- How does recovery work?
- Strategies to accelerate muscle recovery
- Innovative clothing for recovery: FLOKY RE-CHARGE
Recovery regenerates the body after physical activity, restoring the pre-existing functional state and implementing supercompensation, i.e. the adaptation that puts it in a better position to deal with the same circumstance. When the recovery of tired legs, muscles and joints is neglected, the subsequent performance risks presenting no improvement or even falling short. Other risks are related to the immune system, which, during a period of intense stress, such as high-intensity training, is not able to fully function, exposing the body to greater risks if complete recovery and post rest is not ensured. effort.
However, recovery, especially if you train at competitive levels, can be perceived as an obstacle or a waste of time: so it's good to follow some tricks to speed up time and optimize effectiveness.
How does recovery work?
On a physiological level, recovery consists of returning to homeostasis following intense training sessions. During recovery, the body implements important muscle fiber repair processes, aimed at restoring the functional state prior to physical exercise and implementing supercompensation. The latter is a process that is triggered in the body at each workout session: if the right stimulus is given, the body increases its performance to prepare for the next session, stimulates muscle growth, strengthens tendons and ligaments and improves resistence. A greater or lesser ability to recover is determined by various factors, such as:
- biological factors: gender, age, psycho-physical condition and general lifestyle;
- specific physical factors: level of training, subjective abilities, specificity of the training stimulus applied or immediately;
- Factors related to the health of the organism: nutritional status, level of hydration, use of medications, quantity and quality of sleep.
- Intrinsic factors of recovery: application of specific recovery strategies.
Strategies to accelerate muscle recovery
Among the factors mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are many more or less easily manageable, on which it is possible to intervene to positively influence rest and optimize post-workout recovery capacity.
Muscle recovery: recommended nutrition
It is necessary to follow a diet weighted on the level and type of training stimulus applied. For an ad hoc work, the intervention of a dietician is essential. A general rule of thumb is to replenish your body with energy immediately after your workout and choose a good combination of complex carbohydrates and protein to build muscle and keep your insulin levels stable.
Maintain a good level of hydration
Taking the correct amount of water is strictly necessary to maintain maximum recovery capacity. It is in liquids that most of the nutrients that supply energy to the body are diluted: dehydration, in addition to representing a dangerous loss of mineral salts, affects both the disposal of catabolites and the renewal processes, affecting the quality of muscle recovery after training.
Sleep cure
All training stimuli are processed while we sleep, provided we respect the 7-8 hours per night: small tissue damages are repaired, muscles develop and both body and mind are regenerated. Otherwise, we can experience a reduction in metabolism, slower recovery, irritability, a weakened immune system and uncontrollable hunger pangs.
Always cool down and stretch
Each training session should be concluded with a short cool-down phase in which the pace is reduced and the metabolism and the cardiovascular system are allowed to slowly return to a normal state, also eliminating the accumulations of lactic acid. And finally, stretching, to reduce any tension and maintain muscle flexibility.
Supplement with active recovery
Active muscle recovery consists of using a variety of measures to stimulate the body during the resting phase: muscle recovery massage, compression garments, cold water immersion, contrast water therapy, and cryotherapy. All these measures, in addition to speeding up recovery times, allow you to decrease the extent of DOMS, post-workout muscle pain.
Innovative clothing for recovery: FLOKY RE-CHARGE
The technical clothing designed by FLOKY for athletes is based on the principles of biomechanics, the science that studies human movement to optimize it with less and less risk of injury. RE-CHARGE is the first specific biomechanical sock for post-workout or competition muscle recovery:
- It provides an improving and regenerative support of all the biomechanical functions related to the tendons and muscles of the foot and leg;
- Allows activation of venous return;
- Promotes the elimination of toxins;
- Stimulates muscle regeneration;
- It allows you to unload the tendon parts from overloads and inflammations;
- Drastically reduces recovery time.
