Recovery Methods for Sports Paper Example

Introduction

A majority of athletes are always focused on having adequate recovery sessions between their intense training and tournaments. Technology, equipment, nutrition, and training techniques have a significant impact on the athletes' performance. Consequently, optimal recovery between competitions and training sessions is a crucial aspect that determines the performance of a team or athlete. Hence, most of the strength and conditioning coaches tend to adopt various recovery strategies to minimize fatigue and muscle soreness to ensure the athletes' bodies recovery fully. Sports massage is among the prescribed recovery techniques in various sports such as triathlon, tennis, rugby, basketball, and football. The sports massage assists in reducing the perceived fatigue and pain especially on the quadriceps and lower back. The massage therapy on the athletes' body leads to endorphin release that causes a relaxation and wellbeing effect. For that reason, athletes who participate in numerous tournaments and training should exploit various massage techniques to optimize their performance and recovery.

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Nowadays, the athlete's performance and health are fundamental factors that have motivated sports scientists to research for effective recovery strategies. The recovery techniques are meant to boost sports performance and prevent injuries. Besides, sports performance is usually linked with the blood sugar levels and lactate metabolism (Mizuno et al., 2016, p.874). Compression garments have an influence on lactate elimination from the athletes' blood making it an effective approach to increase muscle strength and performance. As a result, the compression garments usually aid in muscle recovery after a strenuous training session by increasing the blood flow in the muscles. The increased blood flow improves the recovery rate and athletic performance after intense workouts. Some researchers allege that the compression garments increase blood circulation that assists in eliminating lactate and reducing the muscle aches (Upton, Brown and Hill, 2017, p.2978). Therefore, the strength and conditioning coaches should encourage the athletes to wear the compression garments to optimize their recovery process.

Sports Massage Therapy

Most team sports for instance basketball, football, and rugby often play matches and train on consecutive days. Furthermore, every match or training session imposes physical demands on the athletes due to the probable muscle injuries caused by eccentric loadings, jumping, and high-intensity activities. The off-season and in-season training sessions are not just mere preparations for the next tournament. Therefore, after every training session or match the strength and conditioning coach should emphasis on the most effective regeneration techniques (Bervoets et al., 2015, p.109). Sports massage has proved to be one of the most effective recovery strategies that guarantee the players have sufficient recovery and can play at their potential in the next match or training session. Recent studies claim that sports massage is an effective strategy to mitigate "delayed onset muscle soreness" that usually arise after strenuous sessions. The muscle soreness is classified as type 1 muscle injury that is characterized by stiffness and tenderness to movement. However, after the massage therapy, the athletes' recovery duration is enhanced and they can return to their baseline performance during training and matches (Crowther et al., 2017, p.7). Despite sports massage being a common recovery technique, its physiological effects are uncertain and its benefits after intense workouts require further investigation. Hence, the inconsistent research outcomes can be linked to different massage techniques and the varying massage therapy duration.

Sports massage improves the leg muscles soreness and its perceived fatigue. Consequently, the immense pain felt by players on their legs highlights the significance of recovery techniques to reduce "delayed onset muscle soreness." The effectiveness of the massage therapy on the perceived fatigue and general pain on the athletes is influenced by their mood and the sleeping duration (Cooper, 2017, par. 5). Likewise, most scientists use the pain gain theory to justify the effectiveness of sports massage on pain reduction to the sportspersons. The theory relies on several neurological factors to illustrate the effectiveness of the massage therapy to an athlete's performance. Several neurological factors, for instance, muscle fibers re-alignment, increased endorphin concentrations, and parasympathetic system activation plays a fundamental role in sports massage efficiency (Pack, Seung-Hyen and Kim, Jeong-Ha, 2016, p.77). Furthermore, most of the neurological mechanisms rely on an increment on the muscle blood flow that is stimulated by the massage therapy sessions. As a result, the massage therapy minimizes inflammations that are linked to muscle injuries through initiating vasoconstriction of the blood vessels embedded in the muscles.

Some sports massage techniques may induce hydrostatic pressure through the application of fluids with varying temperatures. The hydrostatic pressure leads to body fluids circulating from intracellular to intravascular and interstitial compartments. The body fluids circulation accelerates the metabolites removal from the muscle tissues (Best and Crawford, 2016, p.1386). Therefore, the induced hydrostatic pressure assists in improving repeated-sprint ability and dynamic jumping motions. The application of such massage therapy on the hamstrings and quadriceps leads to a significant improvement in the jump performances. Such sports massage technique seems to be more effective on the jumping performance compare to the sprints recovery due to the relatively long duration required for sprinters to fully recover. Hence, the need to investigate the impact of the hydrostatic pressure induced during the massage therapy might lead to an improvement in the mean and peak running speak during sprints or matches.

