How to recover after a skate session

If you are like me, you love to skate. A two to three hour session at your local park is not uncommon and makes you feel amazing. People skate for all kinds of reasons, but it goes without saying that the health benefits you can get from skateboarding are like feeling amazing after exercise, and the challenge and rewards available keep us craving for more. The problem that I face, and that many other skaters face, is pain and pain after a session. This can be especially evident the next day. Some skaters treat it differently than others. Some people seem immune to pain and can wake up every day and skate like crazy, no matter how beaten they were the day before. For the rest of us, here are some solid tips to get the most out of your skate sessions without feeling bad the next day.

Skate more often: It may seem counterintuitive at first, but skateboarding is like any physical activity. If you don’t do this for a while, your body will have a harder time adjusting to the abuse. Some people live in a cold and rainy climate during the winter, so they stop skating for a few months until it gets hot again. Then when spring rolls around, your body is not used to all the hits and goes through a sore phase for a while before it can adjust again. If you skateboard more often, your body will adapt to the abuse and it won’t hurt as much after a session. This does not mean going out every day to jump 20 steps because you will improve at that. This type of abuse can lead to serious injuries, but if you skate a little every day and work to progress your learning curves while maintaining a positive attitude, you will have a better time and enjoy it more.

Stretch Before and After Your Sessions – It’s easy to tap your toes and make butterflies right after you start skating hard and right after you stop skating. In fact, if you don’t have time to stretch, you will have to do it later for injuries and pain. Professional skaters do it all the time. They have to compete, film, and jump huge things all the time to earn money, so they learn from the best physical trainers in the world. Those physical trainers will teach you first that to avoid injury while exercising, you must learn to stretch. If you haven’t stretched much recently, that’s fine. Get started now and take it easy. Stretch in the morning when you wake up, in the afternoon just after you’ve warmed up skating and right after your skate session, then stretch again before bed. This stretch throughout the day will make your body relax and be more agile, and it will help blood and oxygen flow through your muscles and joints, repairing them faster. It’s also a great idea to stretch the upper body like the neck, back, and arms.

Warming up – Just as warming up is important in skating to ensure you don’t fall when you start skating, warming up is important to ensuring your muscles have a moment to decompress. To warm up, take a little walk. I usually walk around the skate park after I finish skating. This can be combined with filming your friends or taking pictures if you are a photographer. It will help blood flow to your joints for further recovery.

Eat or drink lots of protein after a session – I read a lot of blogs and forums about people looking for the best recovery methods, and this is the same everywhere. You should eat or drink plenty of protein, 30-50 grams, immediately after a workout, along with coconut water or Gatorade. Your body needs the protein to rebuild muscle, and the energy drink will replenish glycogen levels and raise insulin levels. Insulin can help restore muscle protein by inhibiting protein breakdown and stimulating protein synthesis. Since I’m vegan, I recommend a plant-based protein shake. You can find them at your local sprouts, whole foods, or online at Amazon.com. Of course, they aren’t cheap, but if you really don’t want to feel so sore after a skate session, they may be worth a try. In addition, eating or drinking substances rich in potassium after a workout will help to replenish the spent stores. Coconut water is high in potassium, making it a great post-workout drink. I get mine at the local 99 cent store to save money. Make sure you get the one with no added sugar. Your body also needs things like sodium and calcium to replenish muscle energy. Bananas and sweet potatoes are excellent sources of potassium, sodium, and calcium. Add these to your post skate session meals and you’ll be feeling better in no time. Also, grapes and cherries contain antioxidants that help the body relieve joint pain. Another tip is to take fish oil or flax seed oil pills. Omega-3, 6, and 9 work wonders for lubricating your joints.

Sleep Better: Sleep is essential for rebuilding muscles, joints, and tendons. If you stay up late partying or watching TV after skateboarding sessions, you won’t reap the benefits that sleep offers. To get the most out of your Zs, get at least 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night. If you’re like me and have trouble falling asleep, you can try taking a herbal supplement like melatonin or valerian root (I found a supplement called ‘relax & sleep’ at my local Dollar Tree). Drinking a hot cup of chamomile tea will also help. Plus, committing to a ‘tech blackout’ after 9pm every night will help you get to bed more easily. Whatever it takes, get the sleep you need to recover and you can skate to your fullest potential every day!

Reduce stress: Acute stress, such as that you get from exercising, is good for you. Chronic stress, like when you don’t get enough sleep or when you have to turn in an assignment at school, is not good for you. To fully recover from your skating sessions as quickly as possible, take time to do stress-relieving exercises such as short walks, hanging out with friends, and riding your bike. These are all things known as active recovery, and they can go a long way toward mentally recovering from a hard skating session. Socializing with good friends and laughing are the best ways to relieve stress.

Ice, then take a hot bath: Putting ice on your ankles after a skating session for 10-15 minutes, then bathing in hot water will relax your muscles and facilitate your recovery the next day. The frosting reduces the swelling that could occur if you land on your ankles with great force, and the hot water relieves the tension in the muscles, making it easier for blood to pass through them. Combined with a post-workout stretch, applying ice and a hot bath can be a great way to recover after a skate session.

Bodyweight squats: Squatting with the appropriate body weight throughout the day and between skating sessions will strengthen the connective tissue around the joints and actually provide more stability around the ankle, hip, and pelvic joints . First, you will want to learn how to squat with the proper body weight.

I hope these tips help you have more fun skateboarding. Sure, it can be very painful at times, but it’s about overcoming our personal challenges and getting the reward of walking away from a trick that makes it all worthwhile. I love skateboarding and I’m sure you love it. So if it were up to me, I would skate all day every day. However, as we age, our bodies don’t recover as quickly, but if you take these 5 tips seriously, maybe your recoveries will be faster and you’ll be skating again in no time!

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