Recovery

How do you recover from a particularly grueling workout?  Many of you are moving a little slower after "Tabata This!" with good reason. What you feel is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). 

Your first thoughts may be to take a few days off and watch soap operas.  If you are injured, take the time off.  If you are only sore, come back in and keep moving.  If it is a day off, go through the warm-up at home.  Moving will help alleviate the soreness. 

Stay away from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) to treat soreness.  Follow your doctors recommendations, by all means, but research shows using NSAIDs to treat soreness actually slows the recovery process. 

"NSAIDs have been shown to delay and hamper the healing in all the soft tissues, including muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. Anti-inflammatories can delay healing and delay it significantly, even in muscles with their tremendous blood supply. In one study on muscle strains, Piroxicam (an NSAID) essentially wiped out the entire inflammatory proliferative phase of healing (days 0-4). At day two there were essentially no macrophages (cells that clean up the area) in the area and by day four after the muscle strain, there was very little muscle regeneration compared to the normal healing process." (Greene, J. Cost-conscious prescribing of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for adults with arthritis. Archives of Internal Medicine. 1992; 152:1995-2002.)

Read more about this in Kelly Starett's blog at San Francisco CrossFit.  Kelly is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and one of the first 50 CrossFit affiliates.

Today's Workout

3 Rounds of:

• 10 Kettlebell Swings (20#/35#)
• 10 Pullups
• 10 Kettlebell Snatches (20#/35#)
• 10 Situps

Today's Endurance Workout

Progressive Long Intervals

At least one hour before or after Today's Workout, do ONE of the following.

Each interval should be faster than the previous.  Penalty if the last interval is not the fastest--2 minute max reps of squats.

• Swim: 3 x 500m (1 min rest)
• Bike: 3 x 5k (2 min rest)
• Run: 3 x 1 mile (2 min rest)
• C2: 3 x 1500m (2 min rest)