Recovering Strategies - Follow These Rules and You Will Be As Good As New - Fitness Recovery - Part

RECOVERY FROM A STRENUOUS CARDIO WORKOUT (BUT NOT SEX): Whether it's a hard run, bike ride, or a couple of hours of elliptical machine, we all know what it's like to feel sore in the days following a hard workout. For some, it can be invigorating; the pain feels great-and not just for masochists. For others, it can discourage them from another session that will-with dedication and motivation-help them reach their goals faster. You can avoid lots of pain and repair muscles quicker if you warm down properly and drink water immediately after the work-out. Eat, too: your muscles are looking for supplemental protein after you train.

Following a killer session of beating up your poor muscles, you should do another low-impact activity, stretch, and do some self-massage to evenly distribute evenly the lactic acid in your limbs. These actions lengthen the muscles that have been contracting for a short period of time, dilating blood vessels and aiding the removal of other waste products that can leave you stiff and hurting for days to come.

Iron Man

EAT AND DRINK... NOW!: During a warm-down, get yourself a sport drink to replenish your potassium and sodium. It's always a good idea to eat a small meal of complex carbs and protein right after exercise to expedite healing. Also, carry some food in your gym bag, like a protein bar, or protein shake. Many health food stores carry so many brands that the choice can make you lose your mind. Look for the shakes or bars that contain the most protein per serving. The muscles require protein right after exercising to rebuilt efficiently and bigger, and the window of time in which your body can best utilize this protein is small: I would estimate it around ninety minutes. After that, the body starts using its own protein for muscle healing, and you do not want that.

Recovering Strategies - Follow These Rules and You Will Be As Good As New - Fitness Recovery - Part

Muscle growth requires food that's high in protein so the body won't need to extract protein from its own muscles during recovery. Since it takes twenty-five minutes for the body to digest food and more still for the nutrients to arrive at your muscles, you need to eat almost immediately after working out to deliver protein to your muscles within that ninety minute window. You do not have time to wait till you get home and cook yourself a meal.

AFTER LIFTING, GOD RESTED. YOU SHOULD TOO: Muscles also need rest to grow. Sleep as much as possible each night. And rest specific muscle groups, too: all large muscles, which includes back, chest, quads require seventy-two hours rest between workouts. Biceps, triceps, shoulders need forty-eight hours of rest, and muscles such as the abdominals, calves, and forearms, need twenty-four hours of rest, which means they can be trained almost every day. For these slow-twitch muscles, high-repetition exercises will give you the best results.

ILLNESS IS INEVITABLE, RECOVERY ISN'T: You will catch a cold; that is guaranteed. There are 250 rhinoviruses capable of keeping you in bed for three to seven days. Your body is not strong enough to create immunity for all of them. How can you minimize your time under the covers? Make sure you stay well hydrated. Drink a lot of fluids-not scotch, rum, or other booze-but water, juices and tea. Eat even when you're not hungry to force your own recovery, and make you eat high-energy food to regain your strength and help your immune system fight the viruses. People keep colds longer because their bodies are not well-nourished during the time that it needs food most.

Beside the eating and drinking, take hot showers, get a humidifier, and gargle with salt water. (It can be disgusting, but imagine you're falling while surfing at the beach.) Salt water can shrink inflamed membranes and soothe sore throats. Preventative medication such as Vitamin C is also useful, and over the counter medication can also speed up recovery-just make sure you are not allergic to it. Certain over the counter medication can actually be detrimental to people using other daily medication. Read the warning signs. To reduce coughing, get cough drops or hard candy to keep your throat moist.

RECOVER FROM "PUMPIN DA WAITS": Overdoing it with dumbbells or barbells can also be bad for you. No pain, no gain, is still true, but in moderation. There is a difference between the good pain you get from pumping iron the right way and the excruciating pain you get by lifting like a retard. If you do not know how to use the weights, ask a professional. Perhaps a personal trainer? Duh!

Knowing your body is important. Understand it well. Ask your body questions. (But don't talk to yourself in public; it might look weird.) When working out, mix up your exercises and see how the body reacts to the exercise. Change the angles, the turns, and the motions while lifting the weight. There are many ways to change the exercise and they all help avoid overtraining. If you strained a muscle in the upper body-it can happen to the best of us-do not abandon training for the next few days. This reaction is for the girly man; instead, work on a lower body muscle, like the quads. You are the master of your own domain, but without the Seinfeld sexual connotation. You decide when you need to go to the gym, and when you need to rest.

Should you strain a muscle, you can use the cold and hot method to speed up waste removal in your muscle. By taking a cold and hot shower, the resulting swap between cold (vasoconstriction) and hot (vasodilation) will cause a constriction/expansion pumping of blood through your muscles. This can help you heal faster.

A FINAL NOTE ON ANOTHER KIND OF RECOVERY: Maybe I should have saved this one for Valentine's Day. Remember what Arnold Schwarzenneger said in the movie "pumping iron" when he concentrated for the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition? "I am never in a relationship during competition time. I have no time or energy for break-up. I can't be bothered with that. I do not want to lose my concentration for winning the Mr. Olympia."

Recovering Strategies - Follow These Rules and You Will Be As Good As New - Fitness Recovery - Part Full Match Highlights: IPL 2012 - CSK vs KKR, Final Tube. Duration : 26.77 Mins.
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Full Match Highlights from Final of IPL 2012 between Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders played on May-27-2012 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

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