How to heal quickly & recover faster after full body workouts
Air compression recovery pants are a sure-fire way to build strength, ease swelling and beat other over-exercise symptoms
Text: Lynda Williams
If you love keeping active and doing sport regularly, you’ll know how frustrating it feels when you fail to recover from strenuous activity quickly. Part of you wants to lay whimpering on the sofa with a vat of ice-cream; the other part wants to just get back out there exercising again. While rest and relaxation are key to recuperation, there are other ways you can heal quickly and recover faster after a full body work out, build strength and ease swelling.
Intermittent compression has been used in the medical world for more than 30 years; eventually, world-class athletes caught onto its benefits and compression machines and compression recovery wear became a thing. For example, using air compression recovery pants involves slipping your body into wearable tech such as leg sleeves, boots or cuffs. The repeated process of inflating and deflating air around your body in a squeezy motion can ease swelling — one of the classic over-exercise symptoms.
Aside from a swifter removal of waste products and a delivery of fresh nutrients around your achy bits, intermittent compression can also build strength, reduce soreness, improve joint awareness and movement efficiency, and get you working out with little downtime. The best thing is, you can carry out intermittent compression at home while watching Netflix.
Credit - Recovery Systems
Intermittent compression: Tried & tested
PHASE 1: The squeeze
Being someone who likes fashion and wants to recover faster between full body workouts, I started with these wearable tech pants. Specifically, the pants by Recovery Systems, a Singapore-based company with clients around the world, including Fitness First, Ironman and Singapore Polo Club. I tried their best-selling Black Max Pro Pants set (RRP SIN$1,995) which are full length pants you won’t be seeing on a catwalk near you soon. They cover you up from your feet to your waist, covering your upper quad, groin, hip and glutes; just step in, zip up and lie down.
Then they get a bit tech. Operated by a rechargeable battery pack, the pants compress your body using electronic?! waves with a compression strength of between 1-15. I started off on 6-7 and worked up to get used to the squeeze! The active compression sounds ouchy, but it works to boost blood circulation — blood is pushed to your heart and around your body carrying nutrients and oxygen; this in turn promotes faster healing of muscles and vital organs.
The continuous squeeze and compression phase from your lower limbs to upper limbs lasts around one minute and keeps fluid moving in the right direction. Each squeeze lasts between 5-15 seconds and the intensity depends on your selected setting.
PHASE 2: The release
The release phase is about 20 seconds and promotes the natural release of substances in your body that help prevent clots — great for long-haul flights when we can travel again (yes, they are allowed on planes). Between compressions, the pants relax, and oxygen-rich blood continues to flow in the arteries of your legs. I also tried the wearable tech leg cuffs which offer the same amount of squeeze but are more practical as you can sit upright in them. Thirty-minute sessions are recommended, but for intensive recovery try one hour.
PHASE 3: The aftermath
My aching muscles and stiff joints from intense workouts eased, and I felt more ready to get back to working out than usual. What I really noticed, however, was how relaxed I felt afterwards — I could barely keep my eyes open! Apparently, this is all down to the parasympathetic nervous system — the system which controls bodily functions when we’re resting which can include stimulating the digestive system, activating metabolism, and helping the body to chill out.
PHASE 4: The takeaway
It turns out, we have a lot to thank our parasympathetic nervous systems for. While your sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for the “fight or flight” mode, your parasympathetic nervous system inhibits your body from overworking and restores it to a calm and composed state. Also known as “feed/breed” or “rest/digest”, it slows your heart rate and breathing, relaxes muscles, and produces vasodilation — the mechanism that enhances blood flow to areas of your body that are lacking oxygen and nutrients. When we’re not in sympathetic mode, our bodies can concentrate on healing quicker, recovering faster, replenishing, and returning to optimal body performance.
What’s fascinating is that we can bio hack our parasympathetic nervous system naturally to recover faster and heal quickly after a fitness injury:
Animal therapy
Body massage
Pranayama breathwork
Combine the above with intermittent compression and your parasympathetic nervous system will provide you with the same headspace as a fortnight holiday in the Maldives (kind of). Thanks to my sessions, I now recover faster between full body workouts because my body can heal quickly, and I can build strength and fitness with confidence that these wearable tech gives me.
Readers of The Soothe can get an exclusive 10% off any of Mike’s Magic Recovery Systems by clicking here and quoting “THE SOOTHERS”.
