Five Things You Should do After a Tough Workout

 

 

A tough workout can improve health and build strong muscles and bones. These types of workouts also take a toll on the body in the hours afterward. People can experience pain, swelling and even cramps afterwards. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent these negative effects. Five things should be done in the hours after a tough workout.

 

Stretch and Move

One of the first things to do is stretch and move gently. Stretching allows the body and the muscles to readjust to normal activity levels. Instantly moving into a state of rest can actually jar the muscles and increase soreness. Five to ten minutes of simple stretching followed by five to ten minutes of light activity like walking will reduce soreness and inflammation.

 

Eat and Drink Water

The muscles are damaged during a tough workout. The body needs nutrients like glycol in order to repair this damage and build new muscle tissue. It is important to eat a meal containing high amounts of protein and complex carbohydrates. These are essential for building muscle mass. Drinking water will replenish the moisture lost through sweating and exertion. Water also improves the metabolism so the body can remove lactic acid and other substances that cause muscle pain.

 

Avoid Strenuous Activities

The body needs to relax for at least one to four hours after a tough workout. This relaxation period should involve no strenuous activities. Lifting heavy items or pushing the body could turn normal tears in the muscle tissue into more serious injuries. The hours after a hard workout should involve mostly sitting, breathing and relaxing in a comfortable place.

 

Relax In a Hot Tub

A hot tub has a number of therapeutic benefits for anyone who just completed a tough workout. The heat from water will relieve inflammation and aching muscles. The different types of hot tub jets will soothe muscles and take away pain in the joints and back. A hot tub also increases blood circulation in the body. This allows more oxygen to reach muscles and organs so the body heals more quickly. It can help to visit a hot tub several times in the hours after a workout.

 

Nap for an Hour or More

After stretching and relaxing, it will help to take a nap for an hour or more. Sleeping comfortably releases important hormones into the body. These hormones accelerate the rebuilding of muscle and bone tissue. A simple nap can reduce pain and swelling. It also shortens the overall recovery time.

 

Categories: body, Hot Tub, muscle tissue, muscles, nbsp, strenuous, strenuous activities, stretch, tough, tough workout, Workout, workout nbsp

4 Impressive Endurance Challenges that Even YOU Can Do

New Year’s resolutions can be greatly beneficial to your wellbeing. Not only are fitness goals good for your health, but the sense of achievement you’ll feel when you tick these goals off your list will do wonders for your mental wellness. If you’re looking for a New Year’s fitness resolution with a bit of prestige, you might like to try training for an endurance event. Still, even though it’d be great to be able to say you ran 100 miles or completed a marathon-length swim, who has the time (or inclination) to train for such an event? Luckily, there’s a happy middle ground between striving for an endurance goal with boasting power, and actually having the capacity to achieve it.

 

1. Tough Mudder: According to Pete Williams, editor of EnduranceSportsFlorida.com and the co-author of Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance fitness series, ‘Tough Mudder is roughly 12 miles of obstacles, including 12-foot “Berlin Walls,” a plunge into a “Chernobyl Jacuzzi” (a dumpster full of ice water), and an “Electroshock Therapy” dash through charged wires. With no timing chips, Tough Mudder is billed not as a race but a team event to be faced in groups. Most take around three and a half hours before picking up an orange finisher’s headband for their efforts. Will Dean, who worked in counter-terrorism for the British government, created Tough Mudder as a Harvard Business School project. After debuting in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2010, Tough Mudder will stage 35 events with more than 460,000 total participants this year.’

 

2. Spartan Race: You may have heard of the Spartan Death Race – which has no set time limit and has lasted as long as 67 hours – but this version is not so punishing. Williams details, ‘Spartan Race comes in three challenging-enough formats – ranging from three to 12-plus miles – that most mortals can attempt. Race creator Joe DeSena, a former Wall Streeter who once did 12 Ironman triathlons in one year, stresses that Spartan is no mud run or team-building event. It’s a race – and a brutal one at that. Athletes must haul five-pound buckets of gravel, climb walls, flip tires, pull hunks of concrete, and run a race-ending gauntlet of Spartan warriors swinging double-sided mallets. Thirty Burpees for each obstacle not finished.’

 

3. Goruck Challenge: Created in 2010 by Green Beret veteran Jason McCarthy as a way to market his $295 military-style rucksacks and provide a taste of Special Forces training, the Goruck Challenge is a firm favourite if you like teamwork and being yelled at by a former Special Ops guy. ‘Goruck now draws “classes” of 30 who must work together to haul telephone poles, railroad ties, and sometimes each other,’ Williams explains. ‘Throughout the event you wear a backpack filled with a water bladder and either four or six bricks depending on your body weight. There’s no set time or distance for the Challenges…but 12 hours and 20-plus miles is typical.’

 

4. Sea Paddle NYC: If you’ve always wanted to see New York, why not do it via stand-up paddleboard? Williams points out that ‘this 26.5-mile charity paddle around Manhattan, which began in 2007 and is held in August, takes most athletes around five hours to complete. Along the way, even veteran paddlers are challenged by the wake churned up by boat traffic in the Hudson and East Rivers before finishing under the Brooklyn Bridge. (Though it’s a calm ride compared to the choppy 32-mile Molokai-to-Oahu challenge in Hawaii, which requires each racer to have a boat escort.) In New York, participants must raise $1,000 that goes to autism-related charities.’

Categories: Endurance Events, event, Goruck Challenge, mudder, set time, spartan, tough, Tough Mudder, williams