The real reason why self-myofascial release and foam rolling hurts is because your body needs it. Loosening your fascia allows your muscles to glide smoothly and correctly.

When your fascia is tight and tough then your muscles have difficulty moving in the correct form and this results in injuries.

By using foam rollers and percussion massagers, you can beat up that tough sticky fascia and get your body moving in the correct way. For foam rollers we suggest the Brazyn there are two different levels of firmness so you can find the perfect fit for your body.

If you're looking for an easy alternative to foam rolling, we suggest using either a Theragun or RecoveryVolt percussion massager. There are numerous benefits of using percussion massagers , but we love them most because they are easy to use and perfectly portable.

Promoting a healthy diet allows you to give your body the proper nutrition to keep on going. I like to keep it simple. Every meal needs to have:. If you are looking to bulk up, then add some dairy to your diet, if you are looking to cut down, then reduce dairy intake.

Meal prepping can be a quick, cost-efficient way to make sure you're refueling properly with less time wasted. PURE Whey is derived from grass-fed and free-range cows that are never treated with bovine growth hormones.

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Naturally sweetened with monkfruit and dates - low glycemic sweeteners Blonyx Egg White Protein Isolate is a clean, minimally processed protein powder with only 7 real food ingredients. All this means it's as close to Whey Protein Isolate BioSteel Whey Protein Isolate WPI uses a hormone-free whey isolate from grass fed cattle to provide a superior Protein powers muscle and is essential for the health, well-being and performance of any athlete.

Klean Isolate provides the essential amino acids Minimizing stress through meditation and yoga is a phenomenal way to improve brain health and well-being. Get away from the hustle and bustle of every day life and calm your mind for just minutes a day.

Some of our favorite techniques are mindful walks and yoga. A mindful walk is an easy way to help bring back your focus and retain energy. Its very easy too! All you need to do is walk and be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to the smells, the wind on your face, the noises in the background.

Just stay present and you will feel a lot better. Maintaining healthy lifestyle habits will not only make you a better athlete but they will make you a better person.

Stop comparing yourself to others and consistently hold yourself to the highest standards possible. The worst feeling as an athlete is the feeling of being burnt out. Preventing burnout can be achieved fairly easily - it's called taking days off.

Yes, we are athletes, but we are also humans that sometimes just need a break. Everybody reacts differently to physical and mental stresses. You need to listen to your body in what it needs. If you need to take a couple days off from training because you are physically or mentally fried, then do it.

You'll be thankful. Our Story Our Athletes Why Buy From Us Reviews Contact Us FAQ B2B Sales Recovery Rooms Rewards Program My Account. Email Recovery For Athletes Find us on Facebook Find us on Instagram Find us on Pinterest Find us on Twitter Find us on YouTube.

To support our overall goal, we have decided to outline our 8 best recovery techniques for athletes to turn into habits: 1.

The RICE Method - Rest. method include the following: Rest : Immobilization prevents further injury and gives the body time to recover.

Ice : Cold reduces pain by numbing the affected area. Compression : Pressure keeps swelling under control. Elevation : Keeping the injured body part above the heart reduces swelling and the associated pain and discomfort.

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Game Ready Elbow Wrap. Game Ready Half Leg Boot Wrap. Game Ready C-T Spine Wrap. Athletes should prioritize consuming nutrient-dense foods and consult with a sports nutritionist to tailor their diet to their specific needs and goals. Quality sleep is indispensable for optimal recovery and performance.

During sleep, the body undergoes critical physiological processes, such as tissue repair, hormone regulation, and cognitive restoration. Athletes should strive for at least hours of restorative sleep each night to support overall health and recovery.

Rest is an essential aspect of recovery that allows the body to recuperate from the physical and mental demands of training. Scheduled rest days or lighter training sessions provide an opportunity for the body to rebuild and adapt to increased performance demands.

Athletes should include rest days in their training program, ensuring they have adequate time for recovery. Some common supplements include protein powders, vitamins, and minerals. For the best supplements , stick with trusted brands such as Thorne Health.

Stretching is a fundamental recovery technique that promotes flexibility, increases circulation, and reduces muscle soreness. Incorporating dynamic stretching before exercise and static stretching after workouts can help maintain proper muscle function and prevent injury.

