subject: Speeding Up Your Muscle Recovery After Intensive Training [print this page] The number requirement for muscle recovery is to stop training the same muscle group before it recovers completely lest injuries occur in the muscle tissues. In advanced stages of body building, muscle isolation during training helps avoid training the same muscle group in consecutive days and to allow adequate recovery period as you train other muscle groups. If however you are not in isolationist training phases and the same muscle group has to be trained in consecutive workout sessions, there needs to be more time allowed between the workouts.
Immediately after an intensive training session, it is advisable that you take in simple carbohydrates which are easily absorbed into the muscles to replenish the depleted glycogen levels. Protein drinks also become very important immediately after training sessions. The proteins begin the process of muscle renew and recovery almost immediately.
After an hour or two since the training session was completed, proteins should be ingested in a rate of 2.5 grams per pound of tare body weight. This diet ration of proteins should be continued daily to ensure that the body has adequate levels of amino acids necessary in muscle recovery processes. The bio-availability of the proteins contained in the diet should also be considered because the more the bio-available a protein is the more crucial it is to speedy muscle recovery.
Recovery processes of muscles have six key phases. First, the depleted nutrients are restored for muscle use. Oxygen is pumped into the muscle to facilitate aerobic combustion of nutrients which might have been constrained during workout exercises. Thirdly, the muscles are cleaned by an inflow of both oxygen and blood into the cells. Produced and accumulated carbon wastes after fast metabolic process are transmitted to the lungs for onward exhalation. The other solid and liquid metabolic wastes generated by the metabolism in muscle cells during intense activity are carried by the blood to various excretory organs in the body. The fourth exhausted muscle cells are replenished with energy and restored to their normal state. Glycogen is provided and stored at hand ready for use.
The fifth stage of muscle recovery involves healing and renewal of the injured muscle cells. Proteins come in handy to help these cells heal from tears and abrasions suffered during training. The requirement here is time, patiently giving the body's immune system an opportunity to aid injured cells to heal. However, some cells are too injured to heal completely all even slightly at all. For these irreparable muscle cells, the body initiates the sixth recovery process. This process involves replacement of the irreparable cells. The body develops other healthy cells to stand in place of those that have been damaged beyond recovery.
By the end of the sixth stage, the muscles have fully recovered and are ready to face the next workout session, stronger and better. The whole recovery process ought to take a minimum of 24 hours and a maximum dependent on an individual's body requirement. Some body builders take days to fully recover while for others the 24 hour minimum is enough. If your muscles are still sore, it means they have not completed their recovery processes and you have to be patient. The best you can do to speedy up the process is to provide a balanced, high-protein diet and then rest adequately in effective sleep of at least eight hours a day. Only during sleeping moments can the recovery processes occur, so sleep.
