If you want to make the most of your workout routine, you need to recover fully after each trip to the gym and on your dedicated rest days. But a lot of people trying to build muscle end up taxing their bodies too hard or don’t fully recover in between workout days. Today, we’ll break down five ways you can improve your workout recovery so you can see better performance.
Hydrate with Electrolytes
For starters, make sure that you regularly hydrate and that you consume plenty of electrolytes. Electrolytes are vital minerals that your body’s nervous and muscle systems need for proper functioning. Without enough electrolytes, you could experience muscle spasms, soreness, and even long-term fatigue.
Unfortunately, your body depletes electrolytes as it sweats. It’s very easy to lose too many electrolytes without knowing it. Therefore, you need to replenish those electrolytes after a workout and after you enjoy a session in your infrared sauna.
While drinks like Gatorade can be great for quickly rehydrating on a hot day during a sports game, they also have lots of sugar. For better results, drink water and electrolyte packets or electrolyte supplements. This will ensure you are properly hydrated during and after your workout and that you don’t consume too much sugar, which can lead to cardiovascular problems.
Use an Infrared Sauna After a Workout
It’s also a good idea to use an infrared sauna after each workout session. Infrared saunas are superior to traditional saunas, because they use infrared radiation to quickly and safely warm the deeper tissues of your body.
Infrared saunas can be a great way to improve your workout recovery, because they:
- Improve blood circulation, allowing nutrient-rich blood to reach your muscles, which facilitates faster regeneration
- Open the pores of your skin and detoxify your tissues by sweating out harmful compounds
- Alleviate muscle soreness by warming up your muscles and preventing them from becoming as inflamed
Infrared saunas don’t only warm up the surface tissues of your skin—the infrared radiation quickly penetrates the muscle fibers of your body. All told, an infrared sauna can significantly improve your after-workout recovery period, stalling or even eliminate delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
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Eat a Post-Workout Snack
A post-workout snack is not only a good way to make sure you have enough energy after your workout to stay active for the rest of the day. It’s also a good way to give your body the vitamins and compounds it needs to build muscle tissue.
Specifically, eat a snack that contains carbohydrates and protein. Carbohydrates give your body quick energy and protein is necessary so your muscles can build new tissues in the tears you create with each workout session.
Move Around on Rest Days
You’re supposed to avoid working out on your rest days. Indeed, rest days are vital to ensure fast muscle building by giving your muscles time to build tissue without straining even harder. However, you should practice active recovery by taking a brisk walk and remaining at least moderately mobile on your rest days. If you remain still or sitting down all day, you could experience DOMS.
What if you feel sore? In that case, try another infrared sauna session or apply an ice pack to any affected muscles. It’s better to stay moving even if it feels a bit uncomfortable than it is to be a slug on your rest days.
Get Enough Sleep
Lastly, be sure to get enough sleep both after your workouts and on the evenings of your rest days. Sleep is when your body creates most of its growth hormone (GH): a vital component for tissue growth and repair. Without enough growth hormone, your body won’t be able to regenerate muscle tissue, nor will it be able to build new muscle tissue atop your existing muscle fibers. In this way, sleep is vital if you want to bulk up quickly.
Furthermore, you need to get enough sleep so you have the energy to go back to the gym the next day. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll feel exhausted every day and you won’t be able to complete your workout sets as efficiently as before.
Clearlight® Infrared Saunas
All in all, these efforts can go a long way to improve your workout recovery time and minimize the inflammation or soreness you might experience after an intense workout session. Try out each or all of the methods above and see which of them provides the best results for your workout experience!
Clearlight® Infrared Saunas are the best infrared saunas on the market today. Explore the many fantastic models available for sale here at The Sauna Life, and contact us today to request a quote.