Hard Workout? Here's What You Need to Recover

When you’ve had a tough workout, you might be feeling sore and stiff for days after.  While many people associate muscle soreness (known as Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness) with the sign of a good workout, exercise does not need to be painful to be effective, and when soreness lasts for several days it prevents you from further training.

That said, you may find that there are times when you have pushed yourself a bit too hard, or have challenged new muscle groups. Finding the best ways to recover after a hard workout will help you to reduce muscle soreness and get yourself ready for your upcoming workouts in a reasonable amount of time. This will help to improve your overall progress and exercise performance.

So, how can you maximize your recovery? The two most important things are sleep and nutrition.

During sleep, your body repairs and restores itself. If you aren’t getting enough sleep each night, your body will take much longer to repair the muscle damage that has been elicited from your exercise sessions.

Similarly, your body is going to struggle with this restoration process if you aren’t feeding it nutritious foods, or enough food in general. If you want to grow new muscle, nutrition is extremely important too.

Focusing on getting enough high-quality sleep each night and eating a well-balanced diet that is full of good nutrients will help you to recover quickly after a hard workout and energize you for your upcoming workouts.