Life Kit - How to recover after a workout

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

It's normal to feel some pain or soreness after a workout. But how much is too much, and more importantly, how do you get relief? This episode, build out your post-workout recovery routine. A sports medicine doctor, nutritionist and professional athlete break down everything you can do from the moment your last workout finishes to right before your next one begins – to feel better in your body, minimize your injury risk and get the most out of that gym session.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Marielle. A couple years ago, our producer, Margaret Serino, was at the gym lifting some weights. It was her first time back after a pretty long break, but she was feeling good, feeling strong. Then, when she bent over to pick up her barbell on her last set. I just felt something snap. And I literally said out loud, that is not good. Something in her lower back, some muscle or tendon or bone, was not where it was supposed

to be. And I just immediately dropped everything and like crawled home from the gym and took all of the pain meds I could find. Margaret was mad at herself because this time this injury she says it was kind of her fault. I did none of the things I was supposed to. I was lifting weights for the first time in like a year and then immediately went as heavy as I used to go. I didn't warm up. I just waltzed into the gym, loaded up my barbell, and was like, it'll be fine. It was not fine. She had to work with a physical therapist for months

to fix her back. She couldn't do workouts or do the hobbies she liked to do, but the experience taught her that all of those parts of the workout that she used to gloss over, the warmup, the cool down, the stretching, those things matter. Three, two, one, go. After a lot of treatment and time off, Margaret's back at the gym now, doing the things she used to do, but safely this time.

And she's got tips to share, so that you don't need to throw your back out to learn the right from the wrong. On this episode of Life Kit, how to recover in between your workouts. Margaret talks with a sports medicine doctor, a nutritionist, and a professional athlete about what you can do to minimize your risk of injury, feel less sore, and get as much out of your workouts as possible. That was a hard one. The way I hurt myself, it turns out a lot of people injure themselves in the exact same way.

And that's takeaway one. If you are returning to working out, like I was, if it's been years or months or even just a week, go slow. Work out easier than you think you need to, not because you can't push yourself harder, but because you are retraining your body to handle stress. I talked with Dr. Natasha Desai. She's a sports medicine doctor at NYU Langone. And she told me that when it comes to injuries, she tends to treat people for two main reasons. I fall into the first camp. Basically, it goes like this.

People are starting to get back to exercise. And they try to exercise in the same capacity as they did back when they were 20. And they don't do that post-workout recovery. Maybe you did a bunch of sports. try to exercise in the same capacity as they did back when they were 20. And they don't do that post-workout recovery. Maybe you did a bunch of sports as a kid or you were really on top of your workout game in your teens or 20s, but you fell off for a bit. And when you get back into it, your body just can't hang.

And that's where the micro injury, the repetitive stress on the tendons, on the muscles, on the joints really do start to take their toll. And you see a lot of overused tendonitis. You see flares of early arthritis or even some moderate arthritis by that age. And just a lot of kind of soreness and pain. When you work out, whether you're at the yoga studio or on a long run or in a HIIT class at the gym, you are putting stress on your body. And you're conditioning your muscles, bones and tendons to handle a certain amount of that stress.

Over time, building up your strength and elasticity. And in between exercise, that is going to decrease. So if you go a long time between exercise and then you go back to exercising, you will feel everything a little bit tighter, a little bit more restricted and not as pliable. So if you stop moving all those muscles and then try to do that same long run or hit class you did before, things could break down. That's what happened to me. The other common cause of injury happens when someone does the exact same movement

again and again and again. They only run or they only lift and they might overdo it and they don't allow adequate time for recovery between, I always use the analogy, like if you tap your finger on the table long enough, it's going to start hurting. This is why even pro athletes need days off, even though their bodies are conditioned to handle that load.

A typical week, we lift about three times a week. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we'll be in the weight room. And then pretty much every day, Monday to Friday, we're on the track at least once. That's Anna Cockrell. She's a professional track and field athlete and Olympic medalist. You're making a face like I could never do that, girl. I barely made it through. It's true.

I was making a face. But Anna told me the reason she can do all that is because she has unlocked her rest and recovery. The things I'm able to do physically are far greater than anything I've ever been able to do in my life. I can run faster, I can run farther, I can do more, but it comes with the caveat of I have to warm up better and I have to recover better, and I have to take that stuff seriously.

