Tag Archive for: sports recovery

5 Tips for Staying Hydrated This Winter

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It’s easier to remember that you need to drink water when you’re sweating outside during the heat of the summer. But, just because it’s not hot outside doesn’t mean your body doesn’t still need water.

As the weather cools off, your body might not send the same obvious cues that remind you to take a swig from your water bottle. In fact, we experience a 40 percent drop in thirst response in cool weather compared to hot weather.

So, if you’re not feeling as thirsty as you did a few months ago, it’s not your imagination. That doesn’t mean you get a free pass to skip out on drinking water, though.

Why Hydration Matters


Your body is made up of 60 percent water. We need water for every single function, from breathing and circulation to bone and joint mobility. So if you want to stay flexible, stay hydrated!

When you’re dehydrated, your cells don’t get the water they need to do their function. As a result, you might experience a range of uncomfortable symptoms, including headaches, insomnia, trouble concentrating, dizziness, fatigue, dry skin, and a lack of energy. If you’re an athlete, you can become more prone to injuries.

In short, hydration is what keeps your body functioning as it should. When you don’t get enough water, your body just can’t perform at optimal levels.

In general, men are recommended to have 15.5 cups of water per day, and women should have 11.5 cups of water. If you are active, you should have more to compensate for the loss of fluids you experience when you exercise.

How to Stay Hydrated in the Winter


If you can go a whole workday without taking a sip of water, you probably need some help remembering to hydrate. Here are some tips that can keep your body hydrated this winter

1. Carry water with you

Some people have an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality with water. However, carrying a water bottle with you can remind you to drink water throughout the day. Eventually, you’ll find yourself reaching for it mindlessly as you write an email or sit through a boring meeting.

2. Make it taste better

Water isn’t known for its great taste. If that’s why you never choose to drink it, it’s time to get creative. Add some flavor with fruit, like lemon or oranges, or a refreshing cucumber slice. These flavors will make it seem more like you’re drinking a fun, flavorful beverage.

3. Make some soup

Broth-based soups, like vegetable soup or minestrone, are excellent for helping you stay hydrated and warm. Make a big batch over the weekend that you can divide up for lunches all week long to give yourself a midday hydration break that’s also loaded with veggies.

4. Cut back on alcohol and caffeine

During the winter, people tend to rely more on coffee to wake up in the dark, early morning, and alcohol to wind down during the dark, early evening. However, these are both diuretics that can dehydrate you quickly. If you can’t avoid them altogether, at least add some balance by having a glass of water in between caffeinated or alcoholic drinks.

5. Enjoy winter fruits

Fruits are an excellent source of water. Get seasonal by indulging in winter fruits like clementines, grapefruit, and pears.

Stay Flexible with StretchSPOT

If your muscles are feeling tighter than usual, it could be due to dehydration. We can help you regain mobility and improve your flexibility, whether you’re an avid athlete, a weekend warrior, or an active person who wants to improve your mobility.

Book an appointment with StretchSPOT to get started.

basketball player on a doctor's table looking at a female doctor

3 Fast Ways to Heal from a Sports Injury

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Whether you’re a weekend warrior, an elite athlete, or somewhere in the middle, getting a sports injury isn’t fun.

A sports injury can mean cutting your season abruptly short or missing out on precious training time for competitive athletes. For recreational athletes, getting injured can interfere with your health goals and cause problems in your personal life, especially if your injury makes it difficult to do routine tasks.

No matter the injury or your athletic status, you want to heal from it fast. We have some ideas that can help you get there.

1. Follow the RICE method

Use the RICE method for soft tissue injuries, which include pulling a muscle or spraining a ligament.

Rest: Resist the urge to “muscle through” an injury. Give your body the break it needs.

Ice: Ice can reduce swelling and inflammation. Apply an ice pack to the injured area for about 20 minutes at a time. Repeat this process 4 – 8 times a day. Don’t forget to wrap the ice pack in a towel to avoid burning your skin.

Compression: Within 48 hours of getting injured, apply compression to limit swelling.

Elevation: Keep the injured limb elevated to reduce swelling. For lower limb injuries, your ankle should be above your hip. For upper limb injuries, you can elevate the area using a sling or pillow.

2. Get a professional opinion

It’s always a good idea to see your doctor when you get injured. Your doctor can tell you what, exactly, you injured and provide a treatment plan for your recovery, which might include physical therapy. Make sure to follow it carefully to ensure that you don’t re-injure yourself or become active too soon.

While a muscle strain will heal itself with time, other injuries are not so easy to manage on your own. If you think you could have broken a bone or suffered another serious injury, don’t hesitate to visit urgent care or the emergency room.

3. Eat a healthy diet

You can’t work out, so now’s the time to order takeout and binge on cookies, right? Wrong. (Unfortunately.)

When your body is injured, it needs all the nutrients it can get to heal. Many sports injuries are caused by inflammation, so you want to eat anti-inflammatory foods.

