Working out is key to good health. Whether you want to fight obesity, control your weight, keep fit, or keep chronic illnesses at bay, physical exercise will always appear on your to-do list. It’s not just about fighting diseases. Exercising also gives you a good mood to face the day and is a known precursor to a night of good night sleep.
Nevertheless, some workouts can, at times, be so impactful on your muscles. To avoid muscle damage and promote recovery, you’d need to employ some safety measures.
Unfortunately, not everyone who gets involved in physical exercises knows what safety measures to take before and after a regimen. As a result, many end up making serious mistakes that result in injuries, injuries they could easily avoid.
In this article, we focus on some safe and fast post-workout measures to take to aid in muscle recovery.
Take Plenty of Water and Fluids
“Water is life”, or so they say. Vague as the saying might seem, it’s an absolute truth. Water is a crucial engine for the functioning of the body. Your body tissues, cells, and all your vital organs need it. To underscore just how essential water is, it’s one of the things recommended by experts to be taken before, during, and after an exercise, albeit in moderation. As you work out, your body uses water to lubricate your joints and muscles. After a rigorous workout, therefore, you’re most likely dehydrated. You also need water to flush out wastes and toxins produced during physical activity. Since water facilitates thermoregulation, you need to take plenty of it to cool your body down after the workouts. Additionally, on hot days, you’d need this thermoregulation to mitigate the effects of heat on your body. Understanding that you lose water during exercise means there is a need to replenish it, and doing so soon after training is highly recommended.
Take Good Rest
While some feel rejuvenated after workouts, others may feel exhausted. Some exercises are so intense that it’d help that you take a power nap to facilitate muscle recovery. During sleep, there is an increased production of somatotropin, a human growth hormone (HGH) that also promotes the growth and repair of damaged tissue. Your muscles need this hormone for development. And where your physical regimen is very intense, a rest interval of about 24 to 48 hours from your last workout day is recommended. What does that mean? It means that when the exercises are intense, you should avoid working out for two consecutive days as a measure to enhance muscle recovery.
Improve Your Protein Intake
Proteins are the building blocks of the human cell. If you exercise to the extent that you feel fatigued, the muscle cells get destroyed. You’d need to work on a plan for recovering, and ingesting an increased amount of protein is your best bet. Protein will boost muscle cell repair. The beauty of it is that the amount of protein required in a diet to attain satiety is less than the amount of carb or ketogenic foods you need. Taking more proteins is, therefore, a simple way of combating excessive calorie consumption.
Finally, take gentle stretches to relax your muscles. Since your body heats up tremendously during workouts, moderate stretches a great way to relax your body.
