Being an athlete adds a lot of fulfillment and overall value to your life. Not only do you get to regularly participate in your favorite sports, but your lifestyle...
Being an athlete adds a lot of fulfillment and overall value to your life. Not only do you get to regularly participate in your favorite sports, but your lifestyle helps keep you at peak health; boosting your mood, longevity, and practically every part of your life.
However, we know that an intensely active lifestyle comes at a cost. Chronic pain and injuries run rampant in the lives of many athletes.
Instead of slowing down or giving up altogether, there are multiple ways to help your body through the recovery process to get back to your athletic lifestyle faster than ever.
Here are the best athlete recovery techniques.
1: Good Old-Fashioned Ice
We’ll get to more complex methods and high-tech pain solutions, but no list covering recovery techniques is complete without mentioning the immediate application of ice.
When you’re injured, inflammation starts to settle in quickly, but not instantly. Between that and the adrenaline, this is why you’re usually still able to perform immediately after an injury or overstressing a problem area.
If you apply ice as soon as possible, you can beat that inflammation to the chase and significantly reduce the amount of pain you’ll go through. Then, it’s important to continue applying ice to the affected area every few hours to keep inflammation down.
Of course, this isn’t a cure-all, and some injuries simply won’t be helped by ice. However, for those minor to intermediate sprains and twists we all tend to get, and most forms of chronic pain, ice will help a lot.
2: Stretches
Again, another crucial part of any recovery plan, is you need to stretch. Not immediately after you become injured.
After you’ve had some time to combat inflammation, it’s important to properly stretch your muscles to keep them moving and to help your body's natural healing abilities kick in.
One of the worst things you can do, unless it’s by a doctor’s orders after a serious injury, is sit down and vegetate until you’re healed up.
It will take longer, hurt more, and affect your body negatively since you’re used to an athletic lifestyle.
3: Compression Devices
Compression devices are going to help you with that last tip we gave on top of supporting your recovery plan in general.
A compression device, typically a tight fabric band designed for a specific body part, squeezes the injury gently. This does a few things.
First, it helps lower inflammation. You can’t use ice 24/7, but you can wear a compression device for longer treatment sessions. It does this by controlling the blood vessels and preventing them from swelling up.
A compression device also helps direct the blood back to your heart. Which is always a good thing. Especially when you’re experiencing a constricted circulatory system due to swelling.
With some of the most persistent chronic pain, you can also try a non-compressive recovery wear. For example, ankle sleeves, elbow sleeves, wrist sleeves, and other non-compression tools can significantly help you in the long term.
4: Massage
Massage is likely one that you’ve been recommended before, and there’s a good reason for it. It’s one of the most enjoyable athlete recovery techniques on this list.
Massages help to relax your muscles. When you’re injured, and inflammation is setting in, your muscles tensing up only worsens the problem. Massages also help with your circulation and overall healing process, as well.
Now, we know that not everyone can afford to get professional massages regularly, but there is an alternative to the massage experience. Commercial handheld massagers are now staples in gyms everywhere, and while they’re not quite the same as having a professional do it, the results are great.
In fact, this can be worked into your normal workout routine. Not just when you’re injured. The stimulation of the muscles and circulatory system is great even when you’re in perfect health.
5: Infrared Therapy
Infrared therapy is a relatively new recovery technique, but it’s quickly proving to be very effective.
During this type of therapy, infrared light is shined on the areas that are giving you problems. This doesn’t sound like much, but infrared light stimulates cell activity, and that increases your body's natural healing response.
In the process, this also greatly improves circulation, reduces inflammation, and decreases pain.
The downside to using infrared therapy is that you’ll need to find a service that offers it, and that means you’ll pay recurring fees. Another issue is that some dermatologists are warning against the overuse of infrared therapy.
The Best Approach to Recovering Quickly
Some of these tips were well known, and some you might not have known about, but there is another option that is extremely effective and combines several different effects to speed up your recovery in a proven manner.
Thermo Recovery Wear combines the benefits of a compression device with thermal treatment.
When you wear a Thermo Recovery Wear item on your injured or chronically pained body part, it compresses the injury as we described earlier, but it also regulates the heat building up in the area. This is a two-pronged approach that maximizes the anti-inflammatory traits of compression techniques and temperature regulation.
On top of that, you get the extra support that injuries need while you’re trying to stretch and exercise.
During your treatment plan, instead of just using normal compression devices, you can use a Thermo Recovery Wear device to recover more quickly, more thoroughly, and with less chance of reinjuring yourself.
The best part is that this is a cost-effective solution. In comparison to professional massages and infrared therapy, Thermo Recovery Wear is extremely accessible, and you can use each item indefinitely.
Combined with other basic recovery athlete recovery techniques such as regular icing periods and light exercise, Thermo Recovery Wear can get you back to your athletic lifestyle in no time.
Don’t take our word for it, though. Check out our shop and experience the life-changing improvement for yourself!
