Trust me: Being injured keeps you busy. There are countless doctors’ appointments, physical therapy exercises, and cross training programs. Add meditation and visualization sessions to that list. When I recently hurt my hip and couldn’t run for three months, physicians repeatedly urged me to integrate these mindful practices into my recovery, suggesting it would help the healing process. With everything else to do, it felt silly to spend time sitting quietly and imagining my way back to health. Was it just wishful thinking? Or was there something to it?

You likely know that your natural response to injury—anger, depression, hopelessness—is not helpful. Rather, it’s the opposite of what you need to be doing. “The Buddhist term for this sentiment is the second arrow: it makes unpleasant experiences even worse because now we’re worrying about it and we’re imagining it happening forever,” says Simon Goldberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It adds all this fuel to the fire.” Enter meditation, a practice that reduces stress, depression, and anxiety, while supporting your mental health when you’re sidelined. But whether it actually helps to heal the actual injury remains unclear.

Does Meditation Benefit the Physical Body?

It’s tempting to leap to the conclusion that meditation’s ability to lower stress levels can also lead to physical healing. And yes, have found that the practice can reduce inflammation and boost the immune system. But large, definitive studies on injured athletes examining the effect of meditation on the injured physical body haven’t been done. Britton Brewer, a psychology professor at Springfield College in Massachusetts, says that, while the evidence for meditation and visualization’s psychological effects (feeling more confident, having less anxiety about returning to the playing field) is robust, the claims for their physical effects (hormonal changes, better healing, a stronger immune system) are less well-documented.

However, a few smaller studies do underscore the potential of meditative practices, such as mindfulness, to benefit athletes. In a Brewer collaborated on, runners with knee injuries went through an eight-week mindfulness training program that included breathing exercises, body scans, gentle yoga, and meditations. After learning the techniques over two sessions, participants were asked to practice at home for up to 45 minutes each day. Those in the mindfulness group had less pain when they returned to running, compared to the control group.

Mindfulness training may also help prevent injury. In a published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, soccer players participated in seven weekly group sessions that focused on mindfulness exercises and acceptance techniques. They also listened to recordings of the exercises throughout the week. Over the course of the season, the players who participated in the mindfulness sessions had fewer injuries compared to their teammates, a finding Brewer contributes to reduced stress.

When it comes to visualization exercises, such as imagining a bone rebuilding, the evidence in athletic rehabilitation is mixed or lacking. But studies from other fields provide some hope. When used in conjunction with standard cancer treatments, guided imagery and in breast cancer patients. Research also reveals that imagined strength workouts lead to real muscle gains, and visualization in immobilized muscles.

Even if these practices don’t help ease physical symptoms, the mental health support can be crucial. “I wouldn’t want to downplay the importance of the psychological aspects of an injury experience,” Goldberg says. Meditation and visualization can give you a sense of control: There is still something you can do to work toward your goals, even before you’ve been cleared to do much else. But Carrie Jackson, a sports psychologist and author of , says it’s vital to believe in it. “If you think that it won’t help, then it won’t,” she says.

So, Should You Try a Mindfulness Practice for Your Physical Health?

There’s no harm in testing it out. Goldberg recommends trying mindfulness practices for a week before making a judgment. The , created by his colleagues at Healthy Minds Innovations, is free for download and has different practices, such as loving-kindness meditations and purpose-based mindfulness exercises. It will likely be uncomfortable and difficult at first, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing. “It takes time to get our minds in shape just like it would our bodies,” Goldberg says.

While working on your mind may seem easier than your physical training, that’s not necessarily the case. These mental practices are hard, and you need to take breaks, just as you would take a recovery day when training. “It’s work,” Jackson says. “It takes time, as well as emotional and mental energy to do these things, and that is real energy.” (She also stresses prioritizing one of the best recovery tools: sleep.)

How Much Time Should You Spend on Mindfulness Practices?

