Authors: Therabody Scientists: Tim Roberts, MSc; Kyle Silvey, PhD; Michelle Darian, MS, MPH, RD, LDN

Running isn’t just a sport or a form of exercise for people. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a mental break. And just like fitting in a run (no matter the length or pace) is an important part of your routine, building in the time to recover is critical to keep you running. Recovery is essential for continuing to improve running performance — and it can reduce your risk of developing a sports injury that can keep you out of the running game for quite some time.

But recovery doesn’t mean doing nothing. Recovery is an active and dynamic process. There are steps you can take — and technology you can use — to help support and expedite your body’s internal recovery processes. This means that you’re able to hit the pavement, trails, or track sooner, with more energy and with risk of injury.

Here’s what you need to know about recovering from runs, common signs of poor recovery, innovative modalities to address those concerns, and how to use Therabody’s technology to maximize recovery.

What Does Running Recovery Mean?

Running strains the body, mind, muscles, heart, and lungs. During and after a run, your heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and energy stores deplete. [1, 2]

It also stresses your body. It’s a repetitive movement — you perform the same motions over and over again for miles. Each time you strike the ground, your foot and leg absorb more than your body weight’s worth of pressure. As a result, your muscle fibers experience some tearing and stretching from the movements. [1, 2]

Runners know quite well the feelings of muscle soreness, tension, and stiffness that can accompany a tough workout. Like clockwork, your quads ache, your calves are tight, and you start to question if your soreness is snowballing into pain.

To properly recover from running, you need to get blood circulating. This is why going for a walk or doing a yoga flow can help to shake out sore muscles. Improved blood circulation delivers muscles more oxygen and nutrient-rich blood. In doing so, sensations of stiffness and soreness can start to improve.

So, recovering means that everything mental and physical that shifted during exercise is balanced before your next workout. With the right recovery time and tools, reducing inflammation, stiffness, and soreness is expedited so you can return to the course faster and stronger. [3, 4]

Why is it Important For Runners to Recover?

Here are three benefits runners experience when they prioritize recovery:

How Can Technology Help Runners Recover?

There are several common ailments — like muscle soreness, acute pain, joint stiffness, swelling, and delayed onset muscle soreness — that runners experience that may prevent them from running as hard or as often as they want. And research shows that technology effectively targets these specific concerns, expediting recovery.

Based on the latest available science, Therabody products use modalities designed to maximize recovery.

RecoveryTherm: Heat, Cold, and Vibration

Heat, cold, and vibration therapy help to provide therapeutic benefits to stiff, sore, and pained muscles that runners often experience. Here’s how it works:

To experience targeted heat, cold, contrast, and vibration therapy, reach for RecoveryTherm products. Therabody currently offers three RecoveryTherm products:Cube, Knee, and  Back and Core. RecoveryTherm Cube offers heat, cold, and contrast therapy that can be applied anywhere that needs extra attention. RecoveryTherm Knee delivers heat, cold, contrast, and vibration therapy to the knee. And finally, RecoveryTherm Back and Core offers heat and vibration therapy.

PRO TIPS: Heat and vibration are great tools to use on stiff and sore areas, while cold therapy is effective for swollen and inflamed areas.

Theragun: Percussive, Vibration, and Infrared LED Light Therapy

The Theragun delivers percussive therapy to help expedite recovery. Models like the Theragun PRO Plus also offer vibration therapy and infrared LED light to maximize recovery. Here’s how these treatments work:

To experience targeted percussive therapy, reach for the Theragun. And to combine percussive, vibration, and infrared light therapy, experience the Theragun PRO Plus.

PRO TIPS:

RecoveryAir: Pneumatic Compression

Pneumatic compression boots, like RecoveryAir, are an effective way to improve many common ailments runners face — they can alleviate sore and stiff muscles and even temporarily decrease the swelling from running. While pneumatic compression is best known to influence muscle recovery — it can also improve cardiovascular recovery (such as blood pressure, cardiac output, and vascular resistance) to a pre-exercised state. [20, 21]

So, if you’re looking to kickstart your muscle and cardiovascular recovery, pneumatic compression can help. To experience targeted pneumatic compression, reach for RecoveryAir.

PRO TIP: Use the compression boots for 20-40 minutes the night before a long run for fresh legs the next day. After a hard run, throw on the boots for 40-60 minutes to kick off the recovery process.

TheraCup: Cupping Therapy

Cupping therapy uses suction to provide relief to specific spots on the body. This therapy is popular among runners since it can be done at home for instant recovery.

Research shows cupping offers several benefits of interest to runners. It can relax muscles, reduce perceived pain (even more so than over-the-counter medications), and trigger the release of natural pain-relieving compounds in the brain. Cupping gives runners a way to find instant relief after tough workouts or races. [22, 23]

The TheraCup makes it easy for runners to experience the benefits of cupping therapy anytime. It combines suction, heat, and vibration to target sore spots and accelerate recovery. TheraCup is the ideal tool for runners to enhance relaxation, relieve tightness, and get back to running their best.

PRO TIP: Use TheraCup on areas that are particularly stiff and sore, like calves, quads, and hamstrings. Apply the TheraCup in the middle of the muscle and gently glide it for 2-5 minutes, moving carefully around the joints to help reduce muscle stiffness and soreness.

Key Takeaways

References: