Whether you are getting back into sport or are already a regular athlete, it is important to keep in mind that muscle recovery is a major issue. While it is obvious for many athletes to have the right reflexes during exercise, the post-exercise part is often neglected. Here are our best tips to optimize your muscle recovery after exercise, in order to suffer less from muscle aches.
A stretching session
An age-old technique that supposedly is enough to avoid muscle soreness, or at least limit it. This is far from true, but stretching can be beneficial in several areas. Whether you do it daily, before, during or after exercise, a stretching session:
- Promotes joint flexibility: Taking care of your joints is important in sports and outside of them. A well-done stretching session will help you promote range of motion and get the muscle used to contracting and relaxing. Good joint flexibility would also prevent joint wear and reduce the risk of osteoarthritis.
- Promotes muscle flexibility: A more flexible muscle is beneficial in every way. A flexible muscle is a more powerful and athletic muscle. A muscle is like a rubber band, the more you pull on it, the greater the resistance force and its impact force. Be careful, however, not to overdo it, at the risk of tearing the muscles.
- Helps reduce the risk of injury: making muscles more flexible allows for a better range of motion and therefore reduces muscle stretching that could be responsible for more or less serious injuries. Working on muscle flexibility, through stretching sessions, therefore helps avoid going to the point of muscle rupture and avoid injuries.
Optimizing your muscle recovery
First, you need to understand how muscles work. During any physical activity, muscles are damaged by the effort produced. Your muscles can suffer from:
- Small effusions of blood, caused by rupture of blood capillaries.
- Micro-traumas that cause small lesions in muscle cells.
- Acidosis caused by increased H+ ions.
Luckily for us, muscles repair and regenerate themselves. To do this, they need sufficient protein and carbohydrates .
- Carbohydrates to replenish stocks emptied by the effort you have previously produced.
- THE proteins to help muscles repair, regenerate and strengthen.
MX3 has developed sports nutrition supplements that promote optimal muscle recovery. They provide proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals that help the body function properly.
- Sport Drink Recup: a post-exercise recovery drink with 63% carbohydrates, 26% proteins, a vitamin complex with vitamins B1, B2, B6 and C, minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium.
- High Protein Recup: high protein supplement, based mainly on protein intake at 84%, with minerals: calcium, potassium and phosphorus.
In conclusion, to promote good muscle recovery, it is important to educate your muscles by making them more flexible in order to avoid injuries. It is also interesting to opt for sports nutrition products rich in proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. To be taken as soon as the effort is over or up to 2 hours after the activity.