Anna has one to two days off a week built into her training plan. Typically, on my off day, like, I'm doing, like, the household movement that I have been neglecting. So I'm like, let me clean my apartment. Let me do my laundry. She's doing household chores or maybe taking a yoga class. Nothing strenuous. Dr. Desai says this kind of varied training plan, strength, cardio, scheduled rest is

what everyone should be shooting for. Mixing up some strength training with some low impact exercise with some high intensity exercise. That's really for the general masses, right? And also just for long term, like throughout your lifespan, we could talk to the 20 year old and say the same thing and the 80 year old and say the same thing. So go slow, plan out time for rest and recovery and mix up your workouts. I asked Anna what else we could take away from a week in her life.

What else could help us recover and perform better? Her biggest advice? There's not one workout. There's not one supplement. There's not one secret. Like sometimes it's just a grift. People are really trying to make a lot of money. Beware of the grift.

If a supplement promises to be the cure-all for muscle soreness or insists it'll give you six-pack abs, those claims are probably not true. It's hard, and maybe we all knew this deep down, but what makes the biggest difference are your habits. Sleeping well, eating regularly, warming up and cooling down, a lot of extras on the market can just cloud that. With that in mind, Anna walked me through her own habits. Everything she does from the moment she stops her workout

to the moment right before the next one. The Recovery Clock Okay, the recovery clock is starting. Takeaway two, right after your workout, you want to gradually ease the load on your heart and muscles. I think it's a very bad idea to go straight from your last rep Right after your workout, you want to gradually ease the load on your heart and muscles. I think it's a very bad idea to go straight from your last rep to your car. Anna says, whatever you do, do not skip your cool down.

Whatever that pain you feel, that achy, burny kind of pain, I know it feels better the next day when I cool down and take my time and actually let my body say, we're finished. Scientifically, the cool down is where your body first begins its mending and recovery. You're bringing your heart rate down slowly so that your body can redirect blood flow to the right places. Because you are now not exercising and you don't need all that kind of diversion of blood flow to your muscles and you need to redirect the blood flow to your organs and

digestive system and things like that. So when you skip a cool down, Dr. Desai says you could experience post-exercise hypotension or a big drop in blood pressure. You might feel dizzy, low energy. To counteract that, you don't need to do anything special. You just want to make sure you're not going from the hardest movement of your day to vegging out on the couch. We finish the workout, I give myself a couple minutes and then I'm like slow jogging, sometimes

even like walking then jogging, then walking jogging, for maybe 10, 15 minutes if I'm being very dedicated. Anna says for her, and really for everyone, this is non-negotiable. So if you've got an hour to get your workout in, think about spending 10 minutes cooling down. Thinking of that as like, my workout is not complete until I cool down. Okay. You spent 10, 15 minutes slowly lowering your heart rate. You know, maybe you did a light jog or a speed walk on the treadmill. That's what I like to do. Next on the clock, it's time for some stretching. And this is what makes a bigger difference in how

sore you feel the next day. Now, the research out there says that soreness benefit from stretching is pretty minor but if you didn't do any stretching it increases your risk of the delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS that you often hear about after intense physical activity. It's totally fine and expected to feel a little sore. You might even like it. It means you did the work. But it's that second day soreness that Dr. Desai is talking about. The kind of soreness where you feel like you've been hit by a bus when you wake up and you can't get out of bed.

Yeah, that's too sore. You want to avoid that. Because that means there's so much tension in that muscle that if you went and worked out hard, the same workout that you just did a few days earlier, you could really injure yourself by either tearing the muscle or creating a lot of inflammation. Take a few minutes and stretch out any muscle that feels tight or that you just used a lot.

Since I like to lift weights that can be heavy on my legs, I'm usually doing quad stretches and pigeon poses. You know, things to loosen up my hips and thighs. Anna usually does toe touches, hamstring stretches, calf raises, some seated leg straddles. Just like a set of eight to ten of those. Really, she just does what feels good. I don't usually put a watch to that stretching. It's more just kind of getting the movement in.

Let's talk food now. Takeaway three, nutrition and recovery go hand in hand. Right after your workout, your body needs to take in protein to help it build more muscle. So next on the clock, you want to get some protein in, especially if you're not going to be able to eat your larger meal until much later. Having a quick protein in the form of a chocolate milk, a protein shake is a great thing to

do because that kind of carries you over until you're able to eat. That's Jeremy Ford. He's a sports dietician and nutritionist at the University of South Carolina. He told me that when we work out, we're actually creating micro tears in our muscles. In response, our bodies repair those weaker muscle fibers and build up heartier, fortified fibers in their place. That's how we get stronger. But to build back those fibers, we need to give our bodies some fuel to work with. And when we eat protein, our bodies break it down into amino acids that are then

incorporated into these new muscle cells. So get your protein fix as soon as you can. Eat a protein bar on your walk home from the gym or drink some milk right when you get home. Fast forward a couple hours, you're home now, maybe you're getting a little hungry and it's time to eat a bigger meal. And I won't lie, in the world of fitness, the way we talk about nutrition can feel incredibly confusing. There are micros and macros and meal prepping and so many diets to sift through, and all of them are claiming to be the best.

