Exercise is commonly understood to be one of the pivotal factors in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, keeping you in shape, helping you maintain a healthy weight and boosting your immune system. When you get in plenty of movement, you improve blood flow, which in turn helps increase oxygen levels all through your body. Regular exercise reduces your incidence of chronic illness, including coronary artery disease, strengthens your bones and muscles and enables you to live a longer and healthier life overall.
However, just as you warm up your body before working out and then give it your all during the training routine, it’s just as important to take the necessary time to unwind afterwards. Doing so ensures that you don’t have to worry about muscle soreness or tightness, and since you don’t have to deal with pain, you’re also more likely to remain motivated and continue pushing through with your routines.
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Remain hydrated
Making sure you drink enough water is essential, no matter what type of exercise you’re doing. If your workouts are so intense that you’re breaking into a sweat, replenishing fluid levels regularly allows you to contain muscle soreness. However, it’s crucial to drink not only before and during your workout but after you’ve finished too.
Make sure to stick to water or other healthy drinks, however. Beverages high in sugar might give you an instant energy boost, but they’re just as likely to sap your vitality soon after. Caffeinated or alcoholic drinks are also more likely to cause you to become dehydrated, inducing electrolyte imbalance. If you want to try sports drinks, look for something that contains a reduced amount of sugar. Some other beverages you can try are unsweetened green tea and coconut water.
Rest days
When you start working out, you’ll notice an immediate change. You’ll have more energy, feel more motivated, your mood will improve, and you’ll want to keep challenging yourself. It’s essential to want to challenge yourself, but it’s just as important not to push yourself too hard. Rest days are an important part of your fitness journey, and neglecting them will do far more harm than good.
Although it can seem like the best alternative to continue working out, since it means you exercise more, you’re more likely to exhaust yourself. Make sure you get at least one rest day each week, during which you relax and recover from the tiredness. You can also engage in active recovery, during which you swap your regular exercise routine for one that is lighter and less intensive.
Resting helps reduce lactic acid build-up, responsible for the sore, burning sensation you feel during and after working out. Make sure you don’t worsen the problem by sleeping in an uncomfortable pose. If you wake up feeling even stiffer than the night before, it can be due to sleeping in a position that contributes to decreased blood flow to the tissue, meaning that your muscles won’t get enough oxygen. In turn, this generates lactic acid build-up.
Cool down
Every workout should be followed by a cool-down session. During this time, you allow your heart rate to gradually decrease. It might make you feel a little lightheaded as it prevents blood from pooling in the extremities, but it is necessary for any exercise session. When you cool down, you reduce the risk of injury and stop too much pressure from building up in your bones, joints and muscles.
When you unwind after a workout, you must also consider your state of mind. Mental relaxation is just as important as physical one, so it’s vital to achieve both. If you find it difficult to relax, you’ll want to support your body with something that can. Cannabis seeds are one such product, as they can be eaten raw, toasted or made into hemp milk.
This drink is full of proteins and healthy fats that sustain your body after a long and strenuous workout routine. As it is full of arginine, which produces nitric oxide, hemp promotes relaxation in the veins and arteries that keep your blood pressure under control. Arginine can also reduce inflammation levels, which is important after working out.
If you’d like to consume cannabis the classic way, you can get autoflowering seeds that’ll save you time during the growing process, as they are more low-maintenance than the alternatives.
Stretching
Few things feel as good as stretching. However, the benefits go beyond the pleasant feeling, and you must stretch after any type of exercise. First and foremost, it helps reduce lactic acid by preventing it from accumulating in the muscles and causing you to tense up. It also helps your muscles stay flexible and retains joint mobility. This ultimately contributes to becoming fit and toned and reduces the risk of injury.
However, one of the lesser-known benefits of stretching is that it ensures good heart function. Increasing your heart rate has several benefits, enabling oxygen to reach your muscles and organs more efficiently. It also lowers your cholesterol and helps burn calories much faster. Nevertheless, it is just as important to return your heart rate to normal after the workout. It also helps blood circulation return to normal parameters. This enables muscle recovery and faster repair.
Recovery treatments
If you feel that the usual methods don’t yield the desired results, you can try several other things. Going for a massage can help release muscle tension immediately. It can also promote better sleep quality and even reduce anxiety. If a particular spot in your back or limbs is especially painful, going for a massage can eliminate the problem.
Taking a hot bath or spending time in the sauna also helps. The heat will thoroughly relax you by elongating your muscles. Much like in the case of getting a massage, these methods are also suitable from an overall wellness perspective, as they give you the time off you need to unwind and even meditate a little.
Working out is essential for a healthy life, but post-exercise recovery is also important for a pain-free, restful approach to your well-being.
