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Regeneration is one of the most important parts of our training to make progress, stay healthy and feel good physically and mentally through sports. Find out now what’s behind it and how you can ensure optimal regeneration and improvement through supercompensation with a few tips.
What actually happens during sport and regeneration?
After a workout, our body enters a catabolic phase in which the body’s own substances are broken down. This is a completely normal reaction of the body to stress, in which energy is gained through the breakdown of bodily substances. In the subsequent anabolic phase, the body builds up its own substances again from nutrients and we regenerate.
When you expose your body to an intense stimulus that is slightly above your current training level, your body is initially weakened. During the recovery phase, the body then gathers new strength and also creates a buffer for future stresses. This mechanism is called supercompensation and enables you to increase your performance. However, supercompensation can only take place with slow increases and sufficient regeneration.
What can you do for your regeneration?
Regeneration is multidimensional and is decisively influenced mainly by factors such as sleep, nutrition, mental relaxation, general lifestyle and active regeneration. Here is a short overview:
Sleep
Sleep is probably the most important setting for regeneration, since your body can recover and gather new strength in the best possible way during this complete rest. Most people find about 7-8 hours of sleep sufficient.
Nutrition and abstaining from alcohol
By eating healthy you provide your body with the right building blocks it needs in the anabolic phase. Make sure you eat plenty of fresh vegetables, salads and fruits as well as a good mix of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. In addition, you should avoid alcohol as much as possible during regeneration phases. Since alcohol is a neurotoxin, our body always tries to eliminate this “danger” in the first step and therefore puts the breakdown of alcohol before metabolic processes that are important for regeneration. In addition, the processes to break down alcohol deprive our body of important nutrients, which also hinders our regeneration.
Mental relaxation
Through active relaxation techniques such as meditation, autogenic training, progressive muscle relaxation and others, you can use the connection between body and mind positively for yourself. Just about 10 minutes of a relaxation program has been shown to reduce muscle tone and lactate concentration in the body. The opposite is true for mental stress, which also puts our body into a state of stress and thus slows down regeneration.
Active regeneration
Cool-down phase
By reducing the load in the last ten minutes, you slowly bring your metabolism and cardiovascular system back to normal and your body initiates the recovery phase more quickly.
Loose Stretching
By stretching loosely after a workout, you reduce muscle tension and your muscles stay flexible and recover faster. In addition, stretching during the cool-down phase relaxes the body and mind, which also promotes recovery. However, be careful not to stretch too intensely after an intense workout so as not to overtax your muscles.
Ice bathing
After an ice bath the blood circulation of your muscles is strongly stimulated, which additionally supports the elimination of waste products through an intensive metabolism.
We wish you a good recovery and continued success with the Challenge!
