Recovery From Training & Competition

Reaching performance goals takes time and a great deal of patience. For serious athletes, performance as a goal, often gets unknowingly compromised, when the athlete does not pay enough attention to the recovery process his/her body needs in order to continue to perform. Athletes are training at higher levels, year-round and often pushing their bodies to the point where the activity itself becomes dangerous and counterproductive.

Athletes needs to remain healthy in order to train for performance and competition. In the last few years, we have learned a great deal about how the body responds to dehydration, poor nutrition, and lack of proper attention to recovery needs. Understanding these issues are as important as knowing how to train and compete.

Muscle performance and recovery requires careful attention to energy replacement during and after performance, minimizing and repairing exercise-induced muscle damage and paying attention to signs of over-training.

There are four basic rules you need to follow for the most complete recovery from training, practice sessions and competition. They include:

  1. Restoring fluids and important minerals to recover from dehydration.
  2. Replenishing glycogen, the body's primary energy source.
  3. Reduction of muscle and immune-system damage resulting from the physical stress of exercise.
  4. Rebuilding muscle protein, which you need to maintain your muscle structure and function.

Please visit or nutrition for recovery page for a more specific description.

There are three phases of recovery, each one requiring specific actions to help you fully recover. They are:

The First Phase - This phase is the 30 minutes following your activity. During this phase your body's metabolism begins to slow down and return to normal. This includes the heart, respiratory system, and temperature; Cortisol and testosterone, which are elevated during activity, begin to decrease; muscles begin to put back creatine phosphate (CP) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP); and, excess lactic acid begins to enter the bloodstream and is circulated to the liver to be converted back to glycogen.

The Second Phase - This phase includes the next 1.5 - 2 hours following activity. During this time your body needs to begin to be rehydrated; the body begins to need replenishment of muscle glycogen; and insulin transports glycogen from the blood to muscle cells. The increase in insulin is critical in this stage of recovery.

The All-Day Phase - this part includes the next 2-24 hours following activity or the rest of your whole day. During this part of recovery, your body needs to put back carbohydrates and protein at the rate of four parts carbohydrate to one part protein; muscle repair continues, and you need to relax and rest.

If you pay careful attention to the things you need to do within each of the above phases, you will enhance your optimal recovery and you will fully recover from strenuous activity or competition. To accomplish this goal, you will have to focus on your nutritional needs as well as non-nutritional approaches to recovery more than you probably have in the past.


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