These mindfulness practices don’t have to take much time: on the psychological effects of meditation found positive results in as little as five minutes a day. And if you have a few moments to spare—maybe you’re stuck sitting in an ice bath or waiting for a doctor—there might be benefits beyond injury recovery. “If you can manage your stress, you can not only feel better and be less likely to get injured, but you might perform better as well,” says Brewer. “It’s kind of a bonus.”

I’ll never know if my attempts at mindfulness practices helped my hip heal faster. Despite this being my worst injury to date, daily meditation certainly helped lessen the onset of depression and hopelessness. I never did get comfortable visualizing the bone healing and eventually gave up trying.

Now that I’m back on the roads, I prefer the meditative rhythm of my footsteps and have fallen out of the meditation habit. But the evidence that a mindfulness practice could prevent me from being sidelined again is sending me back to the mat. A few minutes each day to keep me doing the sport I love? I’ll take it.

The post Can Mindfulness Help with Injury Recovery? We Asked the Experts. appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

As tight as they are bright, compression socks, sleeves, shorts, and pants promise to boost performance and recovery. But scientists aren’t entirely sure how—or if—compression gear works as advertised, questioning its usefulness in competition and recovery. We might be better off, they say, lounging around in compression than we are racing in it.

There is moderate evidence to support wearing compression gear after a long race or workout. Jessica Hill, a sports scientist at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, England, tested the gear’s effect on recovery in two groups of marathoners. When asked to hold a squat the day after the marathon—a formidable task—those who immediately and continuously donned compression leggings post-race (removing them only to shower) reported less quadriceps soreness compared to those in the control group. . The resulting data showed compression gear provided a modest reduction in soreness and muscle damage while restoring both leg strength and power, possibly by reducing inflammation. “For an athlete who needs to do lots of training programmed quite closely together that could be an advantage,” Hill says. For others, “The only benefit they’re likely to get out of it is probably reduced soreness.”

But scientists are beginning to ask if minimizing inflammation is desirable goal, particularly in the middle of training; inflammation may be what forces muscles and bodies to build back stronger. “If we are reducing the inflammatory response, are we reducing an adaptive response of the body?” asks Hill. “Nobody really knows for sure at the moment.”

Scientists also don’t know exactly how compression garments work. One idea is that a pump in the calf muscle, which shoots blood up to the heart with each contraction, is amplified by the extra squeeze of compression socks. Augmenting the calf muscle pump in this way could improve circulation, delivering more oxygen-rich blood to needy muscles, potentially boosting performance.

Yet there is little to no evidence that it does actually improve performance during a race. Juan del Coso Garrigos, an exercise physiologist at Camilo José Cela University in Madrid, studied marathon and half-Ironman participants and found no difference in finish time fatigue, muscle damage, or muscle pain, between those who raced in compression socks and those who wore regular socks.

Del Coso thinks any supposed benefits are from the placebo effect. Despite telling study participants about his results, many say they will continue to wear the gear during the race. Except for hot days, though, when the extra cover-up can contribute to overheating and dehydration, he doesn’t see any harm in doing so. If looking like an elite makes you feel like one, go for it, he says.

Hill disagrees with that advice. She can’t entirely rule out a placebo effect in her recovery study and says she wouldn’t recommend wearing compression garments if she discovered their effects were only mental. She warns, “If people are returning to training feeling mentally recovered but they’re not physiologically recovered, they’re probably putting themselves at more risk of injury.”

So save the bright and binding clothes for after your peak race. If they do improve circulation, as researchers suspect, they may help clear out metabolites—chemical products of metabolism that accumulate when working out that contribute to soreness—possibly quickening recovery. Indeed, many wearers report that compression gear reduces next day aches and pains, known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). It may be a psychological mind-trick, but if it puts a little bounce in your post-race shuffle, it might be worth it. Just don’t return to your normal training and racing routine until you feel fresh, sans socks.

The post Is Compression for Competition or Running Recovery? appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Endurance athletes know the benefits of carbohydrates. We feast on them before long efforts and carefully plan mid-workout gels and sports-drink swigs. Extensive research over the last fifty years continues to endorse the practice of carbohydrate loading to maximize glycogen storage—and performance.

But there is another strategy that’s been gaining traction recently: going without carbohydrates during training. 

Training with fewer carbohydrates teaches the body to be more efficient with its precious glycogen. “In training, part of what we’re doing is trying to get our body used to low fuel stores so they are more efficient when we actually have fuel,” , author of The Science of Running and University of Houston cross country coach, explains. “You are trying to embarrass the body so that it adapts.”

Embarrassing the body this way, called “,” can be done via two methods. The first is double workouts: a tough morning workout followed by a low-carbohydrate lunch, and then a second, easier workout a few hours later. The first workout empties the muscles of carbohydrates—which lunch doesn’t replenish—so the body must adapt to get through the second session. Another method is fasted workouts: long sessions performed with little to no carbohydrates consumed in the hours before, preventing easy access to fuel in the bloodstream. 

Double workouts force the body to make more mitochondria, the cell’s energy powerhouses. More mitochondria means you’ll burn more fat—whose stores aren’t as limited as carbohydrates. Fasting increases the number of transporters that bring fuel (carbohydrate or fat) into the muscle. Either way, the end result is a system that is less dependent on carbohydrates, better able to use fat as fuel, and more efficient.

Two-a-days aren’t easy. The good news: You might already be doing fasted workouts on those mornings where you dash out the door without a snack. Because you haven’t eaten since the night before, exercising for longer than sixty to ninety minutes blows through your stored carbohydrates. The body experiences what the latter miles of a marathon feel like, and it learns a performance-enhancing lesson, says , an exercise physiologist and nutritionist at the Canadian Sport Institute. “We’re able to mimic the demands in the last twenty-five percent of the marathon…without having to run twenty-six miles.”

In fact, the main drawback is that these workouts are incredibly mentally and physically demanding. But that may be good practice, since the end of any marathon is tough and requires mental conditioning, Stellingwerff says. John Hawley, an exercise scientist at Australian Catholic University, agrees, “It’s good for the athlete to grovel… because that’s how they are going to feel at the end of the race.”

Note that this training strategy isn’t advocating an Aktins- or Paleo-diet approach; it does not involve eating low-carb constantly. The second part of the training-low strategy is competing high and fueled with carbs for optimal performance, so you still need to make sure your gut can process carbohydrates while racing. Magness recommends trying a fasted workout once every seven to ten days and a double workout once every two or three weeks. For other long efforts, eat your carbohydrates as usual. And avoid these strategies completely in the final weeks before the race. Doing them too often or too close to race day will leave you drained.

Stellingwerff uses the train low and race high methods with Canadian Olympians. In a case study following three elite marathoners, two set new personal bests, cutting almost six and three minutes off their times. (The third was new to the distance, but made a successful debut.)

These findings aren’t exactly new—and not everyone buys into them. Some studies agree with Stellingwerff’s results, documenting changes to mitochondria and fat usage that led to performance benefits. Other studies, however, detect physiological differences but not performance differences. The discrepancy might be a reflection of the lab setting, not the underlying physiology, says , an exercise scientist at Australian Catholic University.

“What athletes do out there when it’s a race situation versus sitting on the bike where we are trying to encourage them to go maximally, flat-out are two completely different things,” says Hawley. “At the moment there are no studies to show that performance is worse; there are some to show that it’s better.”

Stellingwerff warns that proper recovery afterwards—focusing on quality nutrition, hydration, and sleep—is crucial. Otherwise you risk overtraining, sickness, or injury.

Fortunately, there are some scientifically proven tips for enduring these workouts. Sipping and spitting out sports drinks tricks the brain into thinking fuel is coming, providing a low-carb boost. Coffee is another performance enhancer. But for tough, crucial workouts (race pace intervals, for example), carbo-load up. Stellingwerff believes these workouts are mostly “for the neck up” and it’s too hard to build confidence when your body is battling low carbohydrates. 

The challenge might be just the push you need. “If you’ve hit a plateau,” says Magness, “then it’s a good strategy to take you to the next level.”

The post Athletes, Listen Up: You Should Be Eating Fewer Carbs When Training appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.