Athletes should stretch regularly, ideally after every training session. Active recovery involves performing low-intensity exercise on rest days to promote blood flow, enhance nutrient delivery, and facilitate waste removal from muscles.

Examples include light jogging, swimming, or cycling. Compression garments, such as socks, sleeves, and tights, apply consistent pressure to muscles and help improve blood flow, reduce inflammation, and minimize muscle soreness.

Wearing compression garments during or after exercise can enhance recovery and support athletic performance. Athletes should consider using compression garments as part of their recovery routine. Yoga and meditation are mind-body practices that help improve flexibility, balance, and mental focus.

They also reduce stress, which can impede recovery and performance. Practicing yoga or meditation several times per week can yield significant benefits for athletes. Proper refueling supports muscle repair, glycogen restoration, and immune function.

Athletes should consume a balanced post-workout meal or snack within minutes after training to optimize recovery. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is paramount for optimal recovery and performance. This includes managing stress, staying hydrated, and avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.

Athletes should prioritize their overall well-being to support their training and recovery efforts. Cold water immersion, also known as ice baths, involves submerging the body in cold water for a short period to reduce inflammation, muscle soreness, and fatigue. This technique can be particularly beneficial after high-intensity workouts or competitions.

But these days it is highly likely that everyone in the race will have these qualities……where everyone else is equal, it is diet that will make the vital difference. Cold water immersion has become popular in the treatment of injuries and general soreness.

This is because the likes of ice baths can be effective in reducing inflammation and pain. When an athlete enters an ice bath, the body goes into a state of shock and several physiological and biochemical responses result. Vasoconstriction, or the tightening of blood vessels is the result increasing the venous return ultimately removing metabolites from the trained region.

However, studies have shown that cold water immersion attenuated long term gains in muscle mass and strength, whilst blunting the activation of key protein and satellite cells in skeletal muscles. As a result, using ice baths during periods were adaptation is the goal e.

This is completed by applying pressure most commonly with a foam roller over specific areas in the body that are tender. Self-myofascial release techniques help break up trigger points, and soothe tight fascia, while increasing blood flow and circulation to the soft tissues.

Many studies do show that improved range of motion, flexibility and movement are all resultant of self-myofascial release. However, according to a systematic review , these improvements are acute and there is conflicting evidence as to whether self-myofascial release can improve these qualities in the long term.

There are many modes of recovery athletes can avail of. However, the pillars of adequate recovery will always remain the same.

Before athletes get caught up in the latest recovery strategy it is good practice to ensure that workload, sleep, nutrition, and hydration are under control. Once athletes have covered the pillars of recovery, and if they feel they still need more in order to gain a competitive advantage, it may be applicable to consider other modes of recovery.

Athletes should also consider the modality of recovery that they use and if it may be counter-intuitive to the hard work that they do during training. Furthermore, athletes should experiment with various methods and identify what works best for them.

Athlete monitoring with Metrifit can help coaches determine which athletes may require more recovery strategies. Find out more about Metrifit in this short video where we explain how it works for both the athlete and the coach.

Thanks to author Michael Kenny for this insightful blog. Follow us on social media where we post regular blogs related to sports, performance and well-being. References Overuse Injuries, Overtraining, and Burnout in Child and Adolescent Athletes.

In the s, marathon runners were told that drinking fluids would slow them down. The growth of mass-participation runs like the New York Marathon and new research led to changed advice to drink as much as possible during intensive workouts.

The body keeps its core temperature close to 37C If this fails, and body temperature rises by too much, the result can be heat exhaustion, which makes people feel weak and dizzy.

Left untreated, it can lead to rare but potentially fatal heat stroke. In fact, we can easily get all the salts we need, such as sodium and potassium, from food.

When our bodies lose salts in sweat during exercise, their concentration in our blood is maintained through changes to water levels. Dehydration causes only a minority of cases of heat stroke. In fact, sports scientists say, water intoxication, or hyponatremia, is a greater danger.

As early as , the renowned endocrinologist Hans Selye noted the similarities in physiological responses in lab rats subjected to different types of stress. More recently, sports scientists have come to appreciate that if athletes are fretting about money, a bullying boss or being dumped, their physical recovery and adaptation to training can be undermined.

In a study, for example, Finnish researchers found that the lower stress levels of sedentary adults, the more their physical performances improved in response to training.

