5 Ways To Wind Down After An Intense Workout

5 Ways To Wind Down After An Intense Workout : High intensity workouts feel great. The rush of endorphins you get after physically exerting yourself for a decent amount of time is an unbeatable feeling. Whether you train at night or during the day – you can be left with a post-workout “buzz” for the rest of your time spent awake.

Occasionally, though, you may find that you’ve over-exerted yourself. You may return home from the gym to find yourself weak, even shaky. What are the best steps to take in this scenario to help yourself ‘wind down’ as it were?

Even a quick cardio session can fire your heart rate up and flood you with endorphins. It can be pretty tricky to wind down after this. If you work out in the evening – this can even impact your sleep. It can be difficult to go to bed when you’re still fired up from the workout you had an hour ago.

Re-hydrate

If you like to stay hydrated during your workouts, this may not be as big of a deal for you. But if you forgot your water bottle or simply don’t have one then you can find yourself leaving a workout dehydrated. Dehydration isn’t just a lack of water – it’s a lack of electrolytes. Critical minerals that are required to keep your body functioning efficiently. Mineral water is often fairly dense in electrolytes, but this isn’t always enough. Incorporating Himalayan pink salt and NoSalt into your post-workout meals can also give your electrolytes a much needed boost.

Go For A Walk

If you find yourself driving to and from the gym, you could be missing out on some critical time to wind down after an intense session. Walking gives your heart time to gradually adjust back into a slower rhythm. Depending on the time of year, you may get the added benefit of cooling down too. Fresh air also doesn’t hurt – especially after you’ve spent some time cooked up inside a gym.

Get Some Stretching In

There’s a couple of different reasons you should be stretching after a workout. But it’s important to note that you should also be stretching before your workouts too.

The main reason being that it can work towards actively preventing strains and injuries. The less flexible you are – the more likely it is you’ll sustain some kind of injury during training.

Stretching after a workout also gives you the chance to relax your muscles. You should take particular care to target the major muscle groups. Especially muscles that have been subjected to intense periods of exercise. Yoga offers a wide variety of stretches for targeting just about every single muscle group. More intense yoga sessions can even be considered a workout in their own right.

Massage Stiff Muscles

You don’t need to opt for a professional masseuse to reap the benefits of a massage. Muscles can become stiff and “knots” can form which cause inflammation and soreness. You can massage these thoroughly with your fingers to help you bounce back into tip top fighting condition.

If that doesn’t quite cut it for you, you can also opt for a foam roller. Foam rollers are great for using your body weight as leverage to thoroughly massage affected areas. You’ll often walk away from a foam roller session feeling much more lightweight and relaxed after you’ve loosened your muscles.

Put the roller under just about any muscle and use your body weight to apply pressure. Once you’re in the appropriate position – simply roll it back and forth. You’ll feel all the built up pressure in your muscles beginning to slip away pretty quickly.

Even if you are just opting for a quick cardio session – a roller can be used to alleviate stress in the legs.

Meditation

Meditation has for a long time been gawked at in the west. Lots of misinformation and stereotypes surround this practice. But in recent years, people have begun to develop a much more practical and sensible outlook on this ancient technique. Meditation is the process of achieving both mental clarity and emotional calmness through a variety of special techniques. These techniques can involve focusing on a particular recurring sound, an object or even your own breath.

Countless beginners guides exist online to help you get started with meditation. It’s one of the better ways to wind down – you don’t need to restrict yourself to post-workout either. Meditation can be an invaluable de-stressing tool after a tough day at work. It’s useful for anyone who finds themself subject to significant physical OR emotional stress.

Go For A Bath

It’s often overlooked, but going for a bath post-workout can make a world of difference. You can also kill two birds with one stone here and opt for a bath with bath salts. Workouts can leave your body deprived of important resources such as magnesium.

Epsom salts are made from magnesium sulphate. As such, opting for an epsom salt bath will allow you to regenerate your body’s supply of magnesium much quicker.

These baths also bring you the added benefit of helping reduce inflammation and swelling. The warm water from a bath is ideal for this.

Across the board, baths are just generally pretty relaxing too. They’re ideal for winding down at any time of day with or without a workout. You’re not just limited to epsom salts either. There are a handful of various different bath bombs and infusions with a wide range of relaxing and luxurious ingredients available on the net.

Normally when I’m shopping for bath supplies I tend to check out AllMallShop first before I head anywhere else.

Conclusion

Regardless of when and where you train, it’s possible to end up pretty wired after an intense workout. There is a huge variety of strategies you can implement to ensure you get right back to normal as quickly as possible. Just don’t try to wind down TOO quickly. It’s better to wind down gradually with a light walk or some stretches before you jump straight into a bathtub and switch off for the evening.