Recover better, run faster (or further!)
If someone told you they had a (legal) magic pill to make you run faster or further I’m sure you’d take it, right? While recovery techniques aren’t quite a pill, nor any kind of voodoo magic, they have been shown to improve recovery when performed correctly. Despite this, we all continue to neglect them. Ask any runner what they do to aid recovery and you might get some spiel about a protein shake post-workout or that they have a foam roller gathering dust in the corner. So how can we change this behaviour, or lack there of? The better informed someone is the more likely they are to complete a task. So when I found a systematic review summarising current evidence for the effectiveness of various post-run recovery techniques, I thought we could all do with hearing a bit about it.
The Paper (skip over this section if you want me to ‘just get to the point’. Read on if you like to know a little ‘behind the scenes’)
What is the paper? Dupuy. O et al. (2018)
What is a systematic review paper? It is when someone does us all a favour and summarises current knowledge on a topic from numerous other studies. It basically saves us all the time of going and individually reading, sometimes, complex research papers and trying to make sense of them. This can then lead to evidence-based practice - once we understand what the evidence tells us then we can draw some logical ‘best-practice’ guidelines from it.
How did they measure ‘recovery’? They looked at three measures of recovery to determine effectiveness - delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), perceived fatigue and blood markers of inflammation/damage. One of the problems of systematic reviews like this is that they can’t pick the parameters that are measured. That is dictated by the studies that have already been completed. In this case, the measures of effectiveness seem logical - we all know that feeling of fatigue and soreness after we have worked our bodies beyond their comfort zones. Trying to reduce that seems like a good place to start when trying to improve recovery.
What recovery methods did they compare? Seemingly all of them! - active recovery, stretching, massage, massage combined with stretching, the use of compression garments, electrostimulation, immersion, contrast water therapy, cryotherapy/cryostimulation, and hyperbaric therapy/stimulation. But where’s our friend the foam roller?
What did they find?
Massage was found to be the most effective method of improving recovery. This was referring specifically to professional sports massage within 2hrs of completing exercise, regardless of the individual’s level of fitness. It was effective at reducing DOMS, perceived fatigue and blood markers of muscle damage. They hypothesised that this was a result of increasing blood flow to the treated muscles.
The use of compression garments and cold water immersion (optimal conditions cited as 11-15C for 11-15min) were the next best recovery tools. They both reduced DOMS and perceived fatigue but to a lesser degree than massage. They hypothesised that compression worked by reducing the potential space for inflammation to occur and by the squeezing nature of the garments improving venous return i.e. helping to remove the waste products from the muscles.
Contrast water bathing (plonking your worn out limbs into alternating warm and then cold water) and active recovery were found to be effective in reducing DOMS but not perceived fatigue.
Stretching/electrostimulation had no effect on DOMS or perceived fatigue. In fact, stretching was found to worsen DOMS!
I won’t go into the other techniques as they are far less accessible for the majority of us but feel free to search for the paper on google and have a read if you’re interested.
Questions this raises for me
With the prevalence of home massage guns on the rise, how does this compare to the recovery seen with professional sports massage? This seems like an area that really hasn’t had a great deal of focus and it would be interesting to see what comes of it in the future. From my experience, massage guns are great to prepare the muscles for exercise (a quick, light whizz over the key muscle groups) as well as improve recovery (a slightly deeper and more prolonged session focusing on those sore areas and driving out the knots) but nothing compares to a professional sports massage - shout out to my man, Jay Grady (Jay Grady Sports Massage).
Traditional foam rolling was not compared in this systematic review. However, Wiewelhove et al (2019) summarised that rolling prior to exercise might help improve flexibility and increase sprint performance (by 0.3%!) while rolling after exercise showed small benefits in measures for strength and speed performance. It also helped reduce DOMS. Shu et al. (2021) showed that foam rolling reduced inflammation when performed after a half marathon but that this effect is short-lived. My conclusion? Foam rolling does something but it’s not clear to what degree.
Whats the bottom line ? (Read here if you wished I’d just get to the point!)
There is a lot we don’t know about the common recovery techniques we employ, both in their effect and their mechanisms of action
It seems massage is the best form of recovery however, how this transfers to other forms of compressive recovery techniques (home massage gun and foam rolling) is not clear
Good alternatives include compression and cold water immersion
DON’T STRETCH AFTER EXERCISE
What is sure though is that these techniques do something and it is well worth our time trying a few to find what suits us and our lifestyles/budget
Thanks for following along
References
Dupuy. O, Douzi. W, Theurot. D, Bosquet. L, and Dugue. B (2018). An evidence-based approach for choosing post-exercise recovery techniques to reduce markers of muscle damage, soreness, fatigue, and inflammation: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Frontiers in physiology, 9: 403
Wiewelhove. T, Döweling. A, Schneider. C, Hottenrott. L, Meyer. T, Kellmann. M, Pfeiffer. M and Ferrauti. A (2019). Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Foam Rolling on Performance and Recovery. Frontiers in Physiology, 10: 376
Shu. D, Zhang. C, Dai. S, Wang. S, Liu. J and Ding J (2021). Acute Effects of Foam Rolling on Hamstrings After Half-Marathon: A Muscle Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. Frontiers in Physiology. 12: 1721