I did a little survey this week and got this question:
How do I keep the soreness after a workout to a minimum? After I work out it takes me days to recover.
It’s true, I notice that as I get older, my recovery time is a little longer. Aches and pains force me to train smarter and have made me think hard about what to do between workouts.
The smarter I am between my workouts, the better I feel, the less tight I am, the faster I recover, the harder I can go in my next workout and the better results that I get.
Makes sense right?
While I’d love to have a weekly massage to aid recovery, it’s not always possible with limited time and funds so I make sure I do some active recovery tricks in between my hard training sessions.
These recovery tricks are from my good friend, Rick Kaselj. These tricks only take me a few minutes but they lead to so many benefits which include faster recover, less soreness and injury avoidance.
You’ll see a video on a few of the tricks I do here:
I like using a foam roller. In the video, you’ll see that I use the roller on my hamstrings and especially my IT bands. Often time knee pain can be caused by a patella that isn’t tracking properly, so I always try to roll out my IT bands and I’ve noticed my knees feel much better.
If I’m traveling, I may not want to take my roller with me. In this case, I often will use a tennis ball (or hard ball of any sort will work). In the video, you’ll see that I use the ball on my elbows, but I also use it for my middle back or anywhere that I may have an ache or pain.
The bottoms of my feet get very sore (sometimes it’s my own fault for not wearing proper shoes when I jump rope). I often will get a cold can of soda and roll my foot over it to loosen up the fascia on the bottom of my foot.
Check out a few of the recovery tricks that I do here.
You’d be surprised at all the various ways you can help yourself recover from workouts. I like to roll right after my workout; I even have a roller in my bedroom and will roll a little before bed.
If I had a hot tub, I’d do some of these recovery tricks after soaking. A hot bath works just as well. It’s a brilliant way to loosen the muscles up before doing some rolling and other recovery tricks before bed. This allows me to sleep better, recover faster and hit my workouts harder.
If you’d like to learn some of the many recovery tricks I’ve learned, then you need to check out this program from Rick Kaselj. He has dozens of recovery tips and tricks laid out easily, with video demonstrations and easy to follow directions here.
Everyone gets sore from time to time and having some techniques to ‘recover’ from muscle soreness is key.
It’s not like the ‘olden’ days where doctors just told you to ‘rest’ for six weeks, or six months or six years…While rest can be helpful when you’re feeling an ache or pain, it does little to SPEED up the recovery time.
One key of these techniques is that through active massage, it forces blood into a sore area which helps the body heal as it sweeps out the bad stuff 😉
If you’re curious as to how you can recover faster and perform better, make sure you check out this page…I know you’ll like the format and step by step instructions that literally make your aches and pains disappear and your exercise performance improve.