Let’s just be honest, almost everybody wishes that they had the gumption and time to become a professional athlete. It seems like such a cool life! Professional athletes literally get to play their favorite sport for a living. While it may seem like the wins come easily, this is just an illusion. People who play sports at this high of a level have every aspect of their life down to a science. One of the most important parts of their jobs is recovery. As people who are super sport enthusiasts and love to exercise for fun or even in races and games as a hobby, recovery is still super important. Without recovery, you can’t do what you love and keep up with work, life and family. This is where you can take a page out of the pro athletes’ books and up your recovery game. Here are some of the best ways that professional athletes recover that you can institute into your daily routine!
Supplement Smartly
Plenty of people, athletes and non athletes alike, utilize the power of supplements on a daily basis. Although eating healthily is important for recovery and reaching your goals, you may not get every micronutrient from your food that you need. You also may need a helping hand from something like cbd oil to help you feel less stressed physically, emotionally and mentally. It is certainly true that your mental and emotional states affect your physical performance, so adding certain supplements to your day can make that small percentage of a difference that will help you go even harder athletically.
Eat Like It Is Your Job
Many athletes think that being thinner is being better, but that is not always necessarily true. Although each sport is different in terms of what the best body shape is for the best performance, in general, eating enough calories to meet your body’s energy expenditures is going to help you achieve your fitness goals. People who run ultra marathons know just how important it is to eat like it is a job! Sometimes eating healthily and eating enough to match your exercise can be exhausting, but you will never regret having the extra energy that comes from delicious food.
Analyze Your Statistics
Invest in a tool that will help measure things like your heart rate variability, your VO2 max and other relevant information. Seeing statistics on a daily basis can help you understand what your base line in these categories is in terms of performance so that you can set specific goals, analyze your variations as you train and more. It can be so much fun to see what your body can do in terms of numbers and it is even more rewarding when you train hard, recover hard and see those numbers go in the right direction. Analyzing your statistics can be incredibly rewarding for those who like to see concrete evidence of success.
Sleep Hard
You probably hear this one far too often, but it is still not often enough! Getting proper amounts of serious sleep is so crucial for success. Not getting enough sleep can negatively impact your hormones, heart rate, muscle recovery time line and more. In short, get serious about your sleep and stick to a schedule that works for you. If your friends make fun of you for setting an early bedtime and having a pre sleep routine that calms you down, roll your eyes and remember why you’re doing it.
If there is one thing that professional athletes are good at other than winning hard, it is recovering hard. Ask any of them, no matter the sport, and they will tell you that recovery is pretty much half of the battle. If you do not recover from last week, then there is no way you will be playing at the top of your game the next week. Add these steps to your daily routine and before you know it, you will have the habits of a pro!
