“Active recovery” after exercises is to improve performance – but does it really work?

Imagine you have just finished training. Your legs are like jelly, your lungs are burning and you just want to fall on the couch.

But instead you get up and go for an energetic walk.

Although this may seem contrary to intuition, performing slight activity after intensive training – known as “Active recovery” – suggested to reduce pain and accelerate recovery after exercise.

But does it work or is it another myth of fitness?

What is active recovery?

Active recovery simply describes the performance of some low -intensity physical activity after onerous effort.

This is widely achieved through low -intensity cardio, such as walking or cycling, but it can also consist of low -intensity stretching and even body weight exercises, such as squats and a throw.

The key thing is to make sure that the intensity is light or moderate, without going to “energetic” range.

Basically, if you can have a conversation during exercise, you work in light to moderate intensity.

Some people are considering an easy training session in “Days of rest” for a form of active recovery. However, this was not really examined. So we will focus on a more traditional form of active recovery in this article, where it is performed right after the exercise.

What does active recovery do?

Active recovery helps accelerate wastesuch as Mleczan and Hydrogen, after exercise. These waste products are transferred from muscles to blood before it was broken and used for energy or simply excreted.

It is believed that this is one of the ways in which it promotes recovery.

In some cases, active recovery has been demonstrated Reduce muscle pain on the days after the exercise. This can lead to a faster return for peak performance In some physical capabilities, such as the stroke height.

But active recovery does not seem to reduce Inflammation after exercise. Although it may sound like a bad thing, it is not.

Inflammation after exercise can promote increases strength and efficiency after exercise. And so when it is reduced (say, using Ice baths after exercise) This may lead to smaller training improvements than one could see differently.

This means that active recovery can be regularly used after an effort without risking the benefits of the main exercise session.

There is also opposite evidence

Not all research on active recovery is positive.

A few studies Show that this is not better than just lying on the couch when it comes to reducing muscle pain and improving efficiency after exercise.

In fact it is More research Sugging active recovery has no influence than studies showing that this has an impact.

Although there may be several reasons, two stand out.

First, the way in which active recovery is used in the research it differs how much. There is probably a sweet place in terms of how long active recovery should last to maximize your benefits (more on this subject later).

Secondly, probably the benefits of active recovery are trivial to small ones. Therefore, they will not always be considered “significant” in scientific literature, despite the offer of potentially significant benefits at the individual level. In sports science, research often has small tests, which may make it difficult to see small effects.

But it seems that there are no studies suggesting that active recovery is less effective than doing nothing, so in the worst case it certainly will not cause any damage.

When is active recovery useful?

Active recovery seems useful if you want to do many exercises in no time. For example, if you were in the tournament and had 10-20 minutes between games, fast active recovery would be better than doing nothing.

Active recovery It can also be a useful strategy If you need to perform exercises again within 24 hours after intensive activity.

For example, if you are someone who practices sports and you have to play games on days, performing active recovery with low intensity after each game can help reduce pain and improve performance in the following days.

Similarly, if you train at an event such as a marathon and you have a training session the next day after a particularly long or intensive run, active recovery can be better prepared for the next training session.

And vice versa, if you have just graduated with low to moderate intensity, it is unlikely that active recovery will provide the same benefits. And if you get more than 24 hours of rest between exercise sessions, active recovery is unlikely because it will probably be long enough for your body to be In any case, back back naturally.

How to best use active recovery

The good news is that you don’t have to recover much to see the benefit.

AND Systematic review Looking at the effectiveness of active recovery in 26 studies was found that 6-10 minutes of exercise was a sweet place when it comes to improving recovery.

Interestingly, the intensity of the exercises did not seem to matter. If he was at that time, it had a positive effect.

Therefore, it makes sense to facilitate active recovery (because why would you hinder it if you don’t have to

Do not expect, however, that active recovery will be a complete game changer. Studies suggest that the benefits will probably be small at best.