Recovery from Exercise
After rigorous exercise, understanding the difference between active recovery and passive recovery goes a long way indeed to getting in sync with your body. This article shines the light on the difference between active recovery and passive recovery so you can understand why both are rather important.
Active Recovery refers to cooling down post-workout whether it’s running or swimming, any other type of strenuous activity. On the other hand, passive recovery is stopping completely, stretching and consequently doing nothing again until you begin your next exercise routine in a few days. Knowing the proper recovery techniques is almost as important as the exercise itself.
Research has suggested that stopping quickly and stretching, then going home may not be the best thing for your body as far as post-workout recovery is concerned. The outcomes shows that slowing your pace down at the end of your workout such as walking around for several minutes after an intense run may be much better for your body. Therefore, if you do some knee lifts or kicks with your legs after your workout, it actually assists your body to recover better and more effectively than mere rest after a run or intense exercise regimen.
It obviously makes perfect sense, if you think about it, your body is already tasked with so many activities day in day out. As a result, after an intense workout, lying around, sitting or standing around will do little to keep the blood nicely flowing through your body. As you are engaged in rigorous exercise, blood pumps and powerfully flows through your body as rapidly as it can through your muscles. Therefore, if you stop dead completely, that blood will pool in the muscles and not flush through and transport the nutrients required to boost muscle recovery. There’s no need to exert even more pressure on your body.
Delving even deeper, you will find that active recovery helps transport negative by products away from the muscles including the lactate acid that have developed in the muscle during your strenuous workout or run. Accordingly, the presence of this lactate in the muscles makes them feel heavy. Some of you may identify with the lead feeling you get in you legs after a long run. Consequently, the muscle soreness and stiffness may still persist the following day. The best way to eliminate the Lactate is to keep your body moving until you have winded down completely. Doing cool down exercises and light stretches will make your body feel much better. You should also drink plenty of fluids after any rigorous run or workout.
Incorporate active recovery into your overall routine. The important part to grasp is to keep your body in motion. Continue your movement after a long run, don’t stop cold turkey. The idea of exercising is to stay healthy for yourself and your family, therefore avoid doing things that might impact your body negatively. Consider making your long run half a kilometre longer so you can walk or slowly jog at the back end. Your body will be better for it in the short and long run no pun intended.