Your best weapon to ensure that you are reducing your risks of developing injuries in the first place is recovery!
Ensuring you are recovering session to session is the best way to prevent little niggles turning into bigger injuries that will keep you out of play in the long term.
Now that you are back into school and work, your spare time to relax and have time to yourself has decreased drastically, you have to be a bit smarter in how you approach recovery.
This might mean going to bed earlier so you can wake up in time for school, or fit the time in to train before school/work the next day.
It will make it easier and easier to go to bed and get up earlier on the days you need to.
Secondly in nutrition if you are eating plenty of protein spread throughout the day rather than just dumping it all with dinner, you are better equipping your body to absorb and use all the nutrients if we spread it out.
And the last tip is to keep moving! On non-training days, rather than sitting down and relaxing all day, keeping active is a great way to limit the amount of stiffness and tightness you might feel in your muscles. Going for easy walks or bike rides, or even just stretching and going through some mobility work at home is a great way to keep you feeling loose and healthy.
Recovery protocols around training and competition
Post-training
- Consuming your normal dinner post training and then going for a gentle walk to allow for proper digestion of food will ensure you are able to absorb all of the nutrients. The gentle walk will also allow for waste products to be removed from muscles that may leave you feeling stiff or sore post training session.
- Exposing your muscles to heat if you have just completed a more power/speed session and to cold if you have just completed an aerobic session will ensure the appropriate acute responses are occurring within the body to aid in recovery.
Pre-competition
- Going for a gentle walk, a light stretch and then commencing some potentiation / light plyometric work a couple hours before competition will get the body feeling warm, excite the nervous system, and prime the muscular and neural pathways for the following high intensity muscular contractions during competition.
Post-competition
- Eating a larger than normal meal such as pizza and chocolate milk, which contains plenty of protein and carbohydrates to ensure stores are returning to resting levels. It's important that the food is palatable as it can be hard to feel hungry immediately after competition.
- Consuming larger amounts of water is also important post competition.
- A more comprehensive stretching and mobility routine can be completed to prevent muscles tightening up. Additionally, going through a contrasting hot and cold exposure therapy can speed up the rate in which by products are removed from the muscles.
For more information on recovery and the importance of strength and conditioning to improve your sport performance, check out our website and podcast available on Spotify and YouTube!
Matt Hucul
Strength and Conditioning Coach
Inner Athlete (AUS)
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