How to recover after a workout

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fact-based, and easy to digest. Listen to NPR news now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to LifeKit. Hey everybody, it's Mariel. A couple of years ago, our producer Margaret Serrino was at the gym lifting some weights.

It was her first time back after a pretty long break, but she was feeling good, feeling strong.

Then when she bent over to pick up her barbell on her last set. I just felt something snap. And I literally said out loud, that is not good. Something in her lower back, some muscle, or tendon, or bone, was not where it was supposed to be. And I just immediately dropped everything, and like crawled home from the gym,

“and took all of the pain meds I could find.”

Margaret was mad at herself, because this time, this injury, she says, it was kind of her fault. I did none of the things I was supposed to.

I was lifting weights for the first time in like a year.

And then immediately went as heavy as I used to go, I didn't warm up. I just walled into the gym, loaded up my barbell, and it was like, it'll be fine. It was not fine. She had to work with a physical therapist for months to fix her back. She couldn't do workouts or do the hobbies she liked to do, but the experience taught her

that all of those parts of the workout that she used to gloss over. The warm up, the cool down, the stretching, those things matter. After a lot of treatment and time off, Margaret's back at the gym now, doing the things she used to do, but safely this time, and she's got tips to share, so that you don't need to throw your back out to learn the right from the wrong.

On this episode of LifeKit, how to prevent injury and recover in between workouts. Margaret talks with a sports medicine doctor, a nutritionist, and a professional athlete about what you can do to minimize your risk of injury, feel less sore, and squeeze the most out of your workout. That was a hard one.

These days, it feels like the news changes every hour. Well, NPR has a podcast that does that, too. NPR News Now brings you a fresh five-minute episode every hour of the day,

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fact-based, and easy to digest. Listen to NPR News Now on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcast. The way I hurt myself turns out a lot of people enter themselves in the exact same way, and that's takeaway one. If you are returning to working out, like I was, if it's been years,

“or months, or even just a week, go slow. Work out easier than you think you need to, not because”

you can't push yourself harder, but because you are retraining your body to handle stress. I talked with Dr. Natasha Desai, she's a sports medicine doctor at NYU Lingo, and she told me that when it comes to injuries, she tends to treat people for two main reasons. I fall into the first camp. Basically, it goes like this. People are starting to get back to exercise, and they try to exercise in the same capacity as they did

back when they were 20, and they don't do that postwork out recovery. Maybe you did a bunch of sports as a kid, or you were really on top of your workout game in your teens or 20s, but you fell off her a bit, and when you get back into it, your body just can't hang. And that's where the micro injury, the repetitive stress on the tendons, on the muscles, on the joints really do start to take their toll, and you see a lot of overused tendonitis.

You see flares of earlier arthritis, or even some moderate arthritis by that age, and just a lot of sort of soreness and pain. When you work out whether you're at the yoga studio or on a long run or in a hit class at the gym, you are putting stress on your body. And you're conditioning your muscles, bones, and tendons to handle a certain amount of that stress over time, building up your strength and elasticity. And in between exercise,

that is going to decrease. So if you go a long time between exercise, and then you go back to exercising, you will feel everything a little bit tighter, a little bit more restricted,

or hit class you did before things could break down, that's what happens to me.

“The other common cause of injury happens when someone does the exact same movement again,”

and again, and again. They only run, or they only lift, and they might overdo it,

and they don't allow adequate time for recovery between, I always use an allergy,

like if you tap your finger on the table long enough, it's going to start hurting. This is why even pro athletes need days off, even though their bodies are conditioned to handle that load. A typical week, we lift about three times a week, so Monday, Wednesday, Friday will be in the weight room, and then pretty much every day, Monday, to Friday, we're on the track, at least once. That's in a cockroach. She's a professional track and field athlete and Olympic medalist.

You're making a face like I can every that girl I barely made it through. It's true. I was making a face, but Anna told me the reason she can do all that

is because she has unlocked her rest and recovery. The things I'm able to do physically are far greater

than anything I've ever been able to do in my life. I can run faster, I can run farther, I can do more, but it comes with the caveat of I have to warm up better, and I have to recover better, and I have to take that stuff seriously. Anna has won to two days off a week, built into her training plan. Typically, on my off day, like I'm doing like the household movement that I have been neglecting, so I'm like, let me clean my apartment, let me do my laundry.

She's doing household chores, or maybe taking a yoga class, nothing, strenuous. Dr. Desis says this kind of varied training plan, strength, cardio, scheduled rest is what everyone should be shooting for. Mixing up some strength training with some low impact exercise, with some high intensity exercise. That's really for the general masses, right? And also just for a long term,

like throughout your lifespan, we could talk to the 20-year-old and say the same thing, and the 80-year-old and say the same thing. So go slow, plan out time for rest and recovery, and mix up your workouts. I understand what else we could take away from a week in her life. What else could help us recover and perform better? Her biggest advice? There's not one workout,

“there's not one supplement, there's not one secret. Like sometimes it's just a grift. Like”

people are really trying to make a lot of money. Beware of the grift. If a supplement promises to be the cure-all for muscle, soreness, or incistible, give you six pack abs, those claims are probably not true. It's hard and maybe we all knew this steep down, but what makes the biggest difference are your habits. Sleeping well, eating regularly, warming up and cooling down. A lot of extras on the market can just cloud that, with that in mind, Anna walked me through her

own habits. Everything she does when the moment she stops her workout to the moment right before the next one. Okay, the recovery clock is starting. Take away two. Right after your workout, you want to gradually ease the load on your heart and muscles. I think it's a very bad idea to go straight from your last rep to your car. Anna says, "Whatever you do, do not skip your cool down." Whatever that pain you feel, that achy, burning kind of pain, I know it feels better the next day.

When I cool down and take my time and actually let my body say, "We're finished."

Scientifically, the cool down is where your body first begins. It's mending and recovery.

You're bringing your heart rate down slowly so that your body can redirect blood flow to the right places. Because you are now not exercising and you don't need all that kind of diversion of blood flow

“to your muscles and you need to redirect that blood flow to your organs and digestive system and”

things like that. So when you skip a cool down, doctor decides you could experience post-exercise hypotension or a big drop in blood pressure. You might feel dizzy, low energy. To counteract that, you don't need to do anything special. You just want to make sure you're not going from the hardest movement of your day to veging out on the couch. We finished the workout. I give myself a couple minutes and then I'm like slow jogging, sometimes even like walking, then jogging, then walking,

and jogging. For maybe 10, 15 minutes, if I'm being very dedicated. And it's us for her and really for everyone. This is non-negotiable. So if you've got an hour to get your workout in, think about spending 10 minutes cooling down. Thinking of that as like my workout is not complete until I cool down. Okay, you spent 10, 15 minutes slowly lowering your heart rate. Maybe you did a

for some stretching. Now, important caveat. The research out there says that soreness benefit from

“stretching is pretty minor. So it's something you'll have to try for yourself and monitor how you feel.”

Also, you might like the feeling of being sore. It means you did the work. But Dr. Desi says, you want to avoid that intense soreness that you might feel a day or a few days later. The kind of soreness where you feel like you've been hit by a bus when you wake up and you can't get out of bed. Yeah, that's too sore. You want to avoid that? Because that means there's so much tension in that muscle that if you weren't and worked out hard the same workout that you just

did a few days earlier, you could you could really injure yourself by either tearing the muscle or

creating a lot of information. Take a few minutes and stretch out any muscle that feels tight or

that you just used a lot. Since I like to lift weights that can be heavy on my legs, I'm usually doing quad stretches and pigeon poses. You know, things to loosen up my hips and thighs. And it usually does toe touches, hamstring stretches, calf raises, some seated leg straddles, just like a set of eight to ten of those. Really, she just does what feels good. I don't usually put a watch to that stretching. It's more just kind of getting the movement in.

We'll have more life kit after the break. These days, it feels like the news changes every hour. Well, NPR has a podcast that does that too. NPR news now brings you a fresh five-minute episode every hour of the day with the latest

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Listen to NPR news now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk food now. Take away three nutrition and recovery. Go hands in hand. Right after your workout, your body needs to take in protein to help it build more muscle. So next on the clock, you want to get some protein in, especially if you're not going to be able to eat your larger meal until much later. Having a quick protein in the form of a

chocolate milk, a protein shake is a great thing to do because that kind of carries you over into your abatum to eat. That's Jeremy Ford. He's a sports dietitian and nutritionist at the University of South Carolina. He told me that when we work out, we're actually creating micro-tares in our muscles. In response, our bodies repair those weaker muscle fibers and build

“up hardier, fortified fibers in their place. That's how we get stronger. But to build back those”

fibers, we need to give our bodies some fuel to work with. And when we eat protein, our bodies break it down into amino acids that are then incorporated into these new muscle cells. So we eat a protein bar on your welcome from the gym or drink some milk right when you get home. Exact timing isn't as important as making sure you're getting that protein in. Fast forward a couple hours. Your home now, maybe you're getting a little hungry and it's time

to eat a bigger meal. And I'm a lot. In the world of fitness, the way we talk about nutrition can feel incredibly confusing. There are microbes and macros and meal prepping and so many diets to sit through. And all of them are claiming to be the best. It's a lot. Anna agrees. Every time I tried to do a lot of intense like macro counting or calorie counting, I either got way to obsess with it or was just something that I could not maintain and then I felt bad about the

fact that I couldn't maintain it. So let's trip this down to the basics. What do you actually

really need to eat? Jeremy goes by the rule of thirds. So there would be a third of protein,

a third of carbs, and a third of fruits or vegetables. By following a plate like that, it makes it very simple to cover all of your bases from a recovery perspective, but also just kind of a general rule of thumb for when you eat meals in general. Maybe that's some chicken or fish and one portion of your plate. And I scoop of rice or pasta or potatoes and the other third and then your favorite veggie in that last section, whatever you got on the fridge. Also protein doesn't necessarily

mean meat. Legumes are protein, nuts are protein. We can think of anything from lentils, to lime of beans, to kidney beans. You can think of almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds. You can even look at soy products in tofu, edamame, things of that nature can all provide additional protein sources. Now we already talked about why our bodies need protein. And we have a whole episode on how to get

plate, your body's main energy source is carbohydrates. And you've just spent a lot of energy

“during that workout. So now you need to re-up. And those fruits and vegetables also give you carbs,”

as well as necessary vitamins and minerals that you'd be missing otherwise. But first and foremost,

Jeremy's biggest recovery advice is to make sure you're eating in the first place. Even if it's imperfect. And so when I say that, I mean, don't skip a meal, right? When we're not properly feeling our bodies, it puts us at a risk for injury because we're pretty much asking our bodies to drive a car with no gas in it. Let's get back to Anna schedule and that recovery clock. At this point in the day, she's left the track, driven home, had her big meal.

Now it's evening and time for her deeper, mindful recovery. Take away for recovery continues into the night. Anna likes to do a nighttime stretch routine to wind down her body before bed. And again, just like that immediate postwork out stretching, there's doesn't need to feel like a whole big thing. It really can just be turning on the TV and stretching when the ads come on. Like, okay, I'm going to sit and I'm going to touch my toes for this whole 30 seconds. I'm going to get on the

ground and get in a lunge so that you're, yeah, you're still doing your TV time, but you're starting to get your body on that path to recovery back into movement so that the next session isn't quite so hard. This could be a good time to use any recovery gadgets you have. Again, nothing fancy. If you do want to purchase something, Anna says a foam roller will be your biggest ally.

“Because you can just hit so many different parts of your body and all you have to do is put it on the floor”

and rock back and forth on top of it. Also, I just want to say recovery doesn't mean to feel like work. You could treat it like an indulgence. Maybe like some candles and draw yourself a bath. I think sometimes we make recovery more complicated than it needs to be. My grandmother loves an Epson salt bath. It feels good enough for her and it's good enough for me. So like three to four

times a week. Honestly, I'm in the bathroom. And I've got all my little essential oils too. So I feel

like I'm like seasoning the water with my different, my different oils and types of Epson salts and magnesium flakes. I got the whole thing. And when you're done, seal it with the final and most important part of your wine down. Now that I've started sleeping more, I do notice a difference on the days where I got a lot of rest versus the days that I didn't get your sleep in. Sometimes life gets overwhelming and you can't squeeze in eight hours and sometimes even when you do

make the time, your sleep isn't quality. You're tossing and turning or stressed about the fact that you can't sleep. And it says don't fixate on sleep to the point that it stresses you out. But take it seriously. So let's fast forward on this clock to your next workout. Maybe that's the next day or maybe a few days from now. Whenever it is, I'm going to trust you being good about your sleeping and eating and stretching in between. So you're rested, you're a little sore, but not too sore.

Now take away five. Let's get our energy back up and warm up our bodies. Knowing that we're going to do activity in activity demands energy of us. We want to be thinking of foods that can give our bodies energy. Simply put that would be focusing on carbohydrates. Jeremy says if you're two to four hours out from your next workout, that's a good time to eat a solid meal. We can think of more whole food types of options. So that could be a full meal that includes a

rice, a pasta, a potato, and maybe some side items that go with that. Right? Just things that our body can take its time digesting. You can eat complex carbs like those since you're not in the rush to digest everything. But once you're closer to workout time, about an hour or less, you want to simplify those carbs. So if you like to workout in the morning and don't get up early enough to fit in a full meal, just get something small in you. Think of quick snacks that your

body can digest on the fly. Because the reality is is when we are doing activity, our body is prioritizing

“the activity, not digesting. And so that's why we want to make sure that we're really finding”

what works for us beforehand. That could be applesauce, fruit snacks, goldfish, cheese, pretzels, peanut butter, rice crispy treats. My personal favorite is yogurt. You might have to play around here and figure out what snack your body likes best. And also how much of that snack you can hold in you. Like if I have a sandwich, I'm going to take a few bites of my sandwich. When I have an hour I'm like, I need to eat something. What do I want to eat? What am I comfortable eating? What's

going to sit well on my stomach? And that's what I go with. Just get something in your body. So you're not running on an empty tank. And drink lots of water. Dehydration increases your injury risk. So

get going. Remember how important that cooldown was to slowly lower your heart rate. It works both

“ways. So before you get into the high intensity, me of your workout, you need to warm up.”

When you're warming up, you're actually trying to, from a cardiovascular perspective, increase the blood flow to the body. So adrenaline helps increase the heart rate, which increases the cardiac output. More blood flow to your brain allows you to focus and decrease the kind of pain feedback loop and more blood flow to the muscles, which allows them to swell and have a steady flow of oxygen. So they perform their function, which is to contract, right? And warming up reps your body

for all of the stretching, tearing, ganking, pulling on those muscles. It makes your muscles a little more pliable. Less stiff. So they can handle what's to come. Okay, that's our recovery clock. Everything you can do from the moment your last workout finishes to write before your next one begins. It's time for a recap. Take away one. If you took a

“break from working out and are just getting back to it, go slow. Go easier than you think you need to”

and budget lots of time for rest and recovery. Also, mix up your workouts. Take away two,

starting up that recovery clock. In the first hour after your workout, you want to spend

10 or 15 minutes cooling down. Then do some stretching. Take away three. Make sure you get a bit of protein in on your way home from the gym. Once your home and starting to get hungry, you can help your body recover by following the rule of therks, cooking a meal that's a third protein, a third carbs, and a third veggies. But most importantly, don't skip meals. Take away four. Build some recovery into your nighttime wind down. That could be more stretching,

foam rolling, or a hot bath. And make sure you're taking your sleep seriously. Take away five. A few hours out from your next workout. Get some complex carbs in you. Then right before

“eat more easily digestible snacks. But just time to warm up. And lastly, remember to celebrate”

your recovery. Just like you would a workout. That was life kit producer Margaret Serino. For more life kit, check out our other episodes. We have one about how to think about pain differently, and another about women's health myths. Also, we love hearing from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, or questions for us, email us at [email protected]. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our digital editor is Malica Greeb.

And Megan Kane is our Senior Supervising Editor. Beth Donovan is our Executive Producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle, Claremerationighter, Sylvie Douglas, and Mika Allison. Engineering support comes from Robert Rodriguez. I'm Mary El Segata. Thanks for listening. These days, it feels like the news changes every hour. Well, NPR has a podcast that does that too. NPR News Now brings you a fresh five-minute episode every hour of the day with the latest,

most important headlines in episodes that are clear, fact-based, and easy to digest.

Listen to NPR News Now on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts.