Contrast Shower

With summer on the horizon I see a lot of new faces in the gym. Everyone seems to be ramping things up for the beach. Working out diffrent muscle groups to flatten that tummy or bulk up those bicepts are great. Remember to warm up before your workout and stretch each muscle you worked out after. ( see stretching for the hill for stretching length and times.)

How else can you help your muscles re cooperate?

A great technique is called a contrast shower. This quick and easy step helps muscles heal faster, reduce inflamation and get rid of toxins in the body. You have seen athletes jump into an ice bath right. Seems a bit extreme so why do they do it?

What to do: it's simple

Directly after your work out take a shower as you normally would do except instead of turnin up the heat start with a cooler temperature. The cold will help those muscles you worked by reducing the inflamation right away. 

Next turn up the heat. This will bring the blood back to the surface and back into the muscles you worked.

Warmed up? Now back to the cold. This will get those white blood cells ( repair cells ) back into the muscle fibers you just built up.

Hot

Cold

Hot

End with cold.

Seems like a simple way to speed up the healing time, right? It is. It will also take away some of that unwanted pain from a really big workout.

Enjoy

Nathaniel Porter-Gowan,RMT