All kinds of challenging, physical exercises, including games of cricket, will leave your body and muscles sore. To avoid injuries and to continually improve your cricket skills you thus need to relax and recover.
A correct recovery after a game of cricket will give you both faster and better results and minimize the chances of an injury. Below we, therefore, give you tips on how to best achieve this by optimizing your recovery. Here, relaxation is an important part of the process.
Sleep more (and better)
Quality sleep is a must to prioritize if you are playing cricket seriously. When you sleep, your body is allowed the best opportunity for both mental and physical recovery. Your body simply cannot perform when it has not had enough rest. Therefore, to make sure you get the most out of your cricket workouts, schedule 7-8 hours of sleep every night – and make sure you sleep through it all without interruption. Lack of sleep, according to various studies, can lead to significant reductions in performance and recovery ability.
Turn off your brain
For many people, it is best to recover by turning to something completely different than to your sport. This will make it easier to relax and keep your mind on something else. Try to find a game or activity that is fun and interesting that will make you completely forget about anything else. Not only will it help you relax, but it will also make playing cricket more fun, as you get small breaks in between. Many people turn to the internet to find entertainment and it is always available. There are millions of sites you can visit, and the entertainment comes in all shapes and sizes.
You can for example kick back while binging a series or watching a movie marathon. Others like entertainment that is more interactive, for example playing games. Therefore, online casinos have become so popular. It is always available on your phone or computer and lets you play fun games during your breaks. You can compare different casinos and find the one with the best bonuses and the newest games, or perhaps you want to play the more classic games like roulette and blackjack, it is all up to you!
Stressless
That stress is bad for your heart and your overall stress is a well-known fact. What fewer people know is that too much stress affects training results negatively. How is this? Well, first things first: stress and recovery are closely interconnected. Recovery is about breaks, relaxation, sleep, and moderate exercises. What de-stressing looks like differs from person to person, but it is essential to clear your mind and take a physical break occasionally to cope with stress.
Studies have also found that mental fatigue, i.e. stress, negatively affects physical performance. This is because both our cognition and muscles are controlled by our so-called anterior cingulate cortex, and when our brain is worked out before a game of cricket – no matter if it is a grand tournament or a single game, our muscles might be as well. Therefore, you should once again make sure to prioritize sleep for optimized recovery, but also stress less in your everyday life.
Soften your muscles
When it comes to exercise-related pain, the root of the problem is more than often muscle knots. These knots occur when muscle fibers tense and tighten and are often painful to touch. These can usually be removed by massaging the muscles with the help of a foam roller, or other massage tools at regular intervals. One can also help minimize the risk of those knots by doing continuous aerobic exercises and applying cloth-covered heat pads or ice packs to the affected area.