Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
How To Speed Up Recovery After A Workout (According To Actual Science)
Has your enthusiasm ever been greater than your ability, when it comes to exercise?
Perhaps you leapt excitedly into a new kind of exercise, or maybe you made a reprise of something you used to do, and found out the hard way you’re not in the same condition you used to be?
If you’ve ever done an exercise session and then spent the next three days recovering, this one’s for you. And if you’ve never done that? Well, prevention is better than cure!
Post-exercise stretching probably won’t do much to help
If you like to stretch after a workout, great, don’t let us stop you. Stretching is, generally speaking, good.
But: don’t rely on it to hasten recovery. Here’s what scientists Afonso et al. had to say recently, after doing a big review of a lot of available data:
❝There wasn’t sufficient statistical evidence to reject the null hypothesis that stretching and passive recovery have equivalent influence on recovery.
Data is scarce, heterogeneous, and confidence in cumulative evidence is very low. Future research should address the limitations highlighted in our review, to allow for more informed recommendations.
For now, evidence-based recommendations on whether post-exercise stretching should be applied for the purposes of recovery should be avoided, as the (insufficient) data that is available does not support related claims.❞
…and breath! What a title.
Hot and Cold
Contrast bath therapy (alternating hot and cold, which notwithstanding the name, can also be done in a shower) can help reduce muscle soreness after workout, because of how the change in temperature stimulates vasodilation and vasoconstriction, reducing inflammation while speeding up healing:
Contrast Water Therapy and Exercise Induced Muscle Damage: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
If doing this in the shower isn’t practical for you, and you (like most people) have only one bathtub, then cold is the way to go for the most evidence-based benefits:
Whole-Body Cryotherapy in Athletes: From Therapy to Stimulation. An Updated Review of the Literature
Eat protein whenever, carbs after
Eating protein before a workout can boost muscle protein synthesis. Be aware that even if you’re not bodybuilding, your body will still need to do cell replacement and repair, including in any muscle tissue that got damaged* during the workout
If you don’t like eating before a workout, eating protein after is fine too:
Pre- versus post-exercise protein intake has similar effects on muscular adaptations
*Note: muscle tissue is supposed to get damaged (slightly!) during many kinds of workout.
From lactic acid (that “burn” you feel when exercising) to microtears, the body’s post-workout job is to make the muscle stronger than before, and to do that, it needs you to have found the weak spots for it.
That’s what exercise-to-exhaustion does.
Eating carbs after a workout helps replace lost muscle glycogen.
For a lot more details on optimal nutrition timing in the context of exercise (carbs, proteins, micronutrients, different kinds of exercise, etc), check out this very clear guide:
International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrient timing
Alcohol is not the post-workout carb you want
Shocking, right? But of course, it’s very common for casual sportspeople to hit the bar for a social drink after their activity of choice.
However, consuming alcohol after exercise doesn’t merely fail to help, it actively inhibits glycogen replacement and protein synthesis:
Also, if you’re tempted to take alcohol “to relax”, please be aware that alcohol only feels relaxing because of what it does to the brain; to the rest of the body, it is anything but, and also raises blood pressure and cortisol levels.
As to what to drink instead…
Hydrate, and consider creatine and tart cherry supplementation
Hydration is a no-brainer, but when you’re dehydrated, it’s easy to forget!
Creatine is a very well-studied supplement, that helps recovery from intense exercise:
Tart cherry juice has been found to reduce muscle damage, soreness, and inflammation after exercise:
Wondering where you can get tart cherry powder? We don’t sell it (or anything else), but here’s an example product on Amazon.
And of course, actually rest
That includes good sleep, please. Otherwise…
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Acute Skeletal Muscle Recovery after Exercise
Rest well!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
How much time should you spend sitting versus standing? New research reveals the perfect mix for optimal health
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall health and getting good sleep is imperative.
However, if exercise in the evening may disrupt our sleep, or make us feel the need to be more sedentary to recover, a key question emerges – what is the best way to balance our 24 hours to optimise our health?
Our research attempted to answer this for risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. We found the optimal amount of sleep was 8.3 hours, while for light activity and moderate to vigorous activity, it was best to get 2.2 hours each.
Finding the right balance
Current health guidelines recommend you stick to a sensible regime of moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity 2.5–5 hours per week.
However mounting evidence now suggests how you spend your day can have meaningful ramifications for your health. In addition to moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity, this means the time you spend sitting, standing, doing light physical activity (such as walking around your house or office) and sleeping.
Our research looked at more than 2,000 adults who wore body sensors that could interpret their physical behaviours, for seven days. This gave us a sense of how they spent their average 24 hours.
At the start of the study participants had their waist circumference, blood sugar and insulin sensitivity measured. The body sensor and assessment data was matched and analysed then tested against health risk markers — such as a heart disease and stroke risk score — to create a model.
Using this model, we fed through thousands of permutations of 24 hours and found the ones with the estimated lowest associations with heart disease risk and blood-glucose levels. This created many optimal mixes of sitting, standing, light and moderate intensity activity.
When we looked at waist circumference, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and a heart disease and stroke risk score, we noted differing optimal time zones. Where those zones mutually overlapped was ascribed the optimal zone for heart disease and diabetes risk.
You’re doing more physical activity than you think
We found light-intensity physical activity (defined as walking less than 100 steps per minute) – such as walking to the water cooler, the bathroom, or strolling casually with friends – had strong associations with glucose control, and especially in people with type 2 diabetes. This light-intensity physical activity is likely accumulated intermittently throughout the day rather than being a purposeful bout of light exercise.
Our experimental evidence shows that interrupting our sitting regularly with light-physical activity (such as taking a 3–5 minute walk every hour) can improve our metabolism, especially so after lunch.
While the moderate-to-vigorous physical activity time might seem a quite high, at more than 2 hours a day, we defined it as more than 100 steps per minute. This equates to a brisk walk.
It should be noted that these findings are preliminary. This is the first study of heart disease and diabetes risk and the “optimal” 24 hours, and the results will need further confirmation with longer prospective studies.
The data is also cross-sectional. This means that the estimates of time use are correlated with the disease risk factors, meaning it’s unclear whether how participants spent their time influences their risk factors or whether those risk factors influence how someone spends their time.
Australia’s adult physical activity guidelines need updating
Australia’s physical activity guidelines currently only recommend exercise intensity and time. A new set of guidelines are being developed to incorporate 24-hour movement. Soon Australians will be able to use these guidelines to examine their 24 hours and understand where they can make improvements.
While our new research can inform the upcoming guidelines, we should keep in mind that the recommendations are like a north star: something to head towards to improve your health. In principle this means reducing sitting time where possible, increasing standing and light-intensity physical activity, increasing more vigorous intensity physical activity, and aiming for a healthy sleep of 7.5–9 hours per night.
Beneficial changes could come in the form of reducing screen time in the evening or opting for an active commute over driving commute, or prioritising an earlier bed time over watching television in the evening.
It’s also important to acknowledge these are recommendations for an able adult. We all have different considerations, and above all, movement should be fun.
Christian Brakenridge, Postdoctoral research fellow at Swinburne University Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Share This Post
Eat to Beat Disease – by Dr. William Li
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Dr. William Li asks the important question: is your diet feeding disease, or defeating it?
Because everything we put in our bodies makes our health just a little better—or just a little worse. Ok, sometimes a lot worse.
But for most people, when it comes to diet, it’s a death of a thousand cuts of unhealthy food. And that’s what he looks to fix with this book.
The good news: Dr. Li (while not advocating for unhealthy eating, of course), focuses less on what to restrict, and more on what to include. This book covers hundreds of such healthy foods, and ideas (practical, useful ones!) on incorporating them daily, including dozens of recipes.
