Recovery

Ibuprofen... ice bath... compression... foam roller... the stick... icy hot... heat... ok, I can get up off the couch now, whew! Ok ok, I might be exaggerating my recovery routine just a bit, but we've all done stuff to make the aftermath of a hard run less painful so that we can do it all again tomorrow. Turns out, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot. What? Isn't the whole point to train longer, harder, faster? How can we do that if we can barely move?!  

Starting with the first of those, Ibuprofen inhibits protein synthesis after exercise, so even though your legs might not feel as sore, the micro-tears created aren't being repaired. Not only does this delay recovery, but prevents your muscles from becoming stronger because there's nothing there to build with!  Moving on to ice baths, athletes who skipped them had greater strength gains, better circulation, more endurance, and better VO2-max scores. This lead scientists to conclude that ice baths actually retarded strength and endurance gains.

So, what gives? Well, as it turns out, we've failed to recognize the role that inflammation plays in our body's signaling pathways. Physiologists have long recognized that intense exercise produce micro-damage to muscles. The body naturally wants to repair itself, so it does, leaving the muscles stronger than they were before. What hadn't been recognized until recently was that inflammation is the body's way of signaling what needs to be repaired. If you reduce inflammation, your body doesn't recognize the severity of the damage, and therefore the need for repairing and rebuilding is reduced. Basically, if you trick yourself into believing your fine for long enough, your body will never learn to naturally adapt. Furthermore, muscle fibers require a finite amount of time to repair and adjust.

That doesn't mean that you should never use some type of "recovery aid". I mean, if your plantar fascia is inflamed, by all means take some ibuprofen and ice your foot! Or, after a marathon, which is basically like sudden trauma... or if you need to recovery really quickly between races. Just use recovery aids sparingly if you want to see the most gains... so probably not after an easy Monday run!