TRAINING TIME: TRAIN HARD, RECOVER HARD

TIM RUDD FOR IYCA 

Without sound recovery practices its only a matter of time before you find your performance suffering, yourself injured or suffering from over-training.

Maybe you hate stretching, don’t have time to foam roll or sleep eight hours. My response to all those excuses is “make time for recovery or make time for injury!”

Here are my top 5 tips for proper recovery:

1. FOAM ROLLING: This has many benefits such as flushing toxins from muscles, releasing ten- sion, increasing range of motion and getting the blood flowing. At a minimum, you should be doing this before and after training, practice and games for optimal success.                                                                            
2. SLEEP: Yes, sleep! When you are sleeping your body can really go to work on repair- ing tissue you destroyed by training, practicing and playing. You should be getting at least eight hours of quality sleep each night. 
3. HYDRATE: I am sure you have heard the general rule of thumb to drink eight 8 oz. glasses of water per day. However, you really should be drinking half your body weight of WATER and even more during the summer heat. Gatorade, tea, and other beverages don’t count as WATER!
4. REFUEL: You should be consuming a 3:1 ratio of carbs to protein 30 minutes following training, practice and games. While I always recommend real food for this, if you are in a rush, look for a quality post workout shake with this ratio.
5. STRETCH: Yes, you need to be doing this after training, practice and playing. Proper stretching has important recovery benefits such as lengthening your muscles, ligaments and tendons.

You need to be doing these on a regular basis to keep your body performing at its best. 

Tim Rudd is an IYCA specialist in youth conditioning and owner of Fit2TheCore.