Most people in the modern world at any rate suffer from sleep deprivation. For many reasons having a good night’s sleep is becoming increasingly rare these days. Stress from work, busy family life, financial worries etc can all build up to make a good night’s sleep impossible. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest the body does not repair itself effectively if your sleep is either too short or interrupted. So what can we do?
Contrary to popular belief, the body does not become stronger or fitter when you are training. It becomes stronger in the intervals between training sessions, and for this to happen it must be allowed to recover. The body is an adaptive organism and when given the right conditions being rest, proper nutrition, adequate sleep it can and will recover from stