To get better at a sport or to enhance your personal fitness, you must expose your body to stresses. Different stresses include training and exercise programs like weightlifting, sprinting, endurance and runs. But when we are finished our body needs to repair and recover from the stress we placed on it.  This is why we need recovery.

All our programs have built-in rest days, in order to allow our body to rest repair and build. It is so important to listen to your body and how you are feeling. If you are physically worn out, take a rest.

The whole purpose of recovery in exercise is to allow your muscles to repair. There are different things that you can do during the recovery stage to help move the process along and come out ready to perform better.

Here are some ideas of active recovery to help in repair and rest.

Rest

We are  talking about actual rest, sleep. This is one of the most important ways to get your body to quickly recover from the physical  demands of hard training.

Hydration and food

One of the most important areas of training and recovery is being properly hydrated. And nutrition  is included in this equation. Food helps to restore the body’s energy supply, so try to eat good, healthy options to enhance your performance and recovery.

Remember recovery does not mean no activity it means participating in activities that allow your body the time to repair so perhaps on days off enjoy a walk or hike with your family or a yoga class.