Imagine you have just finished a workout. Your legs are like jelly, your lungs are burning and you just want to collapse on the couch.

But instead, you pick yourself up and go for a brisk walk.

While this might seem counterintuitive, doing some light activity after an intense workout – known as “active recovery” – has been suggested to reduce soreness and speed up recovery after exercise.

But does it work or is it just another fitness myth?

What is active recovery?

Active recovery simply describes doing some low-intensity physical activity after a strenuous bout of exercise.

This is commonly achieved through low-intensity cardio, such as walking or cycling, but can also consist of low-intensity stretching, or even bodyweight exercises such as squats and lunges.

The key thing is making sure the intensity is light or moderate, without moving into the “vigorous” range.

As a general rule, if you can maintain a conversation while you’re exercising, you are working at a light-to-moderate intensity.

Some people consider doing an easy training session on their “rest days” as a form of active recovery. However, this has not really been researched. So we will be focusing on the more traditional form of active recovery in this article, where it is performed straight after exercise.

What does active recovery do?

Active recovery helps speed up the removal of waste products, such as lactate and hydrogen, after exercise. These waste products are moved from the muscles into the blood, before being broken down and used for energy, or simply excreted.

This is thought to be one of the ways it promotes recovery.

In some instances active recovery has been shown to reduce muscle soreness in the days following exercise. This may lead to a faster return to peak performance in some physical capabilities such as jump height.

But, active recovery does not appear to reduce post-exercise inflammation. While this may sound like a bad thing, it’s not.

Post-exercise inflammation can promote increases in strength and fitness after exercise. And so when it’s reduced (say, by using ice baths after exercise) this can lead to smaller training improvements than would be seen otherwise.

This means active recovery can be used regularly after exercise without the risk of affecting the benefits of the main exercise session.

There’s evidence to the contrary too

Not all research on active recovery is positive.

Several studies indicate it’s no better than simply lying on the couch when it comes to reducing muscle soreness and improving performance after exercise.

In fact, there’s more research suggesting active recovery doesn’t have an effect than research showing it does have an effect.

While there could be several reasons for this, two stand out.

First, the way in which active recovery is applied in the research varies as lot. It’s likely there is a sweet spot in terms of how long active recovery should last to maximise its benefits (more on this later).

Second, it’s likely the benefits of active recovery are trivial to small. As such, they won’t always be considered “significant” in the scientific literature, despite offering potentially meaningful benefits at an individual level. In sport science, studies often have small sample sizes, which can make it hard to see small effects.

But there doesn’t seem to be any research suggesting active recovery is less effective than doing nothing, so at worst it certainly won’t cause any harm.

When is active recovery useful?

Active recovery appears useful if you need to perform multiple bouts of exercise within a short time frame. For example, if you were in a tournament and had 10–20 minutes between games, then a quick active recovery would be better than doing nothing.

Active recovery might also be a useful strategy if you have to perform exercise again within 24 hours after intense activity.

For example, if you are someone who plays sport and you need to play games on back-to-back days, doing some low-intensity active recovery after each game might help reduce soreness and improve performance on subsequent days.

Similarly, if you are training for an event like a marathon and you have a training session the day after a particularly long or intense run, then active recovery might get you better prepared for your next training session.

Conversely, if you have just completed a low-to-moderate intensity bout of exercise, it’s unlikely active recovery will offer the same benefits. And if you will get more than 24 hours of rest between exercise sessions, active recovery is unlikely to do much because this will probably be long enough for your body to recover naturally anyway.

How to get the most out of active recovery

The good news is you don’t have to do a lot of active recovery to see a benefit.

A systematic review looking at the effectiveness of active recovery across 26 studies found 6–10 minutes of exercise was the sweet spot when it came to enhancing recovery.

Interestingly, the intensity of exercise didn’t seem to matter. If it was within this time frame, it had a positive effect.

So it makes sense to make your active recovery easy (because why would you make it hard if you don’t have to?) by keeping it in the light-to-moderate intensity range.

However, don’t expect active recovery to be a complete game changer. The research would suggest the benefits are likely to be small at best.

Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia and Lewis Ingram, Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years to address men’s violence towards women. This includes up to $5,000 to support those escaping violent relationships.

However, to reduce and prevent gender-based and intimate partner violence we also need to address the root causes and contributors. These include alcohol and other drugs, trauma and mental health issues.

Why is this crucial?

The World Health Organization estimates 30% of women globally have experienced intimate partner violence, gender-based violence or both. In Australia, 27% of women have experienced intimate partner violence by a co-habiting partner; almost 40% of Australian children are exposed to domestic violence.

By gender-based violence we mean violence or intentionally harmful behaviour directed at someone due to their gender. But intimate partner violence specifically refers to violence and abuse occurring between current (or former) romantic partners. Domestic violence can extend beyond intimate partners, to include other family members.

These statistics highlight the urgent need to address not just the aftermath of such violence, but also its roots, including the experiences and behaviours of perpetrators.

What’s the link with mental health, trauma and drugs?

The relationships between mental illness, drug use, traumatic experiences and violence are complex.

When we look specifically at the link between mental illness and violence, most people with mental illness will not become violent. But there is evidence people with serious mental illness can be more likely to become violent.

The use of alcohol and other drugs also increases the risk of domestic violence, including intimate partner violence.

About one in three intimate partner violence incidents involve alcohol. These are more likely to result in physical injury and hospitalisation. The risk of perpetrating violence is even higher for people with mental ill health who are also using alcohol or other drugs.

It’s also important to consider traumatic experiences. Most people who experience trauma do not commit violent acts, but there are high rates of trauma among people who become violent.

For example, experiences of childhood trauma (such as witnessing physical abuse) can increase the risk of perpetrating domestic violence as an adult.

Early traumatic experiences can affect the brain and body’s stress response, leading to heightened fear and perception of threat, and difficulty regulating emotions. This can result in aggressive responses when faced with conflict or stress.

This response to stress increases the risk of alcohol and drug problems, developing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and increases the risk of perpetrating intimate partner violence.

How can we address these overlapping issues?

We can reduce intimate partner violence by addressing these overlapping issues and tackling the root causes and contributors.

The early intervention and treatment of mental illness, trauma (including PTSD), and alcohol and other drug use, could help reduce violence. So extra investment for these are needed. We also need more investment to prevent mental health issues, and preventing alcohol and drug use disorders from developing in the first place.

Preventing trauma from occuring and supporting those exposed is crucial to end what can often become a vicious cycle of intergenerational trauma and violence. Safe and supportive environments and relationships can protect children against mental health problems or further violence as they grow up and engage in their own intimate relationships.

We also need to acknowledge the widespread impact of trauma and its effects on mental health, drug use and violence. This needs to be integrated into policies and practices to reduce re-traumatising individuals.

How about programs for perpetrators?

Most existing standard intervention programs for perpetrators do not consider the links between trauma, mental health and perpetrating intimate partner violence. Such programs tend to have little or mixed effects on the behaviour of perpetrators.

But we could improve these programs with a coordinated approach including treating mental illness, drug use and trauma at the same time.

Such “multicomponent” programs show promise in meaningfully reducing violent behaviour. However, we need more rigorous and large-scale evaluations of how well they work.

What needs to happen next?

Supporting victim-survivors and improving interventions for perpetrators are both needed. However, intervening once violence has occurred is arguably too late.

We need to direct our efforts towards broader, holistic approaches to prevent and reduce intimate partner violence, including addressing the underlying contributors to violence we’ve outlined.

We also need to look more widely at preventing intimate partner violence and gendered violence.

We need developmentally appropriate education and skills-based programs for adolescents to prevent the emergence of unhealthy relationship patterns before they become established.

We also need to address the social determinants of health that contribute to violence. This includes improving access to affordable housing, employment opportunities and accessible health-care support and treatment options.

All these will be critical if we are to break the cycle of intimate partner violence and improve outcomes for victim-survivors.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call 000.

Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney; Lucinda Grummitt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney, and Steph Kershaw, Research Fellow, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.