Sports-related recovery

This last week, we played our annual Holiday Turkey Bowl with both sides of our family. Mind you, most of us hadn't played flag football since last year — except for a few who play college intramurals — so you can only imagine how over the next few days, I heard some interesting comments from all the family members. One in particular was, "I can't believe how sore my legs are from playing flag football, when I do all kinds of other sports throughout the year?"

I can certainly understand their frustration. Getting sore from a game of flag ball doesn't seem plausible at such a young age. But think of this: It was only 22 degrees at 11 a.m., the ground was frozen and covered in frost, and we were wearing cleats that were dumped out of a cold box that hadn't been worn since last year. As you can imagine, there was a significant amount of slipping and sliding around. There were some tackles (a no-no in flag football) and some piles of people that ran into each other over and over again. All in all, however, it was great fun, and considering my professor father-in-law ran a huge intramural program at a University for 40 years, he considered it a success simply because we were all out there together celebrating with family and friends

The thing is that sport-specific activities that you only play once a year are an easy way to sustain an injury. You see the mind says you can do it, but it is always a little questionable. Can the body really deliver like it used too?

Sport-related activity recovery is a challenging thing. The habits we lay down run deep grooves in the brain and the brain likes habits. It likes consistency and the rhythm of behavior, even when it comes to physical activity. Usually recovery from a specific training pattern or a sport-specific activity takes 24-48 hours. That means the muscles that have been torn down will need that time to rebuild. But does that mean you don't do any other exercise for that period of time also?

The act of recovery is often just as hard as your workout, depending on your current level of fitness, so here are some tips to help you speed up your recovery time.

1. Nutrition: Often our recovery is directly affected by our water and food intake before the activity and of course after the activity. If you were dehydrated because you overindulged the night before or didn't eat dinner or breakfast before your activity, it can directly affect your level of recovery the next day. Many times people will bonk while playing or training. They will feel heavy in their legs or arms, and they often get cranky in their mood. This means their body ran out of the necessary glycogen stores for their activity level. Good food is essential when you are training and playing sports. A balance of fruits and vegetables, proteins and fats, and even carbohydrates are necessary in restoration of good musculoskeletal function.

2. Sleep: Our recovery is directly affected by our sleep patterns. The body heals when we are sleeping. It needs eight hours a night for optimal repair. Don't try to cheat your body on this. My younger athletes often need even more than eight hours when they are training at such high levels.

3. Stretching: After the sport or training is done, a gentle stretching regime will benefit the body in its recovery time. Even if it's done the next day, it will assist in increasing tissue mobility and pushing excess fluid out of the tissue. Yoga is a great tool to aid in faster recovery times.

4. Planning your workouts: Knowing how to schedule your workouts is key to preventing injury and aiding in recovery. If you have a hard workout day, then it needs to be followed by an alternate day of easier training or opposite muscle patterns. To build endurance in muscles, you have to slowly add on with your time frames, and you have to learn to listen to your body when it needs to rest. Cross-training is beneficial in this case, but you still have to remember not to overdo it, and this takes you listening to what your body saying. If you have trained the day before doing squats, lunge twists,box jumps and plyometrics for an hour and a half, then the next day you need to bike or swim instead. That is what scheduling your workouts is about, giving those involved muscles a chance to rebalance themselves. If you don't, you will tear down the muscles and they will struggle to rebuild.

5. Mental health: After a workout, some deep breathing and calming meditation is helpful in restoring body health. Even five minutes of restorative work in this way is beneficial. Try the free app called Mindshift and use the tools for relaxation and breathing techniques at the end of your workout. It will make a difference in boosting your lymph flow and transporting any excess fluid out of the system. The body can heal faster when there is no edema.

6. Fun recovery tools: The use of massage balls, ice packs, foam rollers, kinesiotex tape (to decrease edema and assist muscle function) and compression sleeves, shorts and tops all help to decrease recovery time and improve muscle health.

Recovery is an important part of being well, it is just as important as the training itself. Overtraining can create all kinds of issues, such as tendinitis, cartilage breakdown and stress fractures. If you have a hard time listening to your body and are not sure if you are recovering correctly from your activities, come see a physical therapist, they can guide you as you move forward to your optimal level of health.

Sheree DiBiase, PT, is the owner of Lake City Physical Therapy, and she and her staff can be reached in their Coeur d'Alene office at (208) 667-1988, and in their Spokane Valley office at (509) 891-2623. We can help you fully recover and learn to listen to your body.