Whether it is those who dabble in recreational sports or professional athletes, many are looking for therapy that enables them to train better.
Whether it is those who dabble in recreational sports or professional athletes, many are looking for therapy that enables them to train better.
The workout may be over but the body is far from being at an optimal state. Studies have shown that how one recovers after a workout is just as important as the workout itself. Not only is this period vital in alleviating muscle soreness, it prevents injury and reduces inflammation.
Besides good nutrition, adequate rest and keeping hydrated, more modern treatments range from effortless flotation and cryotherapy – why tax yourself more to relax? – to mental exercises. Regardless of the science and philosophy behind each of them, they have one goal in common: to get the muscles to recover faster and more efficiently. After all, what good is a battered body and mind? Being fairly active myself and no stranger to post-exercise pain, I decided to put some of those therapies to a test.
To set a standard for measurement: My weekly regimen includes at least four hour-long sessions at the gym where I alternate between weight-training and high intensity interval training. I wind down with conventional techniques such as stretching, foam rolling and massages, but there are times when my body feels like it needs more help.
Here’s the low-down on three methods.
SOME LIKE IT COLD
ABSOLUTE ZERO
www.absolutezero.com.sg
For years, athletes have been immersing themselves in ice baths to expedite muscle recovery between training sessions. But lately, top sportsmen like LeBron James and Floyd Mayweather Jr have taken it a step further, subjecting themselves to cryotherapy where temperatures drop to as low as minus 184 deg C for even more rapid results. Research has found that rapidly freezing the skin’s surface in a short time leads to increased blood flow and the immediate release of endorphins, the brain’s feel-good chemical, which accelerates the body’s self-healing process. This is also why cryotherapy has been used to treat urban “diseases” like stress, anxiety and depression.
I appreciate quick fixes, especially when it comes to relieving the dreaded delayed onset muscle soreness (Doms), which can last days. And I was expecting major aches from a brutal workout the day before. But I really dislike the cold. So, before voluntarily putting myself in a chamber that blasts sub-zero nitrogen against my skin, I interviewed friends who had tried it. All attested positively to its benefits.
One enters the chamber clad only in bathers, thick gloves and socks to protect the feet. The entire duration should not last more than three minutes, hands should be above the chamber and I was told to turn 90 degrees every 10 seconds or so for circulation. Twenty seconds in and my body was shivering. To distract myself from the numbing cold, I tried to keep the conversation going with the assistant who was with me the whole time. My ears and nose started to feel icy, my teeth were chattering and I was worried my limbs would fall off from the extreme cold. Surprisingly, three minutes passed rather quickly and I exited the chamber dramatically, with a billow of cold air lingering behind me.
As my body adjusted to normal temperatures, I felt a tingling sensation on my skin. This was blood rushing throughout the body, I was told. While I felt more alert, I wasn’t sure if it was a result of me still reeling from the cold or if I was reaping the treatment’s benefits. But guess what? No Doms in the following days. I could continue with my workout regimen without having to scale down intensity and that, for me, is a huge selling point.
“I WAS WORRIED MY LIMBS WOULD FALL OFF FROM THE EXTREME COLD.”
MINDFUL TRAINING
EMERGE PERFORMANCE
www.emergeperformance.net
High-tech machines, the latest wearable gadgets, complicated software – technology has been integral in improving athletic performance. But in recent times, sportsmen like top tennis seed Novak Djokovic and their coaches have been employing a surprisingly low-tech method to up their game: mindfulness.
Sports psychologist and executive coach Lim Han Ee says: “For an athlete to thrive and win, it’s a mental game – confidence, composure, concentration.” This is where the practice of mindfulness comes into play. It is about cultivating awareness, accepting the current circumstance as it is, refocusing and being in the now, he adds.
Which is why legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson has introduced the practice to his team, the New York Knicks. He told ESPN: “It’s so vital for a team (or players) to have this skill. To be able to divorce themselves from what just happened – a referee’s bad call, or an issue that goes on with your opponent. You’ve got to be able to come back and centre yourself again.
”How true. As a workout gets tougher, I often find myself finding excuses to slow down or even cutting corners. I get frustrated if a ball I’m throwing doesn’t hit the target on the wall or if I fail to lift a weight I had set out to, and it’s difficult to get into the right headspace again.
So I enrolled in an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme that Lim runs every quarter, hoping to cultivate more awareness of my body and mind. MBSR was founded in 1979 by renowned mindfulness pioneer Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Under Lim’s guidance at the two-hour sessions, we learnt to concentrate on our breathing, being in tune with different bodily sensations and being conscious of mundane activities like eating. And if we got distracted, we learnt to recognise and arrest it, and bring our focus back to quieting the mind.
At first, it was difficult to apply this to my regimen. Distractions abounded and my mind was pre-occupied with the next movements that I had to complete. But practising mindfulness is like training a mental muscle and, after a few sessions, I found it easier to command focus. Not that the workouts are now a breeze, but there is less frustration and more enjoyment.
