Maximize Muscle Recovery With These 9 Hacks

Oscar Collins

Sep 12, 2024

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You hit the gym hard to get results, but using your rest days is just as important. Learning the right tips to maximize muscle recovery avoids unnecessary frustration and gets you closer to the fit physique you desire in less time.

What do you need to know? Here’s how to rock your rest days to maximize muscle recovery.

Why Muscle Recovery Matters

Have you heard the phrase “stronger at the broken places?” While many use it as a metaphor for overcoming trauma, the saying applies quite literally to strength gains. The work you do in the gym breaks your muscles down. You get stronger during the rest and recovery phase.

While failing to maximize muscle recovery won’t completely halt your progress, it can lead to training plateaus. Worse, it contributes to injuries and illnesses that land you on the DL. Additionally, you could experience unwanted symptoms such as:

Emotional dysregulation
Sleep disturbances
Extreme muscle soreness

In short, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by adopting a go-hard without-ever-going-home approach. The bottom line? You need breaks to maximize muscle recovery.

What you do on your rest days matters. Here are nine hacks to make your recovery even more effective and boost your gains in the gym.

1. Stick to the Schedule

While you should perform resistance training exercises at least two to three days per week, many people looking to build size and strength prefer to hit the weight room more often. That’s fine — as long as you create a schedule for your workouts and stick to it to maximize muscle recovery and avoid overtaxing certain muscle groups.

The simplest method for doing so is to split your workouts, exercising certain body parts on specific days while letting others rest. Such a routine enables you to resistance train up to six days per week. You can design your split schedule in several ways:

Upper-lower training works your upper and lower body muscles on alternating days.
Bodypart splits allow even further differentiation by muscle group. For example, you might do chest and triceps one day, back and biceps another and legs on the third.
Push-pull splits divide resistance training by function. For example, pull days may include more of your posterior chain — your back and hamstrings — while push days focus on bench presses and squats.

Furthermore, vary your workout time based on how many days per week you spend in the weight room. If you’re on a 6-day program, your workouts might only take 30 minutes, compared to 45 to 60 for someone on a 4-day plan. Save a few minutes for a proper warm-up and cool-down. Warmups should consist of dynamic stretches, such as calf raises, saving longer, static stretches for the cool down.

2. Nourish Your Recovery

Strength training goes hand in hand with nutrition. After all, your body needs the right raw materials to build new muscle fibers and remove waste efficiently. What you eat after a grueling workout matters to replenish your body’s muscles and energy levels.

Eat Enough Protein

Your dinner menu priority should be protein, considering this macronutrient repairs microtears and rebuilds more muscular arms and legs. How much does protein matter? A 2022 European Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found peri-exercise maintained maximal strength levels, so prioritize this nutrient.

How can you integrate more protein into your diet? Lean proteins need not necessarily consist of meat. Many of this year’s elite Olympic athletes embrace a vegan diet, and consuming the right blend of beans, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains can provide all of your essential amino acids. Sneak it into your breakfast, desserts and other snacks you might not consider. Add peanut butter to your oatmeal or banana at breakfast.

If you dislike cooking, find low-effort meals to heighten your daily intake. Slow cookers could be your best friend, considering the 27g of protein you get from each serving of chicken taco soup. Adding occasional seafood provides you with omega-3 fatty acids, the healthy fats your body needs. Other lean protein choices include chicken and some cuts of beef, pork and game meats.

Incorporate Carbohydrates

The fitness industry significantly focuses on protein as your go-to post-workout tool for muscle recovery. However, you shouldn’t discount the benefits of carbohydrates. Some people undermine carbs because they can be high in calories, but this view neglects their post-workout benefits. Carbs are your body’s preferred energy source, so proper intake helps your insulin production. Without this micronutrient, you risk feeling tired and groggy after exercise.

Now, it’s essential to distinguish carb types because fries are different from apples. Prioritize complex carbohydrates because they digest slowly and delay glucose release in your bloodstream. Some of these foods include whole-wheat pasta, sweet potatoes and brown rice. Conversely, your body digests simple carbohydrates quickly and leaves you hungry sooner. Refrain from sodas, potato chips and candy as your primary food groups.

Keep It Colorful

The best diet to fuel your recovery is also rich in colorful, plant-based foods, whole grains and pre and probiotics to nurture your microbiome:

Colorful, plant-based foods are rich in various antioxidants that whisk harmful free radicals out of your body. Many have anti-cancer properties and support multiple bodily functions. Plants are also rich sources of prebiotics such as inulin, which feed the healthy bacteria colonies in your gut. Studies suggest that a depleted microbiome can slow muscle recovery.
Whole grains are also prebiotic fiber sources and create bulk in your intestines, keeping you fuller longer and inhibiting overeating. They’re also plant-based protein sources. However, it’s easy for labels to mislead you. Seek those that read “100% whole grain” or “100% whole wheat.” Otherwise, the manufacturer may primarily rely on bleached, processed flour with only a touch of the good stuff.
Probiotic-rich foods include yogurt, kombucha, kefir and fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi. A diet rich in them replenishes some of the good gut bacteria you need but lose over time, especially with frequent antibiotic or alcohol use. These microscopic powerhouses play a role in multiple body processes, from maximizing muscle recovery to boosting mood — giving you the oomph you need to get back to the gym after rest.