From yoga and meditation, to massage and flotation tanks, there are any number of ways to relax. Separating out physical and psychological effects is, however, hard because study subjects usually know if they are doing something relaxing.

US scientists got around this by putting rabbits through simulated exercises. Those that then received 30 minutes of Swedish massage had less inflammation and improved muscle function, compared to those that did not.

It is, however, unclear how applicable the findings which were not published on 1 April are to humans. When athletes ask Aschwanden for advice on recovery, she suggests building relaxing rituals into their daily routines.

Relaxation is a vital part of the recovery process, and one that is too often ignored. Exercise causes tiny tears in muscle fibres. The body responds by rebuilding muscles, only bigger and stronger so as to cope better next time around.

Therefore, consider stretching both before and after your activity. Before an activity, try dynamic stretches to loosen up your muscles and incorporate static stretches after. Cold water immersion therapy is a type of cold water therapy that helps support muscle recovery after a high-intensity workout.

Sitting in an ice bath is the most popular and practical way to practice cold water immersion. Cold water immersion therapy helps to boost blood flow and reduce muscle soreness.

On top of these benefits, the process can also promote a more positive mood and better energy levels. Other similar strategies include cryotherapy and hydrotherapy, which help reduce muscle tension and minimize inflammation.

Hydration is vital for ensuring your body can flush out all the waste your muscles create during activity. Drinking water also helps athletes to perform at a high level.

Athletes should drink water throughout the entire day. A good rule is to drink at least eight ounces of water an hour. However, if it is hot outside or you are engaging in high-intensity activity, you should aim for closer to 12 ounces. After a workout, you can support your recovery by giving your body the right fuel.

For effective recovery, nutrition is a significant key to success. Your nutrition should include a combination of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Eating carbs helps to replenish these stores and provides your body with energy for muscle repair.

Incorporating a range of complete proteins in your diet will also help support protein synthesis, which is a vital process for promoting muscle growth and repairing muscle damage. Fueling your body with the right nutrients is crucial to any training program. However, sometimes you need more support to get the nutrients you need for optimal recovery.

Two of the best go-to supplements for athletes are protein powder and creatine. Protein powder has a significant amount of protein, vitamins, and amino acids to support optimal protein synthesis. Meanwhile, creatine, an amino acid, can help enhance recovery in athletes and promote better performance.

The best thing you can do to support your muscle recovery is to establish a routine after each training session. A post-exercise routine can include having a protein shake, eating a meal, stretching, and taking a cold shower.

The tips on this list all make great additions to a recovery routine, but it is important to remember to use them. It can be easy to perform your activity and consider yourself done until your next exercise session.

By establishing a recovery routine, it becomes second nature to incorporate these strategies into your training program and helps you prioritize recovery.

The recovery process does not have to be a hassle to maintain. Sometimes, the recovery process can be as simple as wearing the right gear. An excellent example is Incrediwear. Incrediwear sleeves and braces are invaluable tools in supporting recovery for athletes, offering solutions for different parts of the body, like ankle sleeves and elbow sleeves.

It follows that the rate and quality of recovery is extremely important for the high performance athlete and that optimal recovery may provide numerous benefits during repetitive high-level training and competition.

Therefore, investigating different recovery interventions and their effect on fatigue, muscle injury, recovery and performance is important.

Recovery aims to restore physiological and psychological processes, so that the athlete can compete or train again at an appropriate level. Recovery from training and competition is complex and involves numerous factors. It is also typically dependent on the nature of the exercise performed and any other outside stressors that the athlete may be exposed to.

Athletic performance is affected by numerous factors and therefore, adequate recovery should also consider such factors Table 1. There are a number of popular methods used by athletes to enhance recovery. Some of the most popular recovery techniques for athletes include:.

Restricting sleep to less than 6 hours per night for four or more consecutive nights has been shown to impair cognitive performance and mood, disturb glucose metabolism, appetite regulation and immune function. This type of evidence has led to the recommendation that adults should obtain 8 hours of sleep per night.

While there are considerable data available related to the amount of sleep obtained by adults in the general population, there are few published data related to the amount of sleep obtained by elite athletes.

There are a limited number of studies which have examined the effects of sleep deprivation on athletic performance. From the available data it appears that several phenomena exist. Firstly, the sleep deprivation must be greater than 30 hours one complete night of no sleep and remaining awake into the afternoon to have an impact on anaerobic performance Skein et al.