It's a lot. Anna agrees. Every time I tried to do a lot of intense, like, macro counting or calorie counting, I either got way too obsessed with it or was just something that I could not maintain, and then I felt bad about the fact that I couldn't maintain it. So let's strip this down to the basics. What do you actually really need to eat? Jeremy goes by the rule of thirds. So it would be a third of protein, a third of carbs, and a third of fruits or vegetables. By following a plate like that, it makes it very simple to cover all of your

bases from a recovery perspective, but also just kind of a general rule of thumb for when you eat meals in general. Maybe that's some chicken or fish in one portion of your plate, a nice scoop of rice or pasta or potatoes and the other third, and then your favorite veggie in that last section, whatever you got in the fridge. Also, protein doesn't necessarily mean meat. Legumes are protein, nuts are protein. We can think of anything from lentils to lima beans to kidney beans. You can think of almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds. You can even look at soy products and tofu,

edamame, things of that nature can all provide additional protein sources. Now we already talked about why our bodies need protein. And we have a whole episode on how to get more of it for optimal muscle gains. You should queue that up after. But as for the other parts of the plate, your body's main energy source is carbohydrates.

And you've just spent a lot of energy during that workout. So now you need to re-up. And those fruits and vegetables also give you carbs, as well as necessary vitamins and minerals that you'd be missing otherwise. But first and foremost, Jeremy's biggest recovery advice is to make sure you're eating in the first place, even if it's imperfect. And so when I say that, I mean, don't skip a meal, right? When we're not properly fueling our bodies, it puts us at a risk for injury because we're pretty much asking our bodies to drive a car with no gas in it. Let's get back to Anna's schedule and that recovery clock.

At this point in the day, she's left the track, driven home, had her big meal. Now it's evening and time for her deeper, mindful recovery. Takeaway four, recovery continues into the night. Anna likes to do a nighttime stretch routine to wind down her body before bed. And again, just like that immediate post-workout stretching, this doesn't need to feel like a whole big thing. It really can just be turning on the TV and stretching when the ads come on. Like, okay, I'm going to sit and I'm going to touch my toes for this whole 30 seconds.

I'm going to get on the ground and get in a lunge so that you're still doing your TV time, but you're starting to get your body on that path to recovery back into movement so that the next session isn't quite so hard. This could be a good time to use any recovery gadgets you have. Again, nothing fancy. If you do want to purchase something, Anna says a foam roller will be your biggest ally. Because you can just hit so many different parts of your body and all you have to do is put it on the floor and rock back and forth on top of it.

Also, I just want to say recovery doesn't need to feel like work. You could treat it like an indulgence. Maybe light some candles and draw yourself a bath. I think sometimes we make recovery more complicated than it needs to be. My grandmother loved an Epsom salt bath. If it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. So like three to four times a week, honestly, I'm in the bathtub. And I've got all my little essential oils too.

So I feel like I'm like seasoning the water with my different oils and types of Epsom salts and magnesium flakes. I got the whole thing. Nicole Aspire And when you're done, seal it with the final and most important part of your wind down. Tieshia Lambert Now that I've started sleeping more, I do notice a difference on the days where I got a lot of rest versus the days that I didn't.

Get your sleep in. Sometimes life gets overwhelming and you can't squeeze in eight hours, and sometimes even when you do make the time, your sleep isn't quality. You're tossing and turning or stressed about the fact that you can't sleep. Anna says don't fixate on sleep to the point that it stresses you out but take it seriously. So let's fast forward on this clock to your next workout. Maybe that's the next day or maybe a few days from now. Whenever it is I'm gonna trust you've been good about your sleeping and eating and stretching in between so you're rested you're a

little sore but not too sore. Now take away five, let's get our energy back up and warm up our bodies. Knowing that we are going to do activity and activity demands energy of us. We want to be thinking of foods that can give our bodies energy. Simply put, that would be focusing on carbohydrates. Jeremy says if you're two to four hours out

