Ben Greenfield explains how long different types of exercise can take to fully recover (marathon ~10–14 days; Ironman ~19+ days; hard ~40–60 minute workouts ~3–7 days) and presents practical methods to speed recovery. Techniques covered include electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) with topical agents and ice (15–60 minute sessions), vibration therapy for targeted blood flow and soft-tissue work, deep-tissue self-release tools (foam rollers, lacrosse/spiky balls), and inversion (feet-up or inversion table for 2–5 minutes) as a free daily recovery method. Emphasis: recovery is as important as training to increase usable training days and reduce injury risk.
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Have you ever thought about how long it takes the body to recover after a hard workout? I used to think about this back in the day when I do things like Ironman triathlons and marathons. When you look at the research for crazy events like that, typically for a marathon it's in the range of about 10 to 14 days for your body to actually bounce back. What I mean by that is for your red blood cells and white blood cells to normalize, for inflammation to subside, for muscle fibers to heal, and for the whole cascade of functions to occur for your body to actually not feel sore and crappy anymore after you've done something like that. After an Ironman triathlon, It can be 19 plus days for the body to actually bounce back. If you look at something like, let's say a CrossFit wad or the equivalent, right, like a 40 to 60 minute ish hard workout that you might do at the gym. Well, even a workout like that, believe it or not, can take anywhere from three to to seven days for you to fully recover from. And what I mean by that is not just not feeling sore anymore. Not just this whole concept of musculoskeletal recovery, but also neuromuscular recovery. Your neurons have to heal, your nervous system has to heal, your blood has to rebuild. There's all sorts of things that happen as you recover, and you can actually speed up this process. You can get more training days out of the year. You can feel better the day after you work out, or the week after you do something like a race or an epic training routine. You just have to know what to do. In this video, I'm just going to give you a small sample of ways that you can enhance or speed up your recovery. So let's start with one of my favorite ways to both get rid of an injury and also to get soreness out of a muscle more quickly. It's called electrical muscle stimulation. Now don't worry, before you think that you're going to have to buy a whole bunch of expensive devices after watching this video, please know that at the end of this video, I'm going to give you one simple free technique I do all the time that you can use anytime, anyplace. With electrical muscle stimulation, the concept is very simple. The unit that's delivering the stimulation to your muscles acts as almost like an external brain. It sends a signal to those muscles and it causes them to fire. And, and in many cases, depending on the type of electrical muscle stimulation unit or EMS unit that you use, it will grab those muscles in a very therapeutic manner that enhances recovery. So what you do is you'll typically take a few electrodes like this, and you'll stick them to the skin outside the muscle area that hurts or around the muscle for which you want to enhance recovery. Now, now, I usually don't stop there, especially if it's an injured area, let's say Achilles tendinitis or a shoulder injury or something like that. I will actually first spray the skin with something that helps to heal up muscle, like magnesium or arnica gel or any of these topical anti inflammatories. I'll then tape the electrodes over those oils or that lotion. And this is a tip I learned from a guy who actually works with Tour de France cyclists to bounce back faster in between stages. And then I'll cover that with ice. So you've got a topical electrostim and ice. This is a way to heal up injuries extremely quickly. And then you simply run the electrostim for anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes. Now, another example of a good way to speed up recovery or to help get rid of injuries or tight spots is vibration therapy. But ultimately, the idea is that these vibrating devices are actually placed over different areas of tissue that you want to recover or that you want to maximize blood flow in. And you simply run them up and down those tissues to allow for a vibratory healing effect without having to, say, hire a massage therapist to follow you around. I actually carry different forms of vibration therapy just about everywhere I go when I'm traveling, because it's easy for me to knock out soreness or tight spots when I've got something I just pull out of my bag and use as my own personal, personal vibrating recovery device. Now, the last thing I want to show you comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it's just a deep tissue device. You may have seen a foam roller before. You may have seen the idea of taping two lacrosse balls together before. You may have seen spiky balls like this before that dig into the fascia. But the idea is you can find a tight spot, let's say your shoulder, and you can lay down on the ground and pin your shoulder on, on top of the ball, work it around, free up fascia, pull the skin away from the muscle a little bit, put some pressure on the muscle, and basically tear apart some of the fibers that tend to get adhesed that can inhibit recovery. There's all sorts of different shapes and sizes of recovery tools out there that you can use that are like this but this is another crucial addition in your recovery toolbox. Ultimately, the takeaway message before I give you my quick free recovery technique is this. If you're not pulling out all the stops to recover as quickly as possible between workouts or between events, then you're really shorting yourself as far as how many extra training days you can get out of the year, how good you feel, how well you're able to walk up and down stairs, and how susceptible you are to injuries. If you're an exercise enthusiast, someone who works out, someone who races, you really want to pay attention to recovery just as much as you pay attention to to training. And I go out of my way every single morning to do something that enhances recovery for my body. Now here's that tip I was telling you about. One thing that you can do after any workout or even after just a long day on your feet, if you're one of those people who uses, say a standing workstation, is you can use inversion. Now. I actually have an inversion table in my garage. I've got a yoga swing in my living room that I hang upside down with. But I also will sometimes just prop my feet up against the wall and let the blood drain from my legs for anywhere from two to five minutes. Very simple recovery technique that you can use to drain blood flow and to drain metabolites, to drain inflammation, to drain all those things that build up in the legs and make them heavy out of the legs and back up to the heart. Simple technique. And the cool thing is that inversion increases blood flow to your head as well. So inversion is just one very easy, bodyweight only technique that you can use to enhance recovery. It seems silly, but it actually works really well. Especially after you've worked your legs. Remember, recovery is just as important as your training. Thanks for watching.
