When you exercise, you’re training. It might be that you’re trying to push the body past what you’ve known it can do before. You might be trying to maintain a level of fitness. In any instance, you need to make sure that you’ve taken the right amount of time for rest and recovery. It’s a very important part of exercise, but a lot of people don’t seem to grasp the true importance of it. To try and make sure that people are fully aware of the importance of rest and recovery, we’re going to look into it now.
Rest And Recovery – What Happens?
Before we begin, it is important to understand that there are two different types of recovery. These are known as short-term recovery and long-term recovery, and they both play a role in the healing process.
Short-term recovery is the time immediately after you’ve been exercising, and is often known as a cooldown period. It’s often known as active recovery because it involves doing low-intensity exercise for the first few hours. This could be going for a walk or pottering around your house. This part of recovery has a wealth of benefits attached to it. It replenishes the energy stores of the body and often requires input from you. When you eat and drink after exercise, you’re replacing fluids lost during the workout you’ve done. You’re also repairing and rejuvenating muscles, as well as optimising the amount of protein that you’re ingesting into the system. As you may know, protein is a very important part of the body, and it will aid in the recovery process. Short-term recovery also makes sure that the negative chemicals which have built up during exercise are allowed to dissipate and leave your system.
Long-term recovery is something a bit different, but it’s just as important for rest and recovery. Long-term involves things like recovery days, where you don’t exercise at all. It also refers to making sure that you’re not overtaxing one part of your body, and that sometimes involves swapping out one exercise for another, such as not doing a run and then lifting weights. A lot of long-term recoveries is making sure that you give yourself adequate time in between exercising to avoid injury.
Overall, there’s a real importance to rest and recovery. We’re not superhumans. We all need time to rest and recuperate in between exercises because the body can only handle so much pressure. It’s important to remember that when you’re going about your daily routine because you don’t want to push yourself too far. Taking the time just to chill out and cool down when you’ve been exercising will help to keep your body in good condition. It’s when we push ourselves too far that we damage the body, stopping you from exercising for a good few days afterwards. You need the time to recover. Otherwise, you won’t be able to enjoy a rich and full workout.