Make sure you get plenty of lean protein, vitamin C, Omega-3 fatty acids, and calcium. Fueling with fiber-rich foods can keep you feeling full and promote good digestion, which is critical if your injury limits your mobility.

Prevent Future Injuries at StretchSPOT

Once you’re back in the game, it’s important to take steps to avoid future injuries. Stretching before and after workouts can be an excellent way to stay healthy and avoid injuring your muscles.

At StretchSpot, we work with anyone in the South Bay who wants to live an active lifestyle. Our specialists can develop a customized stretching program to keep you limber and healthy while preventing future injuries. Schedule an appointment today to feel the difference quality stretching can make in your overall health.

man doing hiit training on red stairs

Recovering from HIIT Training: Five Important Reminders

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There are many benefits to doing High-Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. At least one study proves that an exercise regimen composed of short bursts of high-intensity exercise with a post-exercise recovery period can improve your heart health, lower cholesterol, stabilize sugar levels, reduce fat and increase muscle mass. But to fully reap the benefits of HIIT, your body must recover.

In this article, we give you five effective ways to recover from your HIIT training.

1. Get Some Rest

After your HIIT session, it’s crucial that you rest. Note that when you subject your muscles to an extreme workout, they develop tiny rips or micro-tears in the muscle fibers. As you sleep, your body works to repair these micro-tears, making your muscles stronger. This healing process is called hypertrophy. You need at least 6 hours of sleep after a HIIT session for your body to fully repair and grow the muscle fibers.

Another reason to have enough sleep after HIIT is that a lack of it can slow your metabolism and make you crave carbohydrate-rich foods for energy.

2. Drink Up

By drinking up, we mean water—lots of it. As you engage in any physical activity, your body sweats to cool itself down, and you lose useful electrolytes. More than quenching your thirst, rehydrating is essential as you lose both water and electrolytes when doing HIIT. Water is likewise vital in maintaining your flexibility, which will help you minimize or avoid post-HIIT injuries. While plain cool water is enough to help you rehydrate, you can also consume an electrolyte drink to speed up electrolyte replenishment. If you can get it, you can go for coconut water—it’s the better, all-natural electrolyte drink.   

3. Pack in the Proteins

Another essential part of recovery after HIIT is having a meal that is high in protein and carbohydrates. You’ll need this to replenish your body’s protein stores. Although a HIIT session burns up your body fat, it may soon resort to consuming available muscle tissue for energy. To avoid losing muscle mass instead of gaining it, be sure to have enough protein—whether from a meal or a quality protein shake, and have it within an hour after your workout.

4. Perform Active Recovery

If you’re not too sore from the last HIIT session, you may opt to do an active recovery workout. This is a low-intensity workout that reduces the lactic acid present in the muscles and cuts down on post-HIIT soreness and stiffness. Doing a vigorous recovery workout also increases blood flow to your joints and muscles, minimizing swelling. If your muscles are too sore for this sort of low-intensity exercise, you can do a yoga session instead.

5. Get Stretched

The intensity of a HIIT session causes many muscles to do more contractions than average, leaving them compacted and shorter than usual. Stretching will help your muscles return to their original state, and keep them from stiffening up. You should do static stretches, or stretches that require you to extend your muscles, then hold that position for 25 to 30 seconds.  

Recovery is important to reap the benefits of HIIT sessions fully. If you don’t get enough rest or don’t consume enough protein after doing HIIT, you run the risk of losing muscle mass or worse, not losing stubborn fat. After a punishing HIIT session, you need to get enough sleep, eat the right food, drink enough water and stretch—do these recovery measures properly to avoid undermining your efforts.

Cyclist riding downhill

How to Recover Faster From Cycling Injuries

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Recover Faster from cycling injuries by following these simple tips! Cycling injuries can seriously impede your athletic performance and recovery can often take longer than expected. However, there are ways to speed up the process and get back on your bike faster.

In this article, we are going to talk briefly about this type of injury and summarize the different methods available to recover faster and resume your sporting activities as soon as possible.

The most common injuries in cyclists

We can broadly break them down into two different types (1, 2):

• Overuse injuries

These injuries are common if your bike is not appropriate for you and if you are adopting a bad posture while cycling. Even if your cycling technique is good, this sport has repetitive movements and may lead to recurrent pains and aches or more serious conditions such as patella tendonitis.

• Traumatic injuries

These are caused by an accident or crash and may result in cuts, ligament tears, bone fractures, and much more.

Recover faster with professional rehab

In most cases, rehabilitation is the first choice to recover from cycling injuries. Even major traumatic injuries that require surgery go through rehab at some point.

Stretching is an essential technique to recover. Through stretching and flexibility exercises, rehab professionals can gradually restore the normal range of motion when it is affected. They can also reduce muscle aches and pains by releasing your trigger points, applying the principles of massage and manual manipulation, or using techniques such as electrotherapy or hydrotherapy (3).

