitter LinkedIn. Recovery Strategies for Endurance Training Aerobic Training By Uphill Athlete April 11, Updated: October 18, Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Telegram WhatsApp.

Training makes you weaker. It is through recovery that you get stronger. The Training Effect: Why Recovery Is Important. Contrary to the claims of fad workouts, training does not produce instantaneous or steadily increasing gains.

Immediately following a training session, your performance—which is a proxy for fitness—is actually diminished.

Getting a massage can alleviate sore muscles and accelerate the biological process of muscle recovery. Many massage therapists offer athlete-tailored sports massages which are meant to relieve muscle pain and tension. A hot stone massage is another type of massage that alleviates pain, reduces muscle tension and improves blood flow.

Getting a massage may also make you feel less stressed or anxious, especially before an important event or competition. Self-care is critical to your physical and mental health. As an athlete you may be tempted to work out every day.

While daily physical activity is not harmful, alternating workouts and giving your muscles at least 24 hours of rest between trainings is essential in preventing injuries and sustained soreness. Contrary to what some people say, sleep is not overrated. The average adult needs 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night.

While many people can function on little sleep, athletes may not be so lucky. Getting enough sleep ensures that you have the physical and mental energy needed to train and compete.

Sleep also enhances muscle mass and muscle recovery through human growth hormone release. Eating a nutrient-rich diet is crucial to speedy muscle recovery. Athletes should eat plenty of protein with every meal. Consume these protein-rich foods one or two hours before and after working out to make sure your muscles get the nourishment they need to speedily recover.

Protein bars and protein powders are usually packed with many unwanted ingredients, like sugar or preservatives. Water plays a key role in distributing nutrients within your body to speed up muscle recovery.

Drinking water also gets rid of lactic acid buildup—a common post-workout occurrence that exacerbates muscle pain and fatigue.

Consistent exercise and training obviously offer many health benefits. But for many athletes, it also carries the risk of going too far, actually damaging muscles and cells, and causing fatigue and chronic soreness.

At best, these are short lived and do not impair performance. At worst, all of them strike at once and last much too long to continue to improve in training in the week ahead. One of the best habits any athlete can get into is to provide the body, muscles, and cells with much needed nutrients as soon as possible after training.

Protein helps repair muscle cells, build muscle cells, and provide the body with nutrients to burn rather than its own muscles. During the Spring and Summer, error on the high side and aim for 20 ounces per hour during training and another 12 oz. per hour immediately afterwards. My work with hundreds of serious endurance athletes, specifically on training and recovery, has led me to recommend these recovery ingredients with complete confidence.

Supplementing l-glutamine in recovery can significantly reduce soreness and shorten recovery duration. This natural Superfood is loaded with anti-inflammatories, antioxidants, and phytochemicals in abundance, all which contributes to optimal cell recovery.

Instead plan ahead and have a great recovery snack waiting for you when you return after a great run, ride, hike or climb. Meghan Kelley is a writer, MTB racer, and all-around fan of trails, rocks, dirt, and the desert.

She's passionate about helping cyclists get faster and finding the best mid-ride snacks. When you think of training, do visions of health and fitness come to mind? Protein Protein helps repair muscle cells, build muscle cells, and provide the body with nutrients to burn rather than its own muscles.

Ten to thirty grams of protein as soon as possible after training can improve recovery. A good rule of thumb is ounces fluid per hour training during and immediately after.

Sign up to receive Baptist Health emails to learn more about your health from our blog, e-newsletter, and Flourish. Or follow one of our social media accounts. March 16, Recovery Process for Endurance Athletes.

Here are 6 tips on properly recovering from endurance training. Sleep — Getting enough sleep will enhance endurance performance. It is also crucial to giving your body enough restorative sleep time. Restorative sleep is the third stage of the sleeping process, which is associated with stabilizing human growth hormone and overall physical bodily restoration.

On the day of an intense workout, eight to ten hours of sleep is recommended. Giving your body enough time to recover will improve the quality of your workout without the risk of injury. Hydration — Keeping hydrated is essential during any strenuous exercise, but it is also critical during recovery.

Water helps our bodies to function correctly, such as more efficient nutrient absorption, improved skin tone and lower levels of stress on the heart. The suggested water intake to stay hydrated while exercising is seven to ten ounces for every 20 minutes your workout and eight ounces of water no more than 30 minutes after you finished.

Nutrition — The food we choose to ingest can make us stronger or be toxic. For instance, alcohol and processed foods are harmful to our bodies.

Eating clean and balanced meals keep the body strong and increase overall performance. Some good after workout foods to eat are eggs, Greek yogurt, bananas and dried fruit and nuts.

Moderation is the key to striking a balance between being healthy and still enjoying life. Posture — Americans neglect good posture. We are also the number one country in the world when it comes to who sits the most, and this contributes to bad posture.

To improve posture and help your body recover, find a tennis ball for your chair, placing it between the middle of your back and the chair.

Also, avoid leaning while standing. Stretching — To reduce pain from exercise, it is critical to stretch because it improves your flexibility. Professionals suggest dynamic stretching i.