Recovery after physical activity. Is it really that important?

Did you know that many modern sports medicine experts put recovery processes after physical activity on the same level as training and nutrition? Is this component of the training cycle really that important? Let's try to figure this issue out...

Everyone knows that depending on the athlete’s goal, his training style is formed, and to achieve good results it is important to use all available knowledge and means that help achieve success. Many professional bodybuilders and experienced trainers know about the importance of recovery processes in the athlete’s body, and beginners should understand that these are the most important psychophysiological processes, the essence of which lies in reverse changes in the work of those functional systems that ensured the execution of physical activity before muscle activity.

The development of fitness suggests that the reactions observed in the human body after various training sessions are reinforced by constructive changes in the athlete’s body. And this implies that, in fact, recovery involves not only a return to the previous level and state of the body before training, but also reaching a new level - some raising of the bar - overcompensation. That is why today the use of various systems and methods of rehabilitation after physical activity is considered an integral part of modern athlete training.

The speed of rehabilitation processes is closely related to such factors as training characteristics, which includes:

1. volume,
2. intensity,
3. duration,
4. direction.

The athlete's condition is also an important element, including:

1. heredity,
2. body type,
3. age,
4. level of training,
5. and other factors...

There are other factors that you wouldn’t even think about at first glance, such as weather, climatic and environmental...

^{In the photo: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Colombo - famous bodybuilders during their hours of rest and recovery.}

Promoting our internal recovery processes is an important aspect of achieving sports results, therefore means of accelerating rehabilitation should be used in various forms of the training cycle to increase the athlete's functional capabilities, including even during the days of the competitive period.

If we talk about hygienic means of recovery, then their influence can hardly be overestimated; they optimize the training process, accelerate rehabilitation, prevent fatigue, and at the same time we are talking about compensation for lost resources (energy, nervous), and not about the marginal mobilization of the body’s functional reserves.

There are also medical and biological means of recovery, which involve the use of pharmacological agents to improve the condition and increase immunity.

To achieve truly good results in bodybuilding, it is important to understand that full recovery after physical activity is a necessity that is not even discussed.