A physiotherapist is also trained to detect the source of the pain and suggest changes to your bike, riding position or cycling technique. The main goal is to reduce the chance of re-injury, alleviate your stiffness and pain symptoms, and detect muscular imbalances to fix them and prevent future injuries.

Other methods to speed up recovery

Physiotherapy is an excellent method for a prompt recovery, but there are many others you can include in your rehab strategy. We’re going to focus on the most common methods: acupuncture, chiropractic and osteopathy.

• Acupuncture

Placing needles in various key points in the body speeds up relaxation and has been found to be beneficial if you have low back pain, neck pain, and other symptoms.

• Chiropractic

Similar to traditional physiotherapy, chiropractic is a manual therapy technique that improves aching muscles (especially in your back) by manipulating the bones of the spine and realigning them to relieve pressure and promote a better posture.

• Osteopathy

Has a similar principle to chiropractic but focuses on various parts of the body at the same time, and not only the spine. Osteopaths use manual therapies and massage and may also apply mobilization techniques. It is more appropriate if the pain is located in your limbs and after knee surgery.

Another important part of your rehab strategy is what you do to get better. For instance, if you notice swelling in your knee, you can follow the RICE strategy, which stands for Resting your muscles, applying Ice, Compression to the swollen area and Elevating your limb. Moreover, if you want to recover faster from cycling injuries, be sure to follow instructions and definitely don’t miss any follow-up rehab sessions.

Man stretching legs out

Achieve Optimal Recovery in Sports

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When you practice sports and excel at them, there’s a high chance you feel a stronger connection with your muscles. You know exactly how hard to hit the ball and perform the right moves at the right time. However, that precision in your motor skill starts to decay as you become exhausted, and even more if you have endured a sports-related lesion. Moreover, several sports put an asymmetric load in your body, and in order to reduce your risk of lesions, it is recommended to perform a series of pre-round and post-round stretching movements as a part of the prevention protocol.

If you want to become a professional athlete or take sports to the next level, there are a few recovery tips you should keep in mind for a better outcome.

Recover Your Energy and Prevent Lesions in Sports

Physical exhaustion is the number one enemy in sports performance. There are many ways to increase your endurance, but we all have physical boundaries, and ignoring them is not a good idea.

If you want to recover your energy after a strenuous practice or match, dynamic stretch and hydrating is a good idea to start your recovery protocol. Sometimes our endurance depends on proper hydration, and amateur athletes often take for granted this apparently minute aspect.

An active stretch routine will keep your body moving, and it is an excellent way to relax your body and bring it back to a resting state. In some cases, it would be necessary to undergo a passive stretch routine as well, which should be performed by a professional therapist.

In certain sports, it will be necessary to detect and treat altered muscle mechanics that result from an asymmetric load. For example, in tennis, golf, and baseball, it is highly likely one side of your body is working harder than the other. As a part of your recovery protocol, a skilled therapist would be able to stretch and trigger the right spots to release tension and reduce the risk of lesions.

at StretchSPOT, our professional stretch therapists are trained to speed up your recovery time and prevent sports-related injuries through a combination of myofascial release and Active Isolated Stretching. We are also trained in a particular technique called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) to increase your range of motion and enhance your athletic performance.

Recover from Sports-related Lesions

Sports-related lesions may require a surgical procedure sometimes. If that’s your case, you will also need to recover from surgery and might need to pay special attention to your muscle conditioning. That is why recovering from a sports-related lesion is a serious deal that usually requires the opinion and assistance from a physical therapist. According to studies, a proper physical therapy and muscle strengthening protocols would speed up your recovery and your return to play.

Physical therapy will depend on your lesion, whether or not you’re planning a prompt return to the field, and your progression through the recovery protocol. It will not be the same treating a younger patient with a full range of motion than older adults starting to undergo mobility issues. Thus, be sure to look for a professional therapist who understand sports-related lesions and is properly trained to detect and treat any irregularity.

References:

Brüggemann, G. P. (2005). Sport-related spinal injuries and their prevention. Biomechanics in Sport. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 550-576.

Hindle, K., Whitcomb, T., Briggs, W., & Hong, J. (2012). Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF): Its mechanisms and effects on range of motion and muscular function. Journal of human kinetics, 31, 105-113.

Magnusson, P., & Renström, P. (2006). The European College of Sports Sciences Position statement: The role of stretching exercises in sports. European journal of sport science, 6(2), 87-91.

Myklebust, G., & Bahr, R. (2005). Return to play guidelines after anterior cruciate ligament surgery. British journal of sports medicine, 39(3), 127-131.

Tyler, T. F., Schmitt, B. M., Nicholas, S. J., & McHugh, M. P. (2017). Rehabilitation after hamstring-strain injury emphasizing eccentric strengthening at long muscle lengths: Results of long-term follow-up. Journal of sport rehabilitation, 26(2), 131-140.