Top 3 tips to help you get back on your feet after a sport injury

When it comes to sport injury recovery, there’s one thing you can give your body to guarantee its revival. It’s not an expensive supplement or a complex physiological technique to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. It’s time. To put it unscientifically – the body is pretty good at repairing itself. It’s the way it’s designed. And when given time, its ability to restore itself is astonishing.

To put it unscientifically – the body is pretty damn good at repairing itself. It’s the way it’s designed. And when given time, its ability to restore itself is astonishing.

Resting your body from sport or exercise is definitely the simplest and certainly the cheapest method of recovery. But getting time away from it is often the hardest thing to come by.

During the course of a season, a pro athlete has very few opportunities to allow their body to completely recover on its own accord. Most teams play once or even twice a week and train daily in preparation. Individual athletes may have fewer competitions but train furiously to avoid deconditioning and maximise performance in between events. So recovery methods have to be accelerated in order to maximise the body’s capacity to improve in response to training stimuli. Amateur sportspeople and exercise enthusiasts suffer just the same. Whatever the level, fatigue affects us all and can leave us vulnerable to injury and poor performance. In the real world there simply isn’t the time to squeeze in recovery protocols. You can’t halt life for muscle repair or skive work for sports

Amateur sportspeople and exercise enthusiasts suffer just the same. Whatever the level, fatigue affects us all and can leave us vulnerable to injury and poor performance. In the real world there simply isn’t the time to squeeze in recovery protocols. You can’t halt life for muscle repair or skive work for sports massages however bad your DOMS are.

But there are simple methods of recovery available to people of all sporting abilities that can help them recover in time they don’t have. Try these three methods aimed at accelerating recovery without impacting on busy schedules.

Compression Garments

Good quality compression garments are able to accelerate blood flow by applying pressure to specific body parts in a balanced and accurate way. They help get rid of lactic acid and other metabolic waste and can be worn post exercise as a replacement to a flush out.

Supplements

If you’re taking your training and recovery seriously then you will no doubt have your Tupperware to hand for a timely hit of well-balanced nutrition. But if this is too much like planning, ensure you carry around some rehydration and antioxidant supplements. Electrolyte mixes are easy to come by and potent antioxidant supplements such as Tart Cherry concentrate can speed post-exercise recovery by toning down excessive inflammation. It does this without interfering with the inflammation needed to repair and regenerate muscle and is widely used by professional teams and athletes.

Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Devices (such as firefly)

Neuromuscular stimulation devices deliver painless electrical impulses to gently activate the muscles of the lower leg and increase circulation at rest. They are often completely portable so can be worn whilst going about your day.

These devices, such as Firefly provides the equivalent of active recovery at rest; improves recovery of neuromuscular function and is proven not to be detrimental to training adaptations. (Methods such as ice baths and anti-inflammatory drugs have been associated with reduced adaptation to exercise stimuli).

Sam Jones

@SF_Jones