There are a range of different points to consider for before and after a workout. If you don’t set yourself up right, you won’t get the best performance or recovery possible.
Why it’s important to prep
Before you even think about working out, you need to prepare your body and your mind for what is about to come. If you don’t, you run the risk of injuring yourself during or after the exercise, as your body is not set up right.
Get a good night’s sleep
One of the things you can prepare for, is by having a good night’s sleep. Sleep is important for a body in general, but especially if you’re preparing it for intense exercise. It’s recommended that you take at least seven hours of sleep, as this allows your muscles to prepare for a workout, as well as help them recover during the sleep.
Drink water
Water, or hydration in general is crucial to a fitness routine, and your health in general. Whilst you’re exercising, you will be sweating out a lot of liquid, which is why water can help rehydrate your body to recover the water. Think of yourself as a car that needs oil, you can’t function without enough of it.
Dress appropriate to the workout
Depending on the workout you’re doing, you will have different outfits available to you. In most cases, you should wear light clothes, that enable you to move, jump, run and stretch without your clothes restricting you. It may be a case of wearing the right shoes, or fitting the right sports bra to help you focus.
Importance of post workout
Post workout is important, as your body needs to be able to quickly recover from any stress and intensity placed upon it. Working out has no purpose if your body is worse off from engaging in it.
If you have a workout schedule, it could end up messing with it if your body is not capable of working out next time. You need to look after your body.
Stretch
Stretching Is not only important to pre-workout, but also to post workout. You should consider doing some static stretching after a workout, such as taking your body to a resting position with cool downs. Ideally, you want to walk out of the gym the same way you entered, so you should be mobile.
Eat well to refuel
One of the most important things you need to do after working out, is to eat well to gain your strength and get the right nutrition. Working out is only half the battle truthfully, where you need to make sure your body is getting the right fuel to recover. Your body will need carbohydrates and protein to help replenish nutrients within your body, and rebuild the muscle.
It’s important to do this at the right time too. Your body won’t get much from this if you’ve not worked out, or if you eat beforehand. What you may not know about post workout food, is that you can actually utilise CBD in order to get health benefits. In fact, there are plenty of post workout CBD recipes for you to find on the internet and on social media, including recipes CBD spinach smoothie, peanut butter cookies and power salads.
CBD is becoming a crucial component of those looking to work out, as it helps to maintain energy levels, increase focus, improve sleep and help you recover from any inflammatory issues. You can add the mix into a range of different meals to help you get the most out of them without altering your diet.
Have a cold shower
Cold and cool showers have many different benefits to a body even without a workout. The main thing they do, is help your bones and muscles recover from activities throughout the day, as they help lessen any swelling and speed up recovery.
Many runners take ice baths after a run for this reason, as it can help with joints and pain in general, that can allow them to run again sooner rather than later. It not only helps with joins and bones, but the cold water helps to reduce fatigue due to the inflammation being lowered.
Log the workout
The last thing you should do, which is not necessarily important to your body straight away, but can help further down the road, is to log the workouts. This allows you to keep track of what you’ve been working on, and point you in the right direction going forward.
This helps with motivation, as it allows you to see the path that you’re on, and encourage you to keep going for it. It also means that you have evidence you can refer back to on what your body was capable of, so you know where to push yourself.
If you don’t log workouts, you may end up doing workouts that you don’t need to do. At least, you may do the wrong intensity levels of the workout that you don’t need to do.