Vibration, friction, tapotement, petrissage, and effleurage massage techniques are usually preferred in enhancing performance and providing treatment for optimal muscle recovery. These massage techniques slacken muscle adhesions, stimulate Golgi tendon organelles, and minimize inflammatory reactions to promote muscle relaxation (Field, 2018, p.4). Furthermore, the strength and conditioning coaches have the mandate to know the physiological advantages and massage techniques to exploit to improve the athletes' performance and flexibility. Therefore, they should have knowledge of the most appropriate massage techniques to enhance quick rehabilitation and recovery of the athletes' perceived fatigue and muscle soreness. Sports massage performed on the athletes before the match or training session causes a decrease in muscular strength affecting their reaction time, speed, and vertical jumps (Boguszewski, 2015, p.86). Therefore, the strength and conditioning experts should have diverse knowledge of sports massage techniques to assist them in enhancing the athletes' recovery period.

Compression Garments

Compression garments possess three key mechanisms that facilitate the sportspersons recovery process. Firstly, the "exercise-induced muscle damage" prompts an inflammatory response that causes some swelling around the injured muscle to pressurize the pain receptors (Hill et al., 2017, p.1079). As a result, the compression garments minimize the inflammation by transporting fluids and facilitating lymphatic outflow from the injured muscle into the blood vessels. Hence, the garment recovery strategy reduces the pain felt by the player after strenuous workouts and increases the recovery duration. Secondly, a majority of the compression garments are designed to increase venous return to an athletes' lower body. The significance of increased blood flow cannot be undermined in recovery when a minimal turnabout between matches in a tournament is mandatory. Hence, the increased blood flow eliminates specific muscle metabolites such as lactate, phosphorus, and potassium ions that lead to dismal performance (Piras and Gatta, 2017, p.1642). Thirdly, most of the team sports athletes often travel to attend tournaments and traveling often causes jet lag that stresses the sportspersons' body. Nonetheless, the compression garments minimize the lower leg discomfort and the inflammation magnitude after long flights or traveling hours. For that reason, the compression garments enable the athletes to recover swiftly from the jet lag and resume training comparatively faster than when they do not wear compression garments.

A majority of studies have focused on the compression garments' efficiency especially on the management of medical conditions such as deep vein thrombosis. Nevertheless, in the past decade sport science specialists have focused on the utilization of the compression garments as an efficient recovery tactic to various sports. The scientific findings on the compression garments' efficiency have been characterized by varying outcomes. Some studies illustrate positive recovery effects from the compression garments while other results reveal minimal impacts from the compression outfits. Consequently, most scientists have made the decision to utilize the meta-analysis approach to validate the controversial opinion based research on the compression outfits (Maqsood et al., 2015, p.309). The meta-analysis approach compares various statistics to magnify the sample size through a more reliable statistical interference. A recent analysis has equated most of the peer-reviewed information on the compression garments. The analysis compared research findings from almost 12 studies based on roughly 205 sportspersons who had an average age of 22 years. The study used various exercise types and compression garments brands to establish compression outfits efficiency. Likewise, the research evaluated the recovery markers of creatine kinase, muscle power, muscle strength, and "delay onset muscle soreness." The research established that the compression gear accelerated muscle function recovery, decreased the creatine kinase concentration after strenuous exercises, and the "delayed onset muscle soreness" severity (Erten et al., 2016, p.312). As a result, the study confirmed that compression apparel improves the athletes' recovery after an intense tournament or training.

In most contact sports such as football, hockey, and rugby the compression garments recovery strategy is considered the most suitable option. The preference is based on the strenuous exercises and short roundabout interval associated with the contact sports (Brown et al., 2017, p.2251). The compression gears enhance the players' endurance especially when the apparel are worn during the match session and 24 hours after the rigorous exercises or matches. Besides, some of the sport science researchers allege that training in graduated compression outfits improves cardiac output and stroke volume due to an increment in the venous blood circulation (Araujo, Cardoso and Rombaldi, 2018, p.134). Hence, an increase in the cardiac output and stroke volume boosts muscle blood oxidation enhancing the athletes' recovery and endurance rate.

The compression outfits improve the metabolic waste removal that usually accumulates during the high-intensity matches and training sessions. Moreover, research has shown some significant changes in the blood lactate levels during the athlete's recovery time. Conversely, some scientists claim that the mid-thigh compression gear worn by players might restrict compression garments efficacy (Shin and Choi, 2016, p.49). As a result, the compression garments' length has caused controversy over the appropriate dimensions for the leg outfits...