Good recovery is key to getting the most out of your exercise and there are many steps you can take to make sure you get the best results. By incorporating NuroKor Lifetech into your running and jogging recovery you can optimise it, so that you can feel better sooner and see better performance results. In this article, we’ll look at some of the effects running has on your body, some tips for the best ways to support your recovery and how Lifetech helps.
Vicky Williamson is a dedicated NuroKor enthusiast
How running affects your body
Running has many benefits - better cardiovascular health, busts stress and improves mental health, helps you sleep better - but any form of exercise comes with some risk of injury. Plus, a hard run can just make you feel sore!
When you run, you work your leg muscles, putting them under stress. After you finish, your body responds to this by reinforcing them to become stronger, more efficient, and to have better endurance. At the same time, your muscles also pull on your bones, and stronger muscles will pull harder. Your body reacts to this by strengthening your bones as well to endure the greater forces from your stronger muscles.
Let’s look at the stages of effective recovery and how you can add Lifetech to each one.
Warming up - starting off on the right foot
Will Sharman, GB 110m hurdler, uses Lifetech during his warmup
Recovery actually starts before you even begin running. A proper warmup is essential to an effective exercise session and recovery because it gets your body ready for what it’s about to do. This not only reduces the risk of injury during your run, but it also helps your entire system - lungs, heart, muscles, etc. - perform better.
How to use Lifetech in your warmup
You can also use NuroKor Lifetech during your warmup to help activate your muscles.
“I also use it to stimulate key muscle groups during the warm-up of a session - it’s super important for me to activate my muscles to make sure I can give 100% during my training sessions.” - William Sharman, GB 110m hurdler
Connect the pads from your device to the appropriate area and select the programme you find most beneficial. If you’re using the mitouch, then we’d recommend starting with the Perform programme, while on the mibody, try Mode 3, although this will give most benefits after exercise.
Remember to place the pads 2.5cm - 5cm apart. For a start, try putting them on either side of the muscle group you want to activate, but feel free to experiment with location as optimum placement will vary for everyone.
Top tip: Try to make your warmup active. Stretching is good (and for running, make sure you’re stretching all the major muscles in your legs and core), but incorporate some movement as well - do some gentle jogging, swing your legs and rotate your torso to help loosen up.
Cooling down
Just as you used your warmup to transition your body from rest to exercise, you need to help it transition back to a more resting - and now more sweaty - state. If you just stop running and immediately flop to the ground, you risk your muscles tightening up.
Like when warming up, walk around for a couple of minutes and do some gentle stretches to help keep your joints loose and keep blood flowing to your muscles. Good circulation is a vital part of recovery because it’s how the nutrients that your body needs to strengthen itself after exercise get where they need to go.
You can also incorporate foam rolling at this stage as a way to help prevent tightness. 10-15 minutes with a foam roller, focusing on your main muscle groups - especially glutes and hamstrings - will really help. At a cost. Because foam rolling done properly really hurts.
Make sure you have a drink, and it doesn’t have to just be water - try sports drinks to replenish your electrolytes (they help regulate a whole range of processes and are lost when we sweat). Staying properly hydrated helps your body start the recovery process as effectively as possible.
How to use Lifetech when cooling down
The cooldown is the perfect time to start using NuroKor Lifetech if you aren’t already. It stimulates circulation and can promote the production of several important substances (like proteins) in your body for muscles to repair themselves.
For the mibody, put it in Mode 3, while for the mitouch, now is the time for the Recover setting to reduce the risk of delayed onset muscle soreness and speed up your recovery.
Top tip: If there are large areas that you would like to apply the therapy to, then try using one of the accessories designed to go with our devices. KorGlov, KorShoe and KorBand can all make treating larger areas easier. Plus you can keep them on while doing other things!
Rest and active recovery
Now that you’re back at home, sofa and cup of something to hand, it’s important to consider rest.
Your body is remarkable but it cannot just recover immediately, it takes time. If you consistently train without giving your body time to recover then you risk overtraining, which can harm your performance, make you tired and increase the risk of injury. How many days you need to rest will vary, but at least one or two per week is recommended.
But rather than just resting and not doing any exercise, adding some gentle and different activities can stimulate blood flow, remove toxins, and help your muscles recover.
This is a time where you can cross train (doing a different sport to work on other muscles). Weightlifting is a good option here as it will strengthen your upper body while running does the lower. But other activities like yoga are also effective and you could even just stay active around the house - gardening can be surprisingly tiring!
How to use Lifetech during rest and active recovery
One of the settings on the mitouch is ideal for active recovery - the Recover setting! It stimulates your muscles to contract much like physical therapy so helps relieve tiredness and gets that all important circulation going. You can also continue using the mibody’s Mode 3 to achieve similar results.
The ultra-wearable nature of mibody and mitouch means that you can benefit from these therapies whatever you’re doing, whether that be sitting at home or back in the office after a lunchtime run. In fact, retired pharmacist Steven Williams met up with a friend who was wearing his KorBand while they had coffee!
“Actually, a funny story is that I was out having coffee with a mutual friend of mine and Mark’s, and we started talking about NuroKor and he told me that he actually had his on right then!” - Steven Williams, retired pharmacist and NuroKor fan
Top tip: Consider using your Lifetech device at various times of the day. Many athletes have told us that they find benefits in using it not just after exercise but also in the mornings and evenings to keep them in top shape.
Physical therapy
If you’ve tried everything above and you’re still left with sore legs, then it may be time to see a professional. There’s a range of ways they can help you, from specific exercises to massage. These will all be designed to help relax your muscles, get your circulation flowing, reduce swelling, and allow your body to repair itself.
How to use Lifetech for physical therapy
We’ve already covered the Recover and Mode 3 treatment programmes, and they’re a great way to gently massage your muscles. If you want to maximise your stretching, try using the Perform setting on the mitouch before and during your stretches.
Inflammation is a central part of healing and repair, but it can lead to swelling and sometimes get out of control. To avoid this, use the MC2 setting on the mitouch, which uses microcurrent that has been shown to help regulate the processes involved in inflammation and reduce swelling. Better yet, it can also promote healing if you feel that you’ve overstretched something!
Top tip: Experiment with intensity of treatment and placement of pads to find what works best for you!
How to use Lifetech to optimise your recovery from running
We’ve now looked at how to recover from running and some ways that you can incorporate Lifetech into each of those stages.
Here’s a quick summary of the main takeaways:
- You can use mitouch or mibody to help activate your muscles during your warmup - a better warmup makes for a better run.
- The cooldown is when to start using the Recover setting or Mode 3, so that you improve circulation and help your body recover faster.
- It’s important to rest and engage in active recovery, which is where you can continue to use the Recover setting and Mode 3 to stimulate your muscles.
- Finally, MC2, Perform, Recover and Mode 3 all have their place in physical therapy, whether that’s addressing inflammation, helping you stretch, or massaging troublesome areas.
Pain
If you’re still hurting after your recovery, then Lifetech is a fantastic drug-free way of managing those sore limbs and joints! Just attach the pads to the painful area, remembering to keep them between 2.5cm and 5cm apart, and select the appropriate treatment programme - such as Pain or Pain+ on the mitouch or Modes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 on the mibody.
If you’d like to know more about how Lifetech works or the benefits it can have, just get in touch.
You can also find out more about how our technology works to optimise recovery and manage pain.
