Movement to help recovery

I spend all of my time when working with clients doing hands on sports massage treatment, which is my specialty and what customers pay me for, and I sometimes get asked by people if they should ‘avoid all exercise’ until things feel better. Although when you book in to see me you will be on a therapy bench throughout the session, the sooner you get moderately active, (as long as you are not experiencing more pain) the better you will feel and actually the faster you will recover as well. Doing nothing can actually be counterproductive to recovery, stress management and your overall feeling of well being! 

 

In terms of specific injury to muscles and tendons etc, once inflammation has started to dissipate, the sooner you can put muscles under load, the quicker they will adapt and improve, and as the circulation to muscles increases with work and load increase, the nutrients and natural biochemicals in your body get to work to heal you. 

 

Another example of this is if someone has extreme delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) in their legs, following intense exercise, by riding an exercise bike with a reduced load setting they can help themselves in the recovery process. The key is to feel the muscles working moderately but without much intensity, and this will be very helpful in reducing muscle soreness and getting the muscles back to feeling good again. 

 

The other aspect to movement, and equally as important as the physiology involved in muscle recovery is the mental benefit to movement and exercise. It’s well documented that exercise and movement help with your mood in general, but post injury or muscular aches etc, it’s even more important because anything that improves overall mood and wellbeing will help you feel better, which is a step in the right direction to getting ‘back in the game’. How you choose to exercise or move moderately can be as wide and varied as you like, some people enjoy yoga and Pilates, others may prefer tai chi, or swimming, or callisthenics, or a brisk walk outside amongst trees (some now refer to this as forest bathing) the list is endless really, it just matters that you keep moving as best as you can!