You have spent your last ounce of energy scoring a last second touchdown that got your team a huge win and for the first few hours your adrenaline makes your body feel invincible. Unfortunately, you wake up the next day and your body reminds you that you aren’t 17 anymore. As you work through the day you feel soreness in places that you didn’t even think you worked on the field. How in the world do you get yourself back feeling great and, more importantly, how do you get your body prepared for the next tournament?

Let’s change perspective for a minute. Instead of only trying to make the pain less severe after it’s crushed you, how can you prepare yourself beforehand to lessen the stress to your body during and after the tournament? We find that our athletes perform at a much higher level when they are more warmed up vs. being less warmed up. Here are some simple ideas to prevent some of those nasty aches and pains:
 

1. Hydrate: We all know that it is a lot of fun to “enjoy” yourself the night before a weekend tournament but going into a tournament fully dehydrated will add a great deal of pain to body soreness after the fact. I would encourage you to take down water leading up to the tournament and especially before you go to bed the night before your first game. Trying to hydrate after the fact will not prevent much of your soreness

2. Take in Real Nutrients: Many people think that Gatorade and other sports drinks are the best way to take in potassium. I would argue that people are drinking too many sports drinks during competition. Those sports drinks are full of sugar and may hurt your energy levels. Instead of using sports drinks exclusively take some real fruit in. It will help keep you hydrated without all of the processed sugars and it will help keep your muscles loose during and after the tournament.

3. Stretch before the tournament: I don’t mean grabbing your quad for 2 seconds before your first game. Take 10 minutes to stretch everything. Hips, hamstrings, quads, knees, calves, ankles, neck, back, arms. They are all important so take a few minutes to stretch them all beforehand and get some blood flowing into them before you begin sprinting

4. Dynamically stretch before the tournament: You need to prepare your body to move before you begin running around the field. Jog a few laps, work some stretches while you are moving and work movements such as high knees, butt kicks, and punter kicks to loosen your legs and arms up for actual movement
 

Now, you have followed the rules (or maybe you haven’t) and you are still feeling the cruel soreness after the tournament…what do you do? Here are a few easy ideas in order to work the pain out:

1. Fill your body with good food: Your body is likely craving the nutrients that it needs to rebuild itself so make sure you give them to your body. Fill up with good, lean protein such as chicken and turkey, and fish. Eat good, healthy carbs such as fruit and vegetables. And, add some quality fats in there such as avocados, eggs, walnuts, and olives. Your body needs to fuel itself to rebuild the muscles that you broke down so make sure that you get them in your system quickly and repeatedly.

2. Roll Out: If you have heard of or seen people use foam rollers than you probably know that they are fantastic tools to roll the kinks and toxins out of your muscles. Use the cylindrical rollers and loosen up your entire body. Focus extra time on those places that are very sore and you should see faster recovery

3. Stretch after the fact. Don’t overlook the post tournament stretch. But, perhaps more importantly, don’t only stretch the one time after the tournament. Make an effort to stretch once or twice a day for a few days following the tournament and your muscles will loosen up more quickly

4. Hydrate your body after the tournament: Your body will be craving water so give it to your body. The prescribed amount of water every day for an athlete is ½ of your body weight (in ounces) every day and that is on a normal day. Replace the water in your body or else your muscles will feel more friction and stay sore for a longer period of time

5. Work to prevent this from happening at the next tournament: Instead of going into your next tournament completely cold and tight make an effort to stay strong and loose in “the offseason.” Instead of only jogging outside or on a treadmill get some faster paced runs in from time to time. You don’t need to spring a mile, but every once in awhile pick up the intensity for 50-100 yards so that your legs remember what to do. Stretch in the offseason too. It doesn’t mean that you need to stretch for 30 minutes; stretch for 5 minutes here and there during the week and you will see great benefits on and off of the field. And, mix up your training. Weight train, work cardio, learn to push your own body weight around. The more that your body can adapt to the better it will handle the next tournament.

This prescription of ideas for before, during, and after a tournament should help you not only perform at your peak level of athleticism during the tournament but also recover much more quickly between the last snap and the next tournament’s first snap. They are simple steps and they do not take too much time, but they are extremely powerful tools to have in your back pocket. They will give you the edge that you need to win that hail mary loose ball or outrun that last defender on your way to the game winning touchdown. It’s worth it!

Integrated Fitness
www.if-fit.com
Jim@if-fit.com