Post-Exercise Recovery by Elizabeth Criner
[Elizabeth Criner is a senior at NC State, currently working towards her bachelor's degree in sport management while also minoring in business administration, business entrepreneurship, and psychology. She is currently participating in the Athletic Lab Internship Program.] The actual process of exercising might seem like the most important part of working out, but what comes after a workout can be vital in keeping you healthy. When working out, your body is put through the ringer. Muscles form tiny tears, fluids are lost, heart rate rises, and many other things happen to your body all at once. All of these issues must be repaired and restored back to normal, before your next workout. One must replace fluids and fuels lost during exercise, make sure body temperature and regular cardiovascular functions return back to normal, and repair damaged tissue (Peake, 2019). One must ensure all of these return to normal before the next training session or competition. If not, you will increase your risk of injury, by not giving your body time to heal. Intense exercise can disrupt the nervous systems, cardiovascular, renal, endocrine, and immune systems. The main goal of recovery is to restore homeostasis, replace fuels and fluids lost, repair tissue, and heal through rest. There are many different ways athletes can choose to achieve these recovery goals. Some examples include: rehydration, carbohydrate and protein feeding, stretching, massage, sleep, and much more (Peake, 2019). If athletes train too intensely and do not give themselves enough time to recover, then they can experience overreaching. In the journal article, “Recovery after exercise: what is the current state of play?” by Jonathan Peake, overreaching is defined as, “the buildup of training and/or training stress leading to temporary impairment [...]
