Recovery Isn’t Only for Athletes. Here’s Why.

Recovery Isn’t Only for Athletes. Here’s Why.

Professional athletes don’t train all day, every day, all week long. They and their professional trainers, coaches, and team understand the importance of dedicating time for quality recovery and rest. They know that recovery is an equally essential component of their athletic development and performance as their training. They know that recovery is when their body and mind are able to repair, strengthen, rebuild, and prepare for more training and conditioning.

Athletes are even encouraged to incorporate two types of recovery: passive and active. Each has its role in maintaining health and boosting their physical development.

Did you know that no matter your level of fitness or how often you train, recovery is essential for your physical and mental wellness and performance. One of the #1 rookie mistakes people make is overtraining and not giving their body the rest and nutrients it needs to recover.

So listen up, weekend warriors, casual gym-goers, runners, anyone doing physical hard work, anyone who sits often, and yes, even you, yogis. Recovery is non-negotiable!


Recovery is Like Car Maintenance

Think of rest and recovery like maintaining your vehicle. The more you drive, the more wear and tear on your car, and the more it’s in need of maintenance and replenishing. Regular maintenance can make a huge difference in how your vehicle performs and how long it lasts. The same goes for your body. It can bounce back better when you let it rest and recover after hard physical work or exercise.

car maintenance schedule for oil changes

Recovery is a Form of Self-Care


Main Benefits of Quality Recovery

  • Better training performance and lower risk of injury
  • A solid recovery routine can help you become stronger, faster, and better simply because you will have more endurance and less discomfort. Your myofascial tissues will be healthier and able to repair themselves faster and better between training. You’ll have less tension, post-workout soreness, and injuries, which will allow you to stay consistent with your training.

  • Faster, better fitness results 
  • Your muscles don’t grow while you’re lifting weights and exercising; they grow while you’re resting between workouts. When you don’t take time to recover and/or if you don’t get quality sleep, your body isn’t able to fully recharge and rebuild. You’re also likely to have high cortisol levels, which impacts your body’s ability to lose fat and build muscle. 

    Bodyweight exercises and weightlifting can create micro-tears in your muscles. If you don’t give those tears in your muscle fibers adequate time to heal, your myofascial tissues will feel inflamed and exhausted. That can lead to soreness, decreased performance, restricted range of motion, and worse, overtraining syndrome or OTS. OTS can compromise your immune system, brain health, metabolism, hormones, and cause chronic muscle and joint pain.

  • Improved overall health
  • Adequate rest balances your inflammation response, blood pressure, and hormones. It also improves your mood, energy, brain performance, metabolism, and lowers your risk factors of developing diabetes, heart disease, and other severe illnesses.

     

    What Are The Best Recovery Methods? 

    Ideally, try incorporating both active and passive recovery into your lifestyle to achieve optimal results. Active recovery often involves low-to-moderate-intensity movements or workouts, like leisurely walking, stretching, dancing, swimming, or riding your bike. These low impact movements help increase blood flow to your myofascial tissues, improve lymphatic drainage, and mobilize tense tissues while giving your body and mind a break from intense activities.

    woman stretching on a yoga mat at home

    Getting a deep tissue massage and myofascial release therapy is one of the best ways to feel better, relax, and ease tension. Applying targeted pressure on tense muscles and trigger points helps get your blood pumping and stimulate your lymphatic drainage, which can help increase nutrient delivery to your tissues. Myofascial massage or myofascial release therapy, in particular, can target and release adhesions in your fascia or trigger points. This helps relieve muscle soreness and speed up your recovery.

    a woman receiving a deep tissue massage


    On the other hand, passive recovery is all about resting and rejuvenating. You don’t have to wake up early to go on a morning run—you can sleep in. Just relax all day and avoid strenuous activities. During passive recovery, you can plan for self-care activities such as taking a long, warm bath, meditating, or whatever helps you relax and release tension

    A woman relaxing at home with cozy socks


    A full-on rest day is beneficial for both your body and mind. That mental break may be all you need to take your training or physical and mental performance to the next level. Plan a quality rest day after an intense exercise session or strenuous activity and see what difference it makes for your fitness and energy levels. You’ll probably have more strength, focus, and endurance as well as a better mood and mindset.



    Include The KOAPRO Massage Tools in Your Recovery Plan

    Whether you’re recovering from intense training or strenuous activities, or you simply use recovery as a form of self-care, we have just the tools to help you. 

    The KOAPRO Massage Tools are all-in-one fascia and massage tools that you can use at home or anytime, anywhere. They feature an ingenious design that mimics a therapist’s fingers, hands, and elbows, which comb through and restore your myofascial tissues. The patented HumanTouch3.0™ technology effectively decompresses tight muscles and connective tissue, releases tension, and helps rejuvenate the myofascial system.

    You can try our standard model called KOAPRO. Its size is suitable for massaging every area of your body, including your neck, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, and feet while improving your blood circulation and making you feel relaxed.

    women using the koa massage tool


    Want more coverage for your back and thighs? The KOAPRO Full Body Massage Tool gives you more length and leverage and provides you with head-to-toe relief and relaxation.

    women using the full body koa massage tools on heir legs and lower back


    We also offer the Platinum KOAPRO Massage & Gua Sha Tool. It’s a unique device that you can use for myofascial release for your active recovery or as a traditional Chinese healing method called Gua Sha for your passive recovery.

    Platinum koa massage tool being used in 4 different ways

    Explore our shop today to learn why these are the #1 self massage and myofascial release tools. You can also contact us if you have more questions.