Plenty of mystery still remains about the science of recovery: why some methods are supposed to work but don't; and why others feel like they work but have no scientific evidence to support them. And in today's day and age, there's no shortage of recovery methods. Just take a two-minute stroll through Instagram: For every shot of an NBA player giving a thumbs-up from an ice bath, you'll see a soccer megastar with his legs in an oxygen chamber, an elite cycling team wired up to machines between mountain stages, or Dwayne The Rock Johnson fuelling up after a gym session with enough food to feed an entire Little League team. In fact, you could make the case that Instagram is basically the world's biggest advertisement forum for elixirs, magical garments, oxygen tents, acupuncture needles, weird bruises, powders, and all manner of wizardry aimed at one singular purpose: Recovery.
To better understand recovery - the process by which your body rebuilds itself, your muscles re-energise, your hormones return to balance, and your central nervous system repairs - it's important to distinguish between its two forms: passive and active.
Passive recovery, of course, occurs when your body is at rest this includes sleep, diet, and applying compression. Active recovery, meanwhile, happens when your body is in motion: Walking, light lifting, or having a light go on a stationary bike.
Both forms are equally important for optimising returns on your workout because they target different aspects of muscle regeneration. The easiest way to think of it is this: Passive recovery helps repair, while active recovery helps deliver the tools necessary to repair - or, as an author and personal trainer Harley Pasternak describes it, active recovery "flushes out all the metabolic by-products and brings in nutrient-rich blood that helps heal muscles damaged in the gym".
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