He mainly looks at five ways our food can help us with…
- Angiogenesis (blood vessel replacement)
- Regeneration (of various bodily organs and systems)
- Microbiome health (and all of its knock-on effects)
- DNA protection (and thus slower cellular aging)
- Immunity (defending the body while also reducing autoimmune problems)
The style is simple and explanatory; Dr. Li is a great educator. Reading this isn’t a difficult read, but you’ll come out of it feeling like you just did a short course in health science.
Bottom line: if you’d like an easy way to improve your health in an ongoing and sustainable way, then this book can help you do just that.
Click here to check out Eat To Beat Disease, and eat to beat disease!
Share This Post
Cannellini Protein Gratin
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
A healthier twist on a classic, the protein here comes not only from the cannellini beans, but also from (at the risk of alienating French readers) a béchamel sauce that is not made using the traditional method involving flour and butter, but instead, has cashew protein as a major constituent.
You will need
- 3 medium potatoes, chopped (no need to peel them; you can if you want, but many of the nutrients are there and they’re not a problem for the recipe)
- 1 can cannellini beans (also called white kidney beans)
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, sliced
- 1 carrot, chopped
- ½ bulb garlic, minced (or more, if you like)
- 1 jalapeño, chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- Extra virgin olive oil, for frying
For the béchamel sauce:
- ½ cup milk (we recommend a neutral-tasting plant milk, such as unsweetened soy, but go with your preference)
- ⅓ cup cashews, soaked in hot water for at least 5 minutes (longer is fine) and drained
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp dried thyme
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
Note: it will be a bonus if you can use a pan that is good both for going on the hob and in the oven, such as a deep cast iron skillet, or a Dutch oven. If you don’t have something like that though, it’s fine, just use a sauté pan or similar, and then transfer to an oven dish for the oven part—we’ll mention this again when we get to it.
1) Preheat the oven to 250℉/175℃.
2) Heat the pan, adding some oil and then the oven; fry it for about 5 minutes, stirring often.
3) Add the potatoes, celery, carrot, garlic, and jalapeño, stirring for another 2 minutes.
4) Add the tomato paste, along with 1 cup water, the chia seeds, and the black pepper, and cook for a further 15 minutes, stirring occasionally as necessary.
5) Add the cannellini beans, and cook for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally as necessary.
6) Blend all the ingredients for the béchamel sauce, processing it until it is smooth.
7) If you are using an oven-safe pan, pour the béchamel sauce over the bean mixture (don’t stir it; the sauce should remain on top) and transfer it to the oven. Don’t use a lid.
If you’re not using an oven safe pan, first transfer the bean mixture to an oven dish, then pour the béchamel sauce over the bean mixture (don’t stir it; the sauce should remain on top) and put it in the oven. Don’t use a lid.
8) Bake for about 15 minutes, or until turning golden-brown on top.
9) Serve! It can be enjoyed on its own, or with salad and/or rice. See also, our Tasty Versatile Rice Recipe.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Easily Digestible Vegetarian Protein Sources
- Is Dairy Scary?
- Cashew Nuts vs Coconut – Which is Healthier?
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
How to Read a Book – by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Are you a cover-to-cover person, or a dip-in-and-out person?
Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren have made a science out of getting the most from reading books.
They help you find what you’re looking for (Maybe you want to find a better understanding of PCOS… maybe you want to find the definition of “heuristics”… maybe you want to find a new business strategy… maybe you want to find a romantic escape… maybe you want to find a deeper appreciation of 19th century poetry, maybe you want to find… etc).
They then help you retain what you read, and make sure that you don’t miss a trick.
Whether you read books so often that optimizing this is of huge value for you, or so rarely that when you do, you want to make it count, this book could make a real difference to your reading experience forever after.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Chromium Picolinate For Blood Sugar Control & Weight Loss
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
First, a quick disambiguation:
- chromium found in food, trivalent chromium of various kinds, is safe (in the quantities usually consumed) and is sometimes considered an essential mineral, sometimes considered unnecessary but beneficial. It’s hard to know for sure, since it’s in a lot of foods (naturally, like many trace elements)
- chromium found in pollution, hexavalent chromium (so: twice as many cationic bonds, if this writer’s chemistry serves her correctly) is poisonous.
We’re going to be writing about the food kind, which is also possible to take as a supplement.
In this case, supplementing vs getting from food is quite a big difference, by the way, since (unlike for a lot of things, which are often the other way around) the bioavailability of chromium from food is very low (around 2.5%), whereas chromium picolinate, one of the most commonly-used supplement forms, boasts higher bioavailability.
Does it work for blood sugars?
Yes, it does! At least, it does in the case of people with type 2 diabetes. Rather than bombard you with many individual studies, here’s a systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 criteria-meeting randomized clinical trials that found:
❝The available evidence suggests favourable effects of chromium supplementation on glycaemic control in patients with diabetes.
Chromium monosupplement may additionally improve triglycerides and HDL-C levels.❞
Type 1 diabetes does not have anything like the same weight of evidence, and indeed,
we couldn’t find a single human study. It was beneficial for mice with artificially-induced T1D, thoughwait no, we have an update! We found literally a single human study:Chromium picolinate supplementation for diabetes mellitus
Literally, as in: it’s a case study of one person, and the results were a modest reduction in Hb A1c levels after 3 months of 600μg daily; the researchers concluded that ❝chromium picolinate continues to fall squarely within the scope of “alternative medicine,” with both unproven benefits and unknown risks❞.
As for people without diabetes, it may reduce the risk of diabetes:
Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Is Lower in US Adults Taking Chromium-Containing Supplements
However! This was an observational study, and correlation ≠ causation.
Furthermore, they said:
❝Over one-half the adult US population consumes nutritional supplements, and over one-quarter consumes supplemental chromium. The odds of having T2D were lower in those who, in the previous 30 d, had consumed supplements containing chromium❞
That “over one-quarter consumes supplemental chromium” brought our attention to the fact that this is not talking about specifically chromium “monosupplements” (definitely not quarter of the adult population take those), but rather, “multivitamin and mineral” supplements that also contain a tiny amount (often under 50μg) of chromium.
In other words, this ruins the data and honestly the benefit could have been from anything in the “multivitamin and mineral” supplement, or indeed, could just be “the kind of person who takes supplements is the kind of person who lives a lifestyle that is less conducive to becoming diabetic”.
Does it work for weight loss?
We’re running out of space here, so we’ll be brief:
No.
There are many papers that have concluded this, but here are two:
Chromium picolinate supplementation for overweight or obese adults
and
Is it safe?
Science’s current best answer is “we don’t know; it hasn’t been tested enough; we haven’t even established the tolerable upper limit, which is usually step 1 of establishing safety”.
Nor is there an estimated average requirement (if indeed there even is a requirement, which question is also not as yet answered conclusively by science), and science falls back to “here’s an average of what people consume in their diet, so that’s probably safe, we guess”.
(that average was reckoned as 25μg/day for young women and 25μg/day for young men, by the way; older ages not as yet reckoned)
You can read about this sorry state of affairs here.
Want to try some?
Notwithstanding the above lack of data for safety, it does have benefits for blood sugars, so if that’s a gamble you’re willing to make, then here’s an example product on Amazon.
Note: the dosage per capsule there (800μg) is half of the low end of the dose that was implicated in the serious kidney condition caused in this case study (1200–2400μg), so if you are going to try it, we strongly recommend not taking more than one per day.
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Do you have knee pain from osteoarthritis? You might not need surgery. Here’s what to try instead
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Most people with knee osteoarthritis can control their pain and improve their mobility without surgery, according to updated treatment guidelines from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
So what is knee osteoarthritis and what are the best ways to manage it?
Pexels/Kindelmedia More than 2 million Australians have osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease, affecting 2.1 million Australians. It costs the economy A$4.3 billion each year.
