Best Proven Ways to Recover Fast from Workouts and Injuries

Trying to fix an injury without fixing your nutrition is like taking two steps forward and three backwards.  Sugar, gluten, and caffeine can all aggravate inflammation. It's not as clear-cut as it might sound. Since some foods have both inflammation-producing and inflammation-reducing factors.  But here are a few convenient anti-inflammatory foods: pineapples, blue, red, and purple fruits and veggies, ginger, garlic, peppers, onions, salmon, avocado, parsley, and apple cider vinegar.

Multiple studies on endurance athletes suggested that fasted training may more quickly activate muscle protein translation, especially compared with athletes who ate carbohydrates before training. (Van Proeyen, K. 2011. Training in the fasted state facilitates re-activation of eef2 activity during recovery from endurance exercise. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 111(7), 1297-1305).

Curcumin

It's the principal compound in turmeric and is a widely recognized herbal anti-inflammatory that has been proved to be as effective at reducing inflammation as injectable cortisone. 

Magnesium

This mineral is essential for more than 300 reactions -including nerve and cardiac function, muscle contraction and relaxation, protein formation, and synthesis of ATP-based energy.  Several studies have shown magnesium to be effective for buffering lactic acid, enhancing peak oxygen uptake and total work output, reducing heart rate and carbon dioxide production during exercise, and improving cardiovascular efficiency. 

Cryotherapy

This is a recovery method based on cold exposure like cold showers or cold soaks in a bathtub.  The benefits include an enhanced immune system, increased cell longevity, decreased level of inflammatory molecules, and an incredible development of mental toughness. 

Acupuncture

This is one of the oldest healing practices in the world and there are a wealth of research proving that acupuncture has helped in recovery from muscular fatigue, overtraining and adrenal fatigue, management of muscle pain, reduction of stress and anxiety, and many of the common aches and pains experienced by physically active people.

Far-Infrared Light

Exposing the body to infrared light has been shown to raise white blood cell count and enhance immunity, and also to heat tissue and increase blood flow to injured muscles. (Hausswirth, C. 2011. Effects of whole-body cryotherapy vs. far-infrared vs. passive modalities on recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage in highly-trained runners . PLoS ONE, 6(12), e27749).

Sleep

This is a very extensive and complex topic, but to keep it short and simple, basically while we sleep our brain is able to clean up cellular garbage and our body repairs itself.  So aiming for at least 8 hours of quality sleep every 24 hours plus a 20 to 45 minute nap during the day will have a tremendous effect in our mind and body. 

I personally integrate all of them on a regular basis as part of my training protocols with great success in terms of recovery and peak performance.

OYW