The Truth Behind Exercise Recovery: What Works and What Doesn’t(!)

Last week I discussed how important it is to properly recover after exercise. I also discussed the importance of nutrition for recovery (you can find that post here). And in an earlier post I discussed the importance of stretching. Substantial research backs up the importance of nutrition and stretching. However, beyond these areas, the research on exercise recovery is often confusing, conflicting, and frequently carried about by those who seek to benefit from particular findings. Even a good amount of research on electrolytes was carried out by Gatorade… Super awkward. We may hear about the benefits of massage, acupuncture, cold plunges, saunas, and other trendy-sounding recovery practices. But do they actually do any good? Or are they in the same snake oil vein as most Goop products?

This is what this post will delve into in more detail.

The Benefits Each of These Exercise Recovery Practices Has in Common

Before I dive into each of these practices individually, there are a couple of effects that each of these practices have in common that are likely to come with real benefits.

The first is that they each involve making time for ourselves and an intentional decision to prioritize self care. While the definition of self care is mushy, some research finds that having a self care routine improves our health and longevity. As a result, just the practice of incorporating an enjoyable, relaxing activity into your weekly, monthly, or even quarterly schedule could reap health benefits.

The second is that each of these practices may have a placebo effect. You may balk at that and say, what’s the point if it’s just a placebo effect!? However, the placebo effect has real benefits. As I noted in my post on acupuncture, the placebo effect can cause our bodies to release chemicals that promote healing and feelings of wellbeing. So if we believe we’re receiving a health-promoting treatment, there’s a good chance we’ll feel better. As Dumbledore told Harry, “Of course it’s happening inside your head! Why should that mean it’s not real?”

Consequently, each of these practices can have benefits that have less to do with the practices themselves and more about how we feel about them. This shows the value of regularly incorporating practices you enjoy into your routine.

Massage as a Post-Exercise Recovery Practice

I now turn to discussing each of these practices individually. Who doesn’t love a good massage? While a massage can feel like the epitome of indulgence, this practice comes with real benefits, both generally and for post-exercise recovery.

In particular, massage helps stimulate blood and lymphatic flow and can temporarily reduce inflammation, particularly inflammation related to very strenuous exercise or more severe muscle damage. As a result, it helps our bodies recover faster from workouts and may alleviate chronic pain. Some research has even found that the blood flow effect is prolonged and can protect us from soreness and injury in future workouts as well.

Aside from these benefits, research consistently finds that massage has major stress-reducing benefits. In fact, cortisol (our fight-or-flight hormone) tends to decrease by 30% in people getting a massage. The thing with stress is that our bodies can’t decipher physical or mental stress. It all manifests in the same way in our bodies. Consequently, reducing mental stress is huge for giving our bodies space to recover from the physical stress of workouts.

Acupuncture for Exercise Recovery

In a recent post, I went over the general benefits of acupuncture. Acupuncture also has specific benefits for exercise recovery.

Recent research suggests that acupuncture works, in part, by stimulating the central nervous system. Basically, acupuncture stimulates neurons. In turn, these neurons release chemicals that regulate the inflammation we experience after exercise, injury, illness, or other kinds of stress. While our body needs a certain level of inflammation to recover from stressors, acupuncture’s chemical effects prevent inflammation from getting carried away. These chemicals also promote feelings of wellbeing.

Beyond this, acupuncture promotes healing in the tissues where needles are placed. While there isn’t a definitive answer as to why this happens, the guess is that it improves blood flow to needled areas, similar to massage.

The research therefore supports acupuncture as a beneficial practice, particularly when it comes to improving pain and tension, exactly the kind of thing we need for post-exercise recovery.

Saunas for Exercise Recovery

In general, saunas involve heating a room to about 158 degrees Farenheit to as high as 212 degrees Farenheit. Dry saunas typically involve somewhat higher heat and less humidity. These saunas are popular in Scandinavia. In contrast, Turkish-style spas involve more humidity.

