Have you ever had the chance of seeing what elite athletes do after crossing the finish line? Well, if you have not seen it, let us give you a brief picture of how it goes. The pretty common and normal immediate post-game recovery includes ice baths, massages, etc. It is quite a different story for most amateur athletes. What amateur athletes get is simply some bananas and just water.
However, if we are to be fair, we have to point out that professional athletes literally put their bodies on the line in order to make a living. It, therefore, involves some strict measures which must be taken after a game or a race in order to be best prepared for the next game or match. However, it can only do us good if we knew how exactly these elite athletes recover after a game. Let’s take a look at some of the methods that are employed by elite athletes in order to recover faster and better.
Sports Massage Therapy
Sports massage therapy has many benefits, and one of these is to help speed up recovery. A professional sports massage will improve blood circulation, which will have the added benefit of increasing blood flow to any damaged tissue. Damage can be lurking below the skin without any physical symptoms, so regular sports massage after an event or training will keep an athlete’s body fully functional. This is a skilled profession and a good massage therapist will have sports massage insurance, which is a form of indemnity insurance.
Think about getting a portable PT Center
Most pro athletes will make sure that they visit a physical therapist on a weekly basis. They go there to get release massage which is active in nature. They also go there to get some assessments. The amateur athlete, on the other hand, simply does not have the time nor the budget for these things. If you invest not more than a hundred dollars, then you will be able to get a whole lot of equipment which can really help you cut down on your recovery time.
You can get foam rollers which cost about only 30 dollars. You can even find foam rolling routines on online platforms such as Youtube. If you can get afford a paid subscription to websites that specifically make use of foam rollers for recovery, you can do a much better job of recovering faster.
All of the things that we have so far mentioned are all highly portable. They can fit in your race bag or your transition bag. So, after you have gone through an intense period of physical exertion, you can do a lot more than just bananas and water. You can actually get yourselves 15 minutes of proper and active release. This will result in muscles being much less sore, reducing the risk of injury and, in general, a much shorter period of recovery.
Get A Light Therapy Lamp
Red light therapy happens to be one of the hottest therapies in the health world right now. It is basically a very safe and also non-invasive treatment method that makes use of red light penetrating the skin and also the cells of the body. Once the light has been able to reach the mitochondria, it has the ability to stimulate the production of adenosine triphosphate. This is the natural energy currency of the human body. When there is sufficient production and also the distribution of ATP is proper, the body will get to experience a whole host of health benefits.
Muscles require more energy to function than the other types of cells that are in the body. This is the main reason why red light therapy works so well on them. When there is proper ATP synthesis, it will lead to the muscle cells performing at their peak levels. This results in much better overall fitness and athletic performance as well.
Red Light Therapy also has a lot of effects on the fat cells of the body. Red light therapy has the potential to allow the fat cells to release lipids in the blood. A lot of this fat is then picked up by the cells of the muscles and is later on used as energy. This type of treatment also has the potential to reduce any kind of inflammation. It achieves this result by increasing the flow of blood in the body and by also supercharging the antioxidant response abilities of the body.
Make Sure Rest is Given High Priority
It does not matter at all if your training to be an Ironman or just playing sports as a hobby. It can be really easy to get sucked into a mentality where over-training is applauded. While it very obviously a good thing to stay active, being too active can be a problem, however. You have to keep in mind and know that recovery days are just as important if you want to perform at your optimum level.
Too much of anything is not the best of ideas. The same holds true for exercise and physical exertion in general. The idea is to stay active but not over-do it. You have to ensure that your body also gets the rest that it deserves as well. If you do not do this, you will be prone to over-exertion, and you ultimately damage your body.
