Top 10 Tips How To Help Muscle Recovery for 2024

Have you dealt with muscle pain or fatigue that’s affected your workout performance and daily life? If so, you’ve come to the right place because our guide outlines ten tips on how to help muscle recovery that you can leverage today.

The truth is that muscle recovery is a crucial part of fitness, but few people talk about it. Instead, we often prefer to discuss more interesting subjects like the best workouts, progression tips, and effective exercises.

However, not recovering well can keep us from training effectively and getting closer to our athletic goals.

So, without further ado, let’s go over ten muscle recovery tips.

1. Take Control of Your Diet

Your diet is the first thing you must improve in your quest for optimal muscle recovery. The body needs nutrients and energy to kickstart the recovery process and adapt positively to the stress we impose on it.

First, get enough protein because it supplies your body with the building blocks (amino acids) it needs to repair and grow muscle tissue. Good protein sources include meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and protein powder.

Second, eat carbs to replenish lost glycogen (the complex carb form stored in your muscles and liver for energy). Carbs are also necessary for optimising muscle protein synthesis, promoting quicker healing. You can’t go wrong with rice, pasta, fruits, starchy veggies, and oatmeal.

Timing these nutrients is beneficial. It’s best to get some combination of carbs and fats two to three hours before working out. That way, you will have more energy for your sessions and available building blocks to kickstart recovery as quickly as possible.

It’s also good to get some carbs and fats shortly after training, especially if your pre-workout meal is three or more hours before the session. That way, your body has the energy and nutrients it needs immediately.

2. Consider Certain Supplements

Supplements are by no means the first thing to focus on for muscle recovery, but the right products can help. Good supplements can fill in certain gaps and provide an extra boost.

For example, magnesium is a mineral involved in hundreds of metabolic processes, including nerve signalling and protein synthesis. The nutrient also has a calming effect on the nervous system and can promote deeper and more restful sleep, which is crucial for muscle recovery.

Tart cherry juice is another product worth looking into. Its antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds can manage the inflammatory response following a demanding workout, supporting recovery. Tart cherry juice might also help with sleep, further promoting healing.

Next up, we have one of the most popular supplements today: creatine monohydrate. The naturally-occurring substance plays a crucial role in energy production and is often taken by bodybuilders and athletes to improve performance, bone health, and recovery.

3. Prioritise Quality Sleep and Rest

Sleep and recovery are as important as your workouts and nutrition. Lack of sleep pushes the body toward catabolism (tissue breakdown), hinders energy levels, affects motivation to work out, and slows muscle recovery.

Most notably, lack of sleep impairs protein synthesis, affecting the body’s ability to repair and grow muscle.

Fortunately, the fix here is simple: aim for at least seven hours of quality sleep each night. Avoid screens within an hour of going to bed and instead adopt a relaxing routine (meditation, stretching, showering, reading a book, etc.) to calm your mind and make falling asleep easier.

An air purifier can also support sleep. These cool devices clean the air, improve breathing, and can reduce snoring.

Other devices such as SmartGoggles, use vibrations and targeted air pressure to alleviate tension, promote relaxation and get you ready for sleep.

Additionally, consider micro naps to sneak extra sleep when possible. A quick, 20-30 minute nap can help you pay off some of the accumulated sleep debt, offsetting the adverse effects of deprivation.

4. Leverage Active Recovery Tactics

Rest days don’t necessarily mean being idle, as active recovery tactics can actually promote healing, allowing you to handle more demanding training.

The idea is that engaging in less challenging activities can promote blood flow, allowing more oxygen and nutrients to enter the muscles you’ve trained. Doing so would aid the recovery process and possibly even reduce muscle soreness.

Active recovery can also provide a psychological break from all the hard training you do every week. Knowing that not every workout needs to be challenging can be a great way to stay motivated and continue chasing your goals.

Good active recovery tactics include walking, light jogging, cycling, yoga, swimming, and some less challenging bodyweight exercises.

Focus on moving your body but not to the point where you experience muscle fatigue. The goal is light movement, not progressive overload.

5. Go For Massages or Use a Foam Roller

Massages can be fantastic recovery tools because they improve blood flow, promoting healing and easing muscle soreness. The problem is that going for a massage every week can get expensive. Luckily, some alternatives could work quite well.

First, we have foam rolling––a form of self-myofascial release. The objective is to place foam roller on the floor and get on top. Roll out different body parts (the thighs, buttocks, hips, back, etc.) to release muscle knots and promote blood flow.

Second, we have massage guns, which can be equally as effective. These offer more targeted treatment and don’t require as much physical effort. You can also adjust the intensity of the massage to fit your needs and tolerance for discomfort.

6. Use Compression to Promote Healing

Compression is another effective way to promote muscle recovery. Applying pressure to different body parts can encourage blood flow and possibly limit inflammation.

Examples of compression garments include socks, legging, and arm sleeves. Some trainees and athletes even choose to wear these during workouts and competitions.

Compression boots are also an option. Similar to massage guns and how they compare to foam rollers, such boots offer more targeted treatment because the user can regulate the compression.

Still, it’s best to start with less compression and gradually ramp up the intensity as you get used to the sensation.

7. Consider Ice Baths or Contrast Therapy

Ice baths and contrast therapy are two recovery tactics that have been gaining popularity, especially among bodybuilders and professional athletes.

While temperature extremes (particularly of the cold variety) might not be everyone’s cup of tea, subjecting your body to such stressors can promote healing.

The idea behind ice baths is to submerge your body into cold water following a workout. The cold water slows down metabolic activity and causes blood vessels to constrict. These things can reduce inflammation and swelling, helping trainees cool down after demanding sessions.

Contrast therapy is similar but with a twist. The goal is to combine ice baths with hot environments, such as a warm bath or sauna. Doing so forces blood vessels to relax and constrict repeatedly, potentially improving blood circulation and metabolic waste removal.

8. Use a Sauna

Sitting in a sauna might not seem like the most beneficial way to recover muscles after a workout, but it could help. Heat promotes the dilation of blood vessels, which can improve circulation.

Improved blood flow would allow more oxygen, nutrients, and antioxidants to travel to the damaged muscles, promoting repair and helping replenish lost glycogen more efficiently.

In the same way, improved circulation would allow the body to flush out metabolic by-products that promote inflammation more quickly.

On top of these benefits, heat exposure could reduce muscle soreness and promote better sleep, leading to quicker recovery.

With that said, remember to hydrate well before your sauna sessions and replenish lost fluids afterward. While beneficial, heat can lead to fluid loss and dehydration, which is not good for recovery.

9. Don’t Forget About Stress And Certain Lifestyle Factors

Some stress is normal, but too much can affect muscle recovery. One reason for that is chronic stress increases levels of cortisol.

The hormone is vital for our health, but chronic elevations can hinder protein synthesis and encourage the body to break down lean tissue for energy, promoting a catabolic state.

Too much stress can also affect sleep, which, as discussed above, is crucial for recovery. The more stressed you feel, the more difficult it is to fall asleep and get the rest you need at night.

Some good ways to manage stress include:

• Meditate daily
• Practice deep breathing
• Get a hobby
• Spend time with friends and family

10. Finally, Listen to Your Body

The final talking point on what supports muscle recovery leans more toward the intuitive side of things. Your body is excellent at telling you when something’s wrong––learn to listen to it.

Does your training feel too demanding and unsustainable? Reduce the intensity to a degree and see if that helps. Alternatively, take a few days off working out or reduce your volume and intensity by 50 percent if you haven’t taken a break in over eight weeks.

The more you learn to listen to your body, the less likely you will be to overtrain or struggle with muscle recovery and soreness.

Final Words

There you have it:

Ten tips on how to recover muscles quickly following a demanding training session. Each of these can work well on its own, but the true magic happens when you combine several of these tactics into one.

We hope you’ve gotten a few good ideas to get started. Which tactic are you ready to implement first?

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Explore our range of recovery products including ice baths, saunas, braces and supports, compression therapy, massage therapy or sleep recovery tools. 

Author bio:

  
Philip Stefanov is a certified personal trainer and conditioning coach with over 8 years of experience coaching people to reach their goals. Philip is also an avid fitness blogger and the founder of ThinkingLifter.com, where he covers various topics, including strength training, muscle gain, nutrition, mindset, and building better habits.

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