3. Stay Hydrated

Man kneeling with cricket equipment and drinking water

While it may seem simple, water is one of the first steps of optimized muscle recovery. Drinking a cold glass of aqua provides your body with the tools to heal your sore body and process nutrients. For example, water provides electrolytes that electrically charge your body after a workout. Compare it to an electric vehicle (EV) recharging in your garage.

Water is the most accessible way to hydrate, considering it’s the planet’s most plentiful renewable resource. So, how much should you drink daily to aid your recovery? The answer depends on how much sweat and fluids you lose during your workout. A 2021 Journal of Human Kinetics study recommended watching water quality and alkalinity when replacing these fluids.

4. Consider Creatine

A pile of creatine with a scooper in the middle

Another part of nutrition and muscle recovery originates from food you can’t eat with a knife and fork. Creatine supplements have become popular in the health and wellness industry because they activate satellite cells in your tissues, thus repairing torn muscles. What else does creatine do? It increases your anabolic hormones, such as insulin and testosterone. You need these hormones for recovery, especially as you age.

When guys get older, they see their testosterone levels drop. Therefore, the muscle recovery time by age increases because the body needs longer to recuperate. Younger bodies may only need a day or two to recover. Still, research indicates older adults need more time to let their bodies heal. A 2023 Sports Medicine study reviewed studies and found seniors over 65 needed 72 hours to recover fully. The first 48 hours saw declines in muscle function.

5. Keep It Moving — Gently

Your rest day need not exclude everything but Netflix. Gentle movement keeps blood and fresh oxygen flowing to various muscle groups to aid in their recovery. You might take a walk, practice yoga or putter around the house and garden to get mild activity and encourage healing.

6. Try a Little Hot-Cold Therapy

Many coaches use hot and cold therapies to maximize muscle recovery. Do treatments like ice baths and hot tubs work? The limited scientific evidence to date shows mixed results, but if such practices make you feel better, why not indulge?

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when considering your recovery tactics. If you prefer expert help, consider cryotherapy solutions for exhilarating sessions. You’ll stand in frigid temperatures for a few minutes to relax your muscles and provide a unique experience. Can you brave the conditions to earn cryotherapy’s benefits?

Cryotherapy’s objective is to mitigate inflammation by restricting blood flow and increasing oxygen levels. While the full-body version seems intimidating, there are a few alternatives if you don’t want the comprehensive cold conditions. For example, localized cryotherapy targets specific muscle groups and helps post-workout recovery. Try it on your calves and thighs after a hard leg day!

Cold therapy reduces inflammation by narrowing your blood vessels to restrict flow. Hot does the opposite, expanding vessels to encourage circulation. You may have to experiment to find which works best for you. Some people love the sensory experience of contrasting hot and cold dips, although no evidence suggests this practice works better than other recovery methods like stretching.

7. Get Enough Sleep

Another simple but effective muscle recovery hack is getting enough sleep. After a challenging workout, your body needs to rest with a good night’s sleep. While taking it easy after a workout is necessary, you need a whole night of rest to recover. If you don’t, you risk compromising your recuperation. How much does it affect your muscle recovery?

A 2020 Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise study found sleep deprivation negatively affected inflammatory and hormonal responses in men. With this in mind, it’s essential to support your sleep health in any way you can. Cool your bedroom at night and sleep in a dark environment to ensure you fall asleep and rest throughout the night. A good sleep environment is critical to your overall health, so it’s worth the investment.

8. Rub It Out

Natural remedies make recovery easier when you have sore muscles. You don’t have to purchase sleep to help your aching body. Massage feels fabulous, especially on sore muscles. Two of the most popular methods among athletes are lymphatic massage and deep tissue. The former uses gentle strokes to reduce swelling, while the latter focuses on heavy pressure to ease tight knots.

That said, you can use technology to make the process easier. If you’re wondering how to speed up muscle strain recovery, consider tools like massage guns. These devices provide deep tissue massages to give your body the healing it needs.

Another valuable piece of recovery equipment is a foam roller. This gear mimics the massages you might get from a professional masseuse, thus soothing your body after a workout. Foam rollers are helpful because you can take them anywhere you work out. Bring them to the office, your vacation hotel or a relative’s house to aid muscle recovery on the go.

9. Engage Your Mind-Body Power

Your thoughts influence how you feel physically. Meditation may be a particularly effective tool for athletes who also have chronic pain, as recent studies suggest a regular practice produces brain changes that affect how you experience discomfort.

A powerful and simple meditative technique to maximize muscle recovery is a body scan. Get into a comfortable position and mentally travel through your body, bringing awareness to each part. Some people believe that doing so acts as a massage for your nervous system, harnessing your power of interoception to keep impulses flowing smoothly and spurring healing.