Tips to Speed Recovery After Sailing and Training

Feeling tired and sore for your second day of sailing? Feel exhausted the day after a hard day of training? Something you may be lacking is rest and recovery. Your after exercise recovery routine has a significant impact on your performance. However, the recovery is something a lot of sailors forget to do. We all need recovery as it is essential to muscle and tissue repair and strength building. These simple tips will help your body feel better faster along with help to maximize your performance.
Tips for a Faster Recovery:
1. Hydrate

When you are out sailing or getting your training in you are losing a lot of fluids. It’s imperative to remember while you are exercising to hydrate your body. During exercise, people tend to forget about hydrating, but being out on the water for long hours or in the gym you need to remember this important step. Hydration can make or break your performance and your recovery for the next day. It’s also essential to hydrate after your activity is completed. Water supports every metabolic function and is vital to improving every bodily function. An easy way to speed up your recovery is always remembering to stay hydrated before, during, and after completing your sailing or training.
2. Fuel Your Body

We want to fuel our bodies with nutrients to keep us going. Remember to balance your diet and eat more whole foods rather than processed foods. Make sure your diet isn’t extreme, and you are balancing your carbs, protein, and fats. If you are sailing or training for more than an hour make sure to pack some healthy foods to snack on. You need to fuel your body during exercise if you are going to be working longer than an hour. After you are finished sailing or training for the day make sure to fuel your body with a snack consisting of high-quality protein and complex carbs within 30-60 minutes of finishing. Fueling your body after activity will help your body recover, repair tissues, and get stronger for your next day of sailing or training.
3. Foam Roll and Stretch

Before and after your sailing and training you always want to remember to stretch out and or foam roll. Stretching and foam rolling will help not only in aiding in your recovery but maximizing your performance. You need to help your muscles recover, stretching and foam rolling are great ways to start this process. Learn more about foam rolling in the article Foam Rolling For Performance, Recovery and Everyday Life. By stretching and foam rolling you will aid your body in a quicker recovery by helping to improve your muscle function.
4. Get More Sleep
As an athlete it is so essential that you are getting enough sleep. Each day you are sailing and training you are expending a lot of energy, and it’s necessary to make sure you rest up your body. While we sleep our bodies produce growth hormones which are responsible for tissue growth and repair. If we lack sleep in our routine, our muscles don’t have time to recover and can even loss muscle mass. To maximize recover make sure you put getting enough sleep into your routine!
5. Don’t Overtrain
Sometimes we tend to push our bodies too much. As an athlete, we have to know when to cut back on our training. Make sure to schedule rest days so you can give your body and muscles time to recover. Also if you feel one day, you are just too tired take it easy or replace your sailing or training with a rest day. You will never maximize your performance if you don’t give your body ample time for recovery.
If you want top results on the water and in the training gym you need to make sure your recovery is an essential everyday part of your routine. These five simple tips hydrating, fueling your body, foam rolling and stretching, getting more sleep, and not overtraining will help you on your way to a faster recovery. We all need a little reminder now, and then that recovery is just as important if not more important to our success out on the water. Sail faster and smarter by always remembering to make recovery a key part of your daily routine. And always remember to listen to your body!
For more information on fitness and nutrition for sailing contact rachel@sail1design.com. Also check out Sailorcise on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily tips on fitness, nutrition, and sailing.