Feeling a little sore or tired after training? Follow these 4 steps and improve your recovery.
T-Bone's top 5 tips for Preparation & Recovery:
- Hydration is Key!
- Make sure you eat the right foods in the hours leading up to training
- Commit to a complete warm up
- Refuel with the correct energy immediately after training
- Rest your body in the right way
Preparation for Training
Preparing your body for training will determine how you feel after training. You can do some basic things during the day to ensure that your body is ready for the vigours of training. The most important thing is WHAT YOU EAT. During training (2 hours) you will burn a lot of energy and won't be refuelling during this time. So, it is important to fuel your body with enough energy to get you through training and keep you going. How do you get your body ready? This is 3 part thing.
1 - Hydration: The human body will lose its hydration through sweating during exercise. It is extremely important to continually hydrate during training but equally as important to hydrate before training. You should be drinking a minimum of 1 litre of water throughout the day. Trying to hydrate on your way to training is probably leaving it too late, consistently drinking water through out the day and having a sugary drink about 1-1.5 hours will have you in the best position to feel fully hydrated for training.
2 - Nutrition: Nutrition refers to everything we put in our mouths in order to help us function. If you feel sluggish or energised it could be what you are eating! Obviously, footy training is pretty intense and involves a lot of energy (especially over 2 hours) so it is extremely important to make sure you have enough energy in your body to get through training. The most important thing is what type of food you are eating. We all can't have a personal chef catering for us day to day but a few simple choices at lunch time and afternoon tea can really help get your energy up in a healthy way. The way the body gets it's energy is through carbohydrates (carbs). Contrary to what Cosmo mag may want you to believe carbs are actually good for you, it is just how many and what type that can effect your energy and appearance. The difference can be broken down to a really simple choice, High GI or Low GI. What's the difference? High GI will give you energy 20-30 minutes after eating and the burn out quickly leaving you lethargic and without energy (eg. a Macca's cheese burger) where as Low GI gives a longer, sustained release of energy keeping your energy levels up over a longer period. It is Low GI foods that you want to eat for lunch and afternoon tea as this will give you energy throughout training. This isn't to say that High GI foods shouldn't be eaten, there is just a time and place for that. In the 60-90 minutes before training it doesn't hurt to give yourself an energy boost - this can fall in with your hydration eg. a Powerade or Orange Juice, or a small amount of chocolate or a banana.
More hydration and nutrition tips below.
3 - Warm up: at MUAFC we do a comprehensive warm up to ready our bodies for training. This includes jogging, running and sprinting as well as static and dynamic (moving) stretching. While a lot of the warm up might seem strange or pointless, the exercises under taken are ensuring your body is ready. This is why coaches will tell you to get in at least a lap before joining the main group if you are late!
Active Rest/Recovery
Active rest refers to active recovery activities that assist you in preparing yourself for another training session or game. These go hand in hand with Passive Rest in ensuring your body makes a full recovery (or as close to) between sessions. While training your muscles will gain lactate (lactic acid - aka the "deep burn") and will lose glycogen (what allows your muscles to have strength and do what they do). Bringing your heart rate down after training is the first step in recovery and is usually achieved during the warm down. If you still feel a bit pumped up, try some slow walking and controlled breathing (in through the nose and out through the mouth) to bring your heart rate back to a resting level under 80bpm. Lactate build up take a little longer to alleviate and can take between 30-60 minutes with active rest or 60-120 minutes with passive rest. Glycogen replenishment is the longest of the recoveries for your muscles and can take up to 48 hours. Here are some ways to get yourself feeling better, quicker. Everything below is light exercise, your heart rate should not raise what it would if you were to go for a walk.
1 - Walking - will help with soreness and glycogen replenishment by providing slightly increased blood flow and use of the muscles
2 - Cycling - a light spin on the wheels is amazing for sore legs and can be done in the gym for 15-20 minutes on a light gear. Don't get all Tour de France and try and climb big hills, you will only hurt your muscles more.
3 - Swimming - either a slow easy swim or walking in the water can speed up recovery. AFL Teams use water recover like this after every game as it brings soreness levels down quickly and also repairs muscle as it is weightless recovery.
Passive Rest
Passive Rest is considered the easiest rest - just go to bed right? Well yes, but some people struggle to sleep or rest properly. Here are some helpful hints to ensure your passive rest is effective.
Winding down before sleeping is important. Listen to relaxing music or meditate (clear your mind). Don't lay down to sleep until you are ready to sleep. Rest is also important if you are training outside of footy. You need to rest at least one day per week. Just have the day off and go for a walk, it will help you recover and have you mentally ready to smash it out at training.
Recovery Nutrition and Hydration
After using so much energy during training you will need a quick replenishment. You should eat within an hour of exercising and refuel your body. A good mix of carbs and protein is important as the carbs refuel your body and the protein starts repairing your muscles. It is important to not over do it on the protein though as this will make it harder to sleep and will slow down your recovery.
The basic rule of thumb is 15-25g of good protein and 1.2g of carbs per kg you weigh in the hour after training. It is also important to rehydrate, and this should be done at approximately 120-150% of the estimate fluid loss during your session in the 4-6 hours after you train. Eg. a hard session you may sweat out 700ml and would therefore try and drink 900-1200ml of fluid. Given that our sessions can often finish a couple of hours before bed it is important to at least replace what you lost, eg. half a powerade and a glass of water.
A great way to start recovery on a Thursday is the club dinner - full of carbs and protein and coupled with water or powerade will stand you in good stead for the weekend.
Part 2 coming next week with a quick food guide to help with your Nutrition and Hydration.
Last Modified on 09/02/2012 10:02