Secondly, aerobic performance may be decreased after only 24 hours Oliver et al, and thirdly, sustained or repeated bouts of exercise are affected to a greater degree than one-off maximal efforts. The mechanism behind the reduced performance following prolonged sustained sleep deprivation is not clear, however it has been suggested that an increased perception of effort is one potential cause.

While the above studies provide some insight into the relationship between sleep deprivation and performance, most athletes are more likely to experience acute bouts of partial sleep deprivation where sleep is reduced for several hours on consecutive nights.

Only a small number of studies have examined the effect of partial sleep deprivation on athletic performance. From the available research it appears that sub-maximal prolonged tasks may be more affected than maximal efforts particularly after the first two nights of partial sleep deprivation Reilly et al, Another means of examining the effect of sleep on performance is to extend the amount of sleep an athlete receives and determine the effects on subsequent performance.

Information from the small number of studies suggests that increasing the amount of sleep an athlete receives may significantly enhance performance. Athletes suffering from some degree of sleep loss may benefit from a brief nap, particularly if a training session is to be completed in the afternoon or evening.

Naps can markedly reduce sleepiness and can be beneficial when learning skills, strategy or tactics in sleep deprived individuals. Napping may be beneficial for athletes who have to routinely wake early for training or competition and for athletes who are experiencing sleep deprivation.

According to a Gallup Poll in the USA, the average self-reported sleep duration of healthy individuals is 6. However, the sleep habits of elite athletes have only recently been investigated. Leeder et al compared the sleep habits of 47 elite athletes from Olympic sports using actigraphy over a 4-day period to that of age and gender-matched non-sporting controls.

The athlete group had a total time in bed of hour:minutes, compared to in the control group. Despite the longer time in bed, the athlete group had a longer sleep latency time to fall asleep The results demonstrated that while athletes had a comparable quantity of sleep to controls, significant differences were observed in the quality of sleep between the two groups Leeder et al, While the above data was obtained during a period of normal training without competition, athletes may experience disturbed sleep prior to important competition or games.

Erlacher et al. This sleep disruption during normal training may be due to a poor routine as a consequence of early training sessions, poor sleep habits i. While not documented in the literature, anecdotal evidence also suggests that athletes such as footballers who compete at night also have significant difficulties falling asleep post competition.

Although hydrotherapy is incorporated widely into post-exercise recovery regimens, information regarding these interventions is largely anecdotal. The human body responds to water immersion with changes in the heart, peripheral resistance and blood flow, as well as skin, core and muscle temperature alterations Wilcock et al, These changes in blood flow and temperature responses may have an effect on inflammation, immune function, muscle soreness and perception of fatigue.

Various forms of water immersion are becoming increasingly popular with elite athletes. While athletes have been using hydrotherapy for a number of years, we are now beginning to see increased research into water immersion, recovery and performance.

The most common forms of water immersion are cold water immersion CWI , hot water immersion HWI and contrast water therapy CWT , where the athlete alternates between hot and cold water immersion. The effects of three hydrotherapy interventions on next day performance recovery following strenuous training was investigated on 12 male cyclists who completed four experimental trials differing only in recovery intervention: CWI, HWI, CWT or passive recovery Vaile et al, After completing each exercise session, participants performed one of the four recovery interventions in a randomised crossover design.

Sprint and time trial performance was enhanced across the 5-day trial following both CWI and CWT when compared to HWI and passive recovery Vaile et al, The same authors Vaile et al, also examined different water immersion temperatures 15 minutes of intermittent immersion in 10°C, 15°C, 20°C, continuous immersion in 20°C water, and active recovery.

Two minute cycling bouts performed in the heat were separated by 60 minutes, with one of the five recovery strategies performed immediately after the first exercise bout. Each trial was separated by 7 days.

All water immersion protocols improved subsequent cycling performance when compared to active recovery, demonstrating the benefits of cold water immersion in the heat.

In a study investigating a dose-response effect of CWT Versey et al, improved cycling time trial and sprint performance was observed following 6 min of CWT hot water: Twelve minutes of CWI also improved sprint total work and peak power.

There was no improvement in repeat performance with 18 minutes of CWT, indicating that a dose-response relationship does not exist under these conditions.