Osteoarthritis commonly affects the knees, but can also affect the hips, spine, hands and feet. It impacts the whole joint including bone, cartilage, ligaments and muscles.
Most people with osteoarthritis have persistent pain and find it difficult to perform simple daily tasks, such as walking and climbing stairs.
Is it caused by ‘wear and tear’?
Knee osteoarthritis is most likely to affect older people, those who are overweight or obese, and those with previous knee injuries. But contrary to popular belief, knee osteoarthritis is not caused by “wear and tear”.
Research shows the degree of structural wear and tear visible in the knee joint on an X-ray does not correlate with the level of pain or disability a person experiences. Some people have a low degree of structural wear and tear and very bad symptoms, while others have a high degree of structural wear and tear and minimal symptoms. So X-rays are not required to diagnose knee osteoarthritis or guide treatment decisions.
Telling people they have wear and tear can make them worried about their condition and afraid of damaging their joint. It can also encourage them to try invasive and potentially unnecessary treatments such as surgery. We have shown this in people with osteoarthritis, and other common pain conditions such as back and shoulder pain.
This has led to a global call for a change in the way we think and communicate about osteoarthritis.
What’s the best way to manage osteoarthritis?
Non-surgical treatments work well for most people with osteoarthritis, regardless of their age or the severity of their symptoms. These include education and self-management, exercise and physical activity, weight management and nutrition, and certain pain medicines.
Education is important to dispel misconceptions about knee osteoarthritis. This includes information about what osteoarthritis is, how it is diagnosed, its prognosis, and the most effective ways to self-manage symptoms.
Health professionals who use positive and reassuring language can improve people’s knowledge and beliefs about osteoarthritis and its management.
Many people believe that exercise and physical activity will cause further damage to their joint. But it’s safe and can reduce pain and disability. Exercise has fewer side effects than commonly used pain medicines such as paracetamol and anti-inflammatories and can prevent or delay the need for joint replacement surgery in the future.
Many types of exercise are effective for knee osteoarthritis, such as strength training, aerobic exercises like walking or cycling, Yoga and Tai chi. So you can do whatever type of exercise best suits you.
Increasing general physical activity is also important, such as taking more steps throughout the day and reducing sedentary time.
Weight management is important for those who are overweight or obese. Weight loss can reduce knee pain and disability, particularly when combined with exercise. Losing as little as 5–10% of your body weight can be beneficial.
Pain medicines should not replace treatments such as exercise and weight management but can be used alongside these treatments to help manage pain. Recommended medicines include paracetamol and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Opioids are not recommended. The risk of harm outweighs any potential benefits.
What about surgery?
People with knee osteoarthritis commonly undergo two types of surgery: knee arthroscopy and knee replacement.
Knee arthroscopy is a type of keyhole surgery used to remove or repair damaged pieces of bone or cartilage that are thought to cause pain.
However, high-quality research has shown arthroscopy is not effective. Arthroscopy should therefore not be used in the management of knee osteoarthritis.
Joint replacement involves replacing the joint surfaces with artificial parts. In 2021–22, 53,500 Australians had a knee replacement for their osteoarthritis.
Joint replacement is often seen as being inevitable and “necessary”. But most people can effectively manage their symptoms through exercise, physical activity and weight management.
The new guidelines (known as “care standard”) recommend joint replacement surgery only be considered for those with severe symptoms who have already tried non-surgical treatments.
I have knee osteoarthritis. What should I do?
The care standard links to free evidence-based resources to support people with osteoarthritis. These include:
- education, such as a decision aid and four-week online course
- self-directed online exercise and yoga programs
- weight management support
- pain management strategies, such as MyJointPain and painTRAINER.
If you have osteoarthritis, you can use the care standard to inform discussions with your health-care provider, and to make informed decisions about your care.
Belinda Lawford, Postdoctoral research fellow in physiotherapy, The University of Melbourne; Giovanni E. Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney; Joshua Zadro, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Sydney Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Rana Hinman, Professor in Physiotherapy, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
