Recovery Work

Sorry for the delay, I have been working on a new project and will be launching it within the next couple days. Today I am going to cover the benefits of rest. A lot of athletes are training all day long. Between Practices, Games, Specialty Training, and strength/conditioning some athletes are spending multiple hours a day training. This is why it is not uncommon for young athletes to burn out throughout the season and "peak" at the wrong times. The quicker your recovery will be from strenuous training is determined but what steps are taken. The two major keys to full recovery, unfortunately, are neglected by many young athletes. Sleep and Nutrition are the two things that MUST be taken seriously by an athlete if they want to recover quick!
Eight hours of sleep should be had every night of the week by athletes. Sleeps #1 role is to restore the body's energy supplies, that have been lost throughout the day. This has lead to great research proven the more active someone is, the more sleep they need. More often then not young athletes will spend hours on the field and in classrooms and only get five hours of sleep(if there lucky). I know, there isn't enough hours in the day. What I have found helps with getting more sleep is waking up/ going to sleep earlier. The more hours of sleep you can get in before midnight the better you will feel in the morning, TRUST ME.
Nutrition is the single most important aspect to improved athletic performance. Not only will the energy used during competition be generated by the food you eat, but also, the lost energy will be recovered by food as well. What this means is nutrition plays a vital role in performance and recovery. Many athletes believe Protein is what they need to improve performance. This is true, but only to a certain extent. Protein is broken down into Amino Acids in the body. These Amino Acids can be used for many different things. What protein does for the body best is help heal torn muscles fibers. Many young athletes eat to much protein and not enough carbs. The body will then have to utilize the protein(Amino Acids) for other things, that they are not as good at. If your body does not have enough carbohydrates to utilize for energy or to help replace the muscle glycogen, used as energy, for high intense training, the Amino Acids will have to do this, which will not be nearly as efficient.
On top of Rest and Recovery I have found other methods that help aid recovery. With the amount of athletes training at such high levels I have found two methods that help recovery on top of sleep and proper nutrition.
Ice Baths are an extremely effect way to help quicken the recovery process. I have found an ice bath to be similar to the body as a complete days rest. To take an ice bath fill a tub half way with COLD water and enter. Once your are laying in the tub begin to add bags of ice. The goal is to get the water down to about 15 Celsius. Once this is done sit in the tub for 10-12 Minutes then exit. Relax for about 45 minutes then take a nice warm shower. I have found this to work wonders on recovery and coincidentally many studies have as well.
Contrast Water Therapy is another method that shows similar benefits as Ice Baths. The ratio of time can be switched up but I like to do 1 min Hot Water: 1 min Cold water, making sure to always finish with Cold. These Contrast Showers help reduce the lactic acid in the muscles, thus reducing soreness.
















To be socially acceptable the water must be under 20 degrees.