Muscle Recovery: How Mountain Ice Sports Recovery Gel Can Improve Your Exercise Downtime

It's not enough to just strengthen your muscles -- muscle recovery is a massive part of staying in peak physical shape, whether you're a professional athlete or a recreational gym-goer. If you're looking to improve your performance, don't neglect steps to minimize downtime, reduce aches and pains, and rebuild muscle more quickly. Speed up your sports recovery with these methods!

What is Muscle Recovery?

Muscle recovery is a vital but often misunderstood aspect of exercise. After physical exertion, your body undergoes a series of processes aimed at restoring tissue and chemicals that are lost or damaged during exercise. This period of regrowth builds strength, and neglecting it can lead to long-term damage. Serious athletes especially may push themselves to resume activity too quickly, causing their bodies to lack recovery time from wear and tear.

What Happens During Muscle Recovery?

When your body is at rest after exertion, it's still active and still working. It's rebuilding damaged tissue and rebalancing chemical changes that occurred during your workout. Major components of the recovery period include:

• Rebuilding muscle fibers: The strain of exercise creates small tears in your muscles, and during recovery muscle fibers heal to become stronger than before. This is how muscle grows.
• Protein synthesis: Most muscle is built during the immediate recovery period. In the first four hours after intense resistance training, your body's synthesis of new protein increases by 50%!
• Fluid restoration: Sweating during a workout causes a significant loss of bodily fluids (as does exhaling breath), which need to be replenished with proper hydration. These fluids help deliver nutrients to your muscles and elsewhere in your body.
• Waste elimination: During exercise your body builds up lactic acids, creating a pH imbalance that your body restores during a recovery period. Restoring this balance helps improve blood flow for oxygen delivery.

Ways to Improve Muscle Recovery

1. Stretching

Muscle recovery happens when your muscles receive the nutrients they need to restore tissue damaged during physical activity. Stretching after a workout can help improve your circulation, and that increased blood flow will deliver restorative nutrients to your muscles that much more quickly. You'll also improve your flexibility and range of motion, as well has prevent some of the soreness and stiffness that comes with exercise.

2. Rest

You need your recommended 7-8 hours of sleep, as some of the most critical muscle recovery happens during the 40% of your sleep cycle that you spend in deep, non-REM sleep. During this point, your brain is far less active and using less energy, so additional oxygen is available to your muscles for repair. Sleep is also a period where a great deal of human growth hormone is released by your pituitary gland, and greater amino acid availability during sleep can help speed up muscle protein synthesis. Inadequate sleep may even cause a loss of muscle mass due to hormonal changes that result from a lack of sleep.

3. Refuel

You lose a lot of fluids and stored energy during exercise. Make sure you're drinking plenty of water and eating within 60 minutes of completing a workout. Your body needs hydration and nutrients to effectively begin the repair process!

How Can Mountain Ice Sports Recovery Gel Boost Muscle Recovery?

Muscle recovery is about more than getting rest, as it's also about supporting the work your body does while you're resting. Injuries can develop gradually due to repetitive stress combined with poor or limited downtime after exercise. Mountain Ice Sports Recovery Gel is a unique formulation of high-quality, all-natural ingredients designed to reduce muscle, joint, tendon, and ligament soreness and strain after exercise! Our ingredients have been specially chosen to reduce inflammation and strain after physical activity:

• Menthol: Its cooling sensation numbs pain, providing immediate relief, while it widens blood vessels to improve circulation and deliver more oxygen and nutrients to damaged areas.
• MSM: Prevents breakdown of connective tissue like ligaments and reduces inflammation.
• Spearmint: Soothes pain and muscle contractions, reducing stress on the foot.
• Aloe Vera: Anti-inflammatory plant that promotes faster muscle recovery.
• Camphor: Cooling pain reliever that reduces swelling from injury and increases circulation.
• Vitamin E: Reduces muscle soreness and encourages muscle rebuilding.
• Green Tea Extract: Powerful antioxidant that reduces the oxidative stress that can cause inflammation.
• Arnica Flower: Relieves inflammation and muscle soreness while improving circulation.
• Turmeric: Inhibits inflammatory response while promoting deep absorption of ingredients, fighting pain at its source.

Are you looking for improved recovery from exercise? Click here to try Mountain Ice Sports Recovery Gel today to make the most of your downtime!