If you have ever really gone for it at the gym, then you’ll know how a full body workout feels. Recovering from it quickly enough to keep up your exercise schedule can be pretty tough, sometimes seeming almost as hard as the workout itself. The recovery certainly takes a bit longer, at any rate. After a tough work out, your whole body needs time to recover, but there are several stages to this. In the immediate short term, it is all about regaining your aerobic capacity and replenishing lost fluids with water, and energy with calories. 

After that though, it is all about stopping those muscles and joints aching. If you have been hitting the bench press, then your biceps are going to ache; if you’ve been going for several rounds of squats, then your legs are going to take some recovery time. And if you have been doing a whole-body work out, your body might feel like a frame of aching flesh hanging around your bones, making it uncomfortable to get out of bed in the morning.

Thankfully, the remedies are not terribly complex, but there is a few of them you can try. For gym recovery, however, it should be noted that the optimal path to recovery – to being fully ready to hit the gym once again – usually involves a combination of several of these methods, which in time will only become more effective. But that takes persistence. 

Beginners vs Seasoned Gym Goers

Indeed, if you are relatively new to gym-going and don’t have much experience, then the first few times are going to hurt. Of course, the advice is to ease yourself in gently, and any personal trainer or fitness expert will always advise this course of action. Even then though, if your muscles don’t hurt for some time after a gym session when you’re new to the whole thing, then you are really not doing it right. This is an essential part of gym-going. 

Of course, there is an upside too. In time, you will become able to recover faster. Alongside this, you will be working harder and harder as you become fitter. This is not something that is learned so much as biologically adapted to. Nevertheless, this is not to say that there aren’t methods of speeding up your recovery and getting to this point of fitness as quickly as possible. 

Tips for Speedy Recovery

Hydrate

And that means before, during, or after a gym session. Your body needs water in order to perform even the most basic functions, so it needs a lot when under the strain of a heavy workout. Water experts Synergy Science advise that there are several different means of hydrating. You can go for water, of course; you can try innovative water products like hydrogen or filtered water; and you can also go for an electrolyte sports drink, which is a favored choice of many gymgoers

Sleep Well 

Specifically, this means after the workout. Although, hitting the gym when under slept is a sure way to make your muscles hurt even more afterwards. Luckily, you are very likely to feel tired enough to sleep after a strenuous workout. 

Eat Nutritious Food 

Or, in other words, replace what you have lost, in terms of energy, and give your body the nutrients it needs to recover and improve. Classic gym foods include whey protein, black beans, Greek yoghurt, and whole-wheat pasta. 

All these tips are likely to make a real difference to your post-gym recovery process. And they are likely to help it get easier over time, too.