4 Best Ways to Recover after Workout

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Preparing for a strenuous workout routine could involve a lot of stretching and flexing exercises, including mediation and yoga poses. We call this the warm up and it is necessary because submitting your muscles and body to lifting weights without sufficient warning could be counterproductive and lead to injury. Most people don’t give proper and sufficient attention to post workout routines but let me tell you that cooling the body down is equally important before stepping out of the gym.

Sometimes when you are in the midst of competition, it is also necessary to take a short rest to recoup your muscles and refine your strategy or approach. Researchers have determined that there are four different kinds of recovery methods that could be put into practice between sets. These are defined below:

1 – Passive Recovery

This is the most common form of recovery break followed around the world. It simply consists of stopping the workout temporarily to give the body a rest.

2 – Active Recovery

Another type of recovery that is practiced in the gym is to give the working muscles a rest by doing a shadow movement that is similar to the given exercise but is practiced without weights.

3 – Passive Diverting

This method uses a soft material such as soft rubber or sponge. You have to squeeze it lightly over the two minute rest period between sets.

4 – Active Diverting

This involves mimicking the exercise without weights while also using the sponge or soft rubber as given above.

An actual study was conducted using the above methods while a bodybuilder was doing leg extensions. After following the same pattern for a number of weeks, it was found that:

Ability to perform additional sets of the exercise declined significantly in the case of passive recovery, or not doing anything at all between sets. In fact, the rate of decrease in performance was 35 percent less, compared to all the other three methods- active recovery, active diverting and passive diverting. The rate of decline of the other three methods was rated as between 30 to 33 percent. Though this is an infinitesimal difference, it still goes to prove that keeping your muscles and body at work between sets in some way proves more fruitful than simply ceasing to work. Seems illogical but is true. Of course, it would not prove true in the long run as the body would cry out for relief at some stage. Another thing to note was that the study was done using an example of two sets of fifty leg extensions. This may be a little too much for the aspiring or amateur bodybuilder, and maybe lead to different results and recommendations if less severe sets are worked out. But for the moment, we have just this study to vouch for. You could yourself try out these different methods of rest at home or in the gym among your circle of friends or workout group and see what results you get. Maybe you would revolutionize bodybuilding one day with your findings.

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