Regardless of the sauna type, when we enter saunas, our skin temperature quickly rises and we lose an average of 2 cups of sweat during a relatively short stint. This has both health benefits and risks. In terms of benefits, our blood vessels dilate and circulation improves. According to Harvard Medical School, the amount of blood pumped through our body each minute nearly doubles during this time. This can have a helpful impact for recovery as blood flow is key for repairing muscles and healing injuries.

That extra blood flow can also reduce tension in the muscles and joints and ease feelings of pain. One prominent study looking at sauna use and back pain found that the effect of saunas on pain was not large or consistent enough to be considered statistically significant. However, all participants did notice a difference. This is where it’s important to note that just because something doesn’t show up as statistically significant, doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful.

Beyond these benefits, saunas improve our cardiovascular health and have a similar effect on our hearts as engaging in moderate-intensity exercise. This can translate into improved endurance in sports. Limited research suggests it may help preserve muscle mass as well.

Sauna Caveats

However, saunas aren’t great for everyone and they come with some health risks. In particular, if you have low or high blood pressure or any heart issues, you’ll want to consult with a doctor and likely avoid sauna use. You’ll especially want to avoid mixing saunas with cold plunges, as this tends to raise blood pressure. Moreover, sauna use harms sperm, though the effect appears to be reversible. Nevertheless, you probably want to avoid the sauna if you’re trying to conceive.

The most common issues tend to happen with the dehydration that can come along with sauna use. Dehydration comes with a host of ill effects, including reduced performance and increased chance of illness. So make sure you’re drinking plenty of water both before and after.

Cold Therapy

Last but not least, cold therapy. Cold therapy includes cold plunges in baths or bodies of water, ice baths, cryochambers, basically anything where you use cold as a treatment or preventive measure. This is where things get… thorny. The idea behind cold therapy is that when you are in a very cold environment, your blood vessels constrict (the opposite of what happens with a sauna). This causes the blood to rush to your internal organs in a bid to keep you alive. In your organs, the blood collects oxygen and nutrients. When you step out of the cold environment, that nutrient-rich blood flows to the rest of your body.

There are potential benefits to this. For one, like with the other recovery treatments, cold therapy can improve circulation temporarily, which helps our body heal. It can also reduce inflammation and so improve pain and soreness. It’s important to note that the research on cold therapy is very inconclusive, so even these health benefits are tentative.

The Danger of Cold Therapy

The other problem is that cold therapy greatly disrupts our natural inflammation processes. While chronic and/or severe inflammation is bad news, we need acute/short-term inflammation to repair from injury (see my post on why inflammation is important). Exercise induces small tears in our muscles and that repair process helps us build back better and stronger. Cold therapy inhibits that process. As a result, cold therapy can be helpful occasionally after intense workouts. However, if you use it long-term, it will inhibit muscle growth and even your recovery time from injuries and illness. You’ll note that the other recovery practices above tend to prevent chronic or severe inflammation, rather than impeding helpful inflammation.

More disturbingly, prolonged and regular exposure to cold water therapy can damage your heart. Hypothermia and death can also happen far quicker than people realize. It’s important to check with a doctor first and never cold plunge alone.

The key is that if you are safely cold plunging (doing it with people, adapting to the cold progressively, checking with a doctor beforehand, etc.), then an occasional cold plunge after a particularly strenuous event may be worthwhile. There is no reliable evidence, however, that regular cold plunging has significant benefits for health. More importantly, doing so can come with health costs. So proceed with caution if you are interested in a regular practice.

Summary

To sum up, if you have the resources (or health insurance benefits!) to do so, massage and acupuncture are great methods for post-exercise recovery that have proven benefits. They reduce stress, improve blood flow, and can promote healing. Sauna use also has proven health benefits for performance and recovery. However, saunas come with some health risks and so should be used with caution.

And cold therapy? Not going to lie, the Type 2 fun person in me loves a good cold plunge. I’m very sad to say, however, that after reading the research, I will be very much limiting my use of cold plunges to an occasional post-long run treat. I encourage you to consider the benefits and costs for your own situation.

Is there a recovery practice you love that I haven’t covered yet? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to write about it in the future. Or anything that surprised you? I’m excited for your thoughts.

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