Recovery-is-the-key

Warm up, cool down, and recover!

We all know we need to warm up. We all know we need to cool down. Do we all know how to recover?

I have said this before, recovery is the key to athletic excellence. It matters from day to day, set to set, and second to second.

Warming the body up is well established. Elevated body temperature is a medium to better performances. Muscles perform better at optimal temperatures. Too hot; shut down (down-regulation). Too cool; injuries.

Cooling the body down is still not a well-accepted practice. We all know at this point, at least I hope, that cooling down returns the body to homeostasis. Recent studies show that those actively cooling musculatures perform better. Muscles shut down at a certain temperature. If we cool the working muscles at the correct time we continue to perform. Ask any endurance athlete.

Cooling muscles down has been shown to have a better return than anabolic steroids when a threshold temperature was reached. Check out the link below:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/august/cooling-glove-research-082912.html

If I over-work any muscle I need to cool it down and recover.  Many continue to warm sore muscles. Why? We warm up to perform. We cool down to recover. Why would I warm a sore muscle?

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