To reap the benefits of any good training session there has to be an adequate recovery time. Recovery is a multi faceted part of training that can improve your performance greatly. In order of importance I have listed the many factors of recovery:

1. 1.    Sleep
2. 2.    Time between sessions/Scheduling
3. 3.    Hydration
4. 4.    Nutrition
5. 5.    Fitness Level
6. 6.    Warm up/cool down

Why is sleep so important? Well when you are sleeping your body is going through a number of important processes, so anyone that is exercising needs a regular sleeping pattern. During sleep, your body produces Growth Hormone, which is responsible for tissue growth and repair.

Scheduling your weekly training sessions is important to avoid any overtraining. If you do not get enough recovery time between sessions your muscle are going to be in a constant state of ‘breakdown’ which can be identified by: tight muscles, aches and pains, elevated resting heart rate and tiredness. If you are suffering from any of these signs just have a day off training and you’ll be back on track.

After a sweat-filled session it is critical to get our hydration levels back to normal. Water supports every metabolic function and nutrient transfer in the body and having plenty of water will improve every bodily function. A general hydration rule, any kilogram (kg) lost in a session has to be replaced by 1.5lt of water or sports drink.

Sports drinks are commonly used because you can get some carbohydrates back into the body and also its high levels of sodium aid rehydration.

Nutrition is a major contributor to your recovery process because when we give our bodies the right fuel the nutrients from our food sources aid our muscle recovery. It is important to get plenty of protein rich foods (muscle repair) and carbohydrates (refuelling the muscle and liver glycogen carbohydrate stores).

It is important to plan out your weekly sessions so that you can have a balanced schedule for your fitness level. It is important to have at least one full 24-hours off exercise in your week, if you are just resuming your fitness routine after a layoff best to have two full 24-hour rest periods. Depending on workout intensity and also if you engage in resistance training you will need adequate time between sessions for tissue repair.

 Warm up and cool down should be an integral part of a workout routine to minimise soft tissue injuries. With a warm up it is simply get ‘sweaty’, by doing this we are raising our core temperature, increasing blood flow, increasing our muscles elasticity and also increasing our breathing rate to meet the demands of our exercise. Cooling down by doing an ‘active recovery’ is a great way to bring the heart rate down slowly, flush out any toxins in the muscles (lactic acid) and also bring the core temperature slowly down.

Today’s blog is just an overview of recovery, over the coming weeks I am going to go into more detail for each key area and also write a blog on recovery techniques that are utilised to speed up the process (ice bath, hot/cold therapy, massage etc). Stay tuned so you can tune up your recovery and increase your strength and fitness.