from your next workout, that's a good time to eat a solid meal. We can think of more whole food types of options. So that could be a full meal that includes a rice, a pasta, a potato, and maybe some side items that go with that, right? Just things that our body can take its time digesting. You can eat complex carbs like those

since you're not in the rush to digest everything, but once you're closer to workout time, about an hour or less, you want to simplify those carbs. So if you like to work out in the morning and don't get up early enough to fit in a full meal, just get something small in you. Think of quick snacks that your body can digest on the fly. Because the reality is, is when we are doing activity,

our body is prioritizing the activity, not digestion. And so that's why we want to make sure that we're really finding what works for us beforehand. That could be applesauce, fruit snacks, goldfish, cheese, pretzels, peanut butter, Rice Krispie treats. My personal favorite is yogurt. You might have to play around here and figure out what snack your body

likes best and also how much of that snack you can hold in you. Like if I have a sandwich, I'm going to take a few bites of my sandwich. When I have an hour, I'm like, I need to eat something. What do I want to eat? What am I comfortable eating?

What's going to sit well on my stomach? And that's what I go with. Just get something in your body so you're not running on an empty tank and drink lots of water. Dehydration increases your injury risk. So I always go into a workout trying to make sure I'm hydrated. One last thing, and then you're ready to get going.

Remember how important that cool down was to slowly lower your heart rate? It works both ways. So before you get into the high intensity meat of your workout, you need to warm up. When you're warming up, you're actually trying to, from a cardiovascular perspective, increase the blood flow to the body.

So adrenaline helps increase the blood flow to the body. So adrenaline helps increase the heart rate, which increases the cardiac output, more blood flow to your brain, allows you to focus and decrease the kind of pain feedback loop, and more blood flow to the muscles, which allows them to swell and have a steady flow of oxygen so they perform their function which is to contract, right? And warming up preps your body for all of the stretching, tearing, yanking, pulling on those muscles. It makes your muscles a little more pliable, less stiff, so they can handle what's to come. Okay, that's our recovery clock. Everything you can do from the moment your last workout finishes to right before your

next one begins. To feel better in your body, minimize your injury risk, and maximize the benefits of all that work you're doing. Right now, Anna's in what is personally her least favorite part of the season. She's spending a lot of hours at the track. But she has an outlook on this yucky period of her training that I think applies really well to all of recovery and all of fitness, especially if you do have a bad workout or do feel a lot of pain and soreness. Yeah, today felt really bad. I don't feel like I did well. When I look at this workout from a

year ago, I've done better. So I could be salty that I was in the back of the pack today, but a year ago, I would have been way in the back of the pack. And today I was in striking distance. So like a win is a win. Give yourself a win. Maybe the win is that you returned to the gym after some time off, or that you did a cool down for the first time, or cooked yourself a really filling meal,

or spent 10 minutes stretching before bed. All of that matters. And once you accumulate enough of those small victories, the wins just get bigger and bigger. Okay, it's time for a recap. Takeaway one, if you took a break from working out and are just getting back to it, go slow, go easier than you think you need to, and budget lots of time for rest and recovery. Also, mix up your workouts. Takeaway two, starting up that

recovery clock in the first hour after your workout, you want to spend 10 or 15 minutes cooling down, then do some stretching. Takeaway three, make sure you get a bit of protein in on your way home from the gym. Once you're home and starting to get hungry, you can help your body recover by following the rule of thirds. Cooking a meal that's a third protein, a third carbs, and a third veggies. But most importantly, don't skip meals. Takeaway four, build some recovery into your nighttime wind down.

That could be more stretching, foam rolling, or a hot bath, and make sure you're taking your sleep seriously. Takeaway five, a few hours out from your next workout, get some complex carbs in you, then right before eat more easily digestible snacks. Budget time to warm up and lastly, remember to celebrate your recovery, just like you would a workout.

That was LifeKit producer Margaret Serino. For more LifeKit, check out our other episodes. We've got one on how to get into weightlifting and another on eating healthy on a budget. You can find those at npr.org slash lifekit. And if you love LifeKit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash lifekit newsletter. Also we love hearing from you, so if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share email us at lifekit at npr.org. This episode of lifekit was produced by Margaret Serino. Our visuals editor is

Beck Harlan and our digital editor is Malika Gareeb. Megan Cain is our supervising editor and Beth Jonavan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagel, Claire Marie Schneider and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Robert Rodriguez. I'm Mariel Sagarra. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching!