Now that summer is on the way and the weather is warming up, more and more of my clients are setting amazing fitness goals. I have one client set for her first marathon in only a few short months, and another with a weight loss goal of 15kg! I also have clients who are participating in swimming races while others are excited to simply move their bodies more and become fitter. But before we get stuck into intense training schedules and running the risk of overtraining, I think it’s important to talk about recovery.
When we exercise, we induce an inflammatory response in the body. This is because it’s the body’s natural repair process. Inflammation allows for an increase of blood flow and replenishment of oxygen to the affected area, it is also a natural detoxification process as the body clears waste and toxins during this process too. It is for this reason that exercise recovery is so important, because if we continue to exercise while our body is trying to repair from an earlier workout, we run the risk of injury and causing our immune system to work overtime, which can lead to the body crashing and us ending up on the couch, not feeling the best.
During exercise, we break down our muscle fibres especially during strength based exercise like weight lifting. Have you ever felt really sore the day after a hard workout? Perhaps you had some stiffness and subtle (or intense!) pain in the muscle you were working? Providing you did not injure yourself, this pain is in fact normal and part of the body’s process in developing strength. When we work hard on the gym floor with high volume exercise and/or heavy weights, we are literally tearing apart our muscle fibres and is the reason we are sore within the next one to three days. This soreness is known as DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and is perfectly normal. During the DOMS process our muscle fibres are actually growing back together, and when they do, they grow back stronger! This is what allows us to then go to the gym the next week and lift a littler heavier or feel a little fitter. However, the key point here is that this recovery process of our muscle fibres growing back stronger can only happen when we are resting. This is why sleep is critical to recovery, our body physically cannot repair and recover when we do not allow it the time and rest to do so.
One of the best ways to enhance your recovery process is to fuel the body with supplementation that will provide it with key nutrients. Our Herbs Online Shop Post Workout Herbs are designed for this very purpose. Our special herbal formula can help you recover after a workout while also providing additional benefits that help shred fat, build muscle and support detoxification, rehydration and also help with injuries and pain!
This all has to do with that inflammatory response we talked about earlier, it is our special organic ingredients of turmeric, boswellia, rosehips, dandelion, skullcap and ginger root which work directly on the effected area and assist with healing and provides fast nutrients to the body. Our Post Workout Herbal is designed to offer the body anti-inflammatory benefits that also work to push antioxidants and Vitamin C throughout the body for fast, effective and whole body recovery and wellbeing.
The Herbs are truly effective and the difference in recovery time is noticeable. If you are interested in trying some please get in touch and we can chat about them further.
If you’re not already, why not follow Herbs Online Shop on both Instagram and Facebook. We have a new 30 Day Challenge starting in October to kick start our Summer Slimming series so stay tuned for that!!