Post Workout Recovery Recuperation Tips
Success as a bodybuilder requires a proactive plan that can be effectively executed with consistency. Building muscle is not only about training with high intensity when you get to the gym, rest and recuperation are the foundation for building any muscle.
Training too frequently will damage any chance of muscle growth called over-reaching or under-recovery. To continue training when over-training has been reached creates a range of problems including radical chemical changes in your body and also psychological problems.
Many of the top strength coaches advise their students to take a full week break when they change routines every 6 to 8 weeks by reducing the weight lifted as well as the reps. DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is not a good way to measure the success of your workout, 48 hours later.
Increased stiffness or tenderness together with a reduced ROM (range of motion) will be felt along with DOMS, so it is not recommended that you attempt to compensate for this weakness prematurely as it will only lead to injury and the necessity for rehabilitation and lost training time.
Included in the foundation that allows your body to build muscle is sleep for 8 hours, required by most athletes. Studies show conclusively that lack of sleep reducers physical tolerance along with mood swings but more importantly lack of sleep will cause a testosterone production.
Hormonal secretion is maximized when sleeping which is the anabolic time for your muscles, without which you are catabolic which means losing any potential gains you could make from all your hard training. Disrupted or lack of sleep directly affects the way we repair muscle.
Another important foundation on which muscles are built is hydration. Studies clearly show that dehydration will directly affect performance potential and delay recovery. When we train we speed up metabolism and this requires water, sports science tell us that we need a minimum fluid intake of 3.7L/day in males and 2.7L/day in females just to survive exercise.
The last and just as important as the foundations listed above is nutrition, the food you eat has to be able to feed your body the required enzymes, electrolytes and hormones when needed. It will depend on how many times a week you train but usually range from 1.0 grams to 1.6 grams protein/kg required to re-build damaged muscle tissue.
The most important meal of the day is your post-workout meal/shake. Sports science tells us that for 90 minutes after a workout your body absorbs carbohydrates and proteins at a much higher rate. It also shows that muscle repair and/or recovery is faster for at least an hour post-workout.
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