The 3 R’s of Recovery

Why Do I Still Feel Sore From My Last Training Session or Competition?

Recovery is important to everyone, whether you’re a recreational gym goer looking to reduce body mass or an elite athlete looking to maximise your performance. Improving your recovery can help you to achieve your health, fitness, and sporting goals. 

What is recovery and why is it important?

Recovery is a process that occurs when the body experiences fatigue from physiological stress, such as resistance training, cardiovascular exercise, or sprinting. It is the process of the body returning to its normal state, as it was prior to exercise. The three main components of recovery are: Repairing the muscle tissue as damage is caused during exercise; Refuelling the body of all the energy substrates (predominantly carbohydrates) used during the exercise; and finally Rehydrating the body due to the dehydration (water loss) that occurs through sweating during exercise (Bonila et al., 2020).

Improving our recovery allows us to feel fresher and perform better ready for the next training session or competition. For athletes, this allows for improved physical performance, either improving the benefits of the next training session or potentially improving the overall performance of the next competition. For gym goers and the general population, the benefits are just as significant. Feeling fresher sooner allows for more frequent training sessions, more activity between sessions and an improved mental state and emotion towards each training session.

Another major benefit of recovery for everyone taking part in physical exercise is that it helps to prevent overuse injuries occurring (Brink et al., 2010). The best way to deal with injury is to completely avoid it in the first place. By recovering optimally, you can reduce the risk of some of the most common injuries, such as muscle tears, stress fractures and tendinitis. 

Repair

Exercising causes muscle damage, therefore we need to repair the muscle tissue via muscle protein synthesis. This will allow the muscle to return to its normal function and helps to increase the overall muscle mass. Promoting muscle repair through protein synthesis needs to be a long-term chronic strategy, following the protocols of this strategy acutely will not work due to the long process of repairing muscles. 

To achieve protein synthesis, we need to maintain a high protein intake (1.6-2g of protein per kg of body mass per day). Our protein intake should be spread evenly throughout the day in 4-6 servings. This will provide optimal protein synthesis and therefore restoration of the muscle tissue. It is important to understand that the acute intake of protein will not be significantly beneficial, it is the chronic behaviour of regular servings and total protein intake that will provide the beneficial effect. It has also be suggested that creatine supplementation may also enhance muscle repair (Cooke et al., 2009). 

Refuel

This is the process of replenishing the stores of energy substrates (mainly carbohydrates) within the body. Carbohydrates are stored as glycogen within the muscles and liver. When we exercise, we use up portions of these stores to provide energy for the muscles to work. If the carbohydrate stores go below a certain level, then the feeling of fatigue is triggered as the body preserves levels due to survival instincts. Therefore, after we have used portions of these stores, we must replace them before carrying out further exercise. 

This recovery strategy can be used acutely in order to recover and fuel the body for the next bout of exercise. It involves the consumption of significant quantities of carbohydrates to replace those used during exercise. Think of your body as a car, carbohydrates are the petrol, and your liver and muscles are the fuel tank. Once you use the fuel and empty the tank, you must fill it up before you can drive again. Similarly, you would fill up the tank before starting a long journey. This is like consuming carbohydrates in preparation for maximal performance (click here for information of preparing for maximal performance).  

Rehydrate

When we exercise we lose fluid through sweating. Losing too much fluid or being dehydrated over a long period of time can have a negative impact on body functions, including cardiac function (Cheuvront, 2003). Therefore, to maintain health as well as enable future exercise and performance we must replace the fluid that has been lost during exercise to place ourselves in a euhydrated state. 

We can do this by consuming plenty of fluids during and after exercise. Drink fluids based upon your sweat rates (the more you’re sweating the more you should drink) and the colour of your urine (you are euhydrated if your urine is a clear/slightly pale liquid). Individual fluid intake strategies can be recommended to suit your individual sweat rates. 

By remembering these 3 R’s we can optimise our recovery protocol to help us reach our health, fitness and sporting goals. 

Other key factors of your rate of recovery include rest and managing your activity load. If you don’t provide your body with sufficient rest and sleep then it will not have the time required to recover (Bonila et al., 2020). Remember your 8 hours of sleep! If you’re following these recovery strategies and still struggling the problem may be that you are simply expecting too much of your body. Monitor your activity load to ensure you don’t overload yourself, speak to a personal trainer/strength and conditioning coach about this. 

For chronic recovery issues or injury treatment it may be beneficial to consult a specialist physiotherapist or sports masseuse.

This may be the step you need to take to boost your training and performance, why not start today?

For help with your personal recovery strategy get in touch by clicking here.

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