The what's and hows of recovery
Yay you reached to finish line! Congratulations! Now it’s time to start your recovery. And no, that doesn’t exactly mean turning yourself into a couch potato. You want to know what it does mean? Then I got you covered in this blog post.
The 3 R’s
Have you ever heard about the 3 R’s of recovery? The chances are low, because for some reason, people don’t often talk about this part of training.
So let me explain it to you.
Refuel, Rebuild, Rehydrate. Now you know all of them, lets dive a little bit deeper into every single one.
Refuel
And this is one you are gonna like, trust me 😉
After a workout, and especially a long one, it is super important to refuel your glycogeen storages with carbohydrates. Yes, you heard that right. Lets get that pasta party started!
There’s only one small but to it… research has shown that your body is more susceptible to absorbing carbohydrates the first 30 minutes after your workout (around 300% increase in glycogen) and that this reduces significantly by the hour (4h later this is ‘only’ a 135% increase).
Rebuild
And by this is meant: focus on your proteins. They are needed to repair the damage that you did to your muscles during your workout.
However, it’s not that the more protein you eat, the faster you will recover. No. Our body can only absorb between 25-35g of proteins every 3 hours. So try to eat a portion that contains this amount of protein and do this every 3 hours to maximise the repair to your muscles. (If you want to know more about this, you can download my nutrition guide about it, this is the dutch version)
Rehydrate
But no alcohol yet…
Just simple, plain water. Or water with elecotrlyte tablets, if you have been sweating a lot during your training.
The purpose of re-hydrating is that you are going to regulate your body temperate, blood pressure and the transport of energy and nutrients throughout your body.
If you experience a lot of cramping, the reason behind this is most likely that you didn’t rehydrate enough after your workout and that your body hasn’t been able to get rid of all the ‘waste’ that is still in your muscles.
Bonus R: REST
Once you have gone through all those previous steps, it’s finally time to become a couch potato and to take your well-deserved siesta. You deserved it 🙂
And this also applies to the next day(s). If you just finished a really tough/ long race, make sure you take enough rest before you start with training again. I know it feels very tempting to already put on your running shoes the next day, but your body will be grateful to you if you just wait a few days AND you are more likely to make progress instead of tearing down your body.
Been there, done that and I don’t want you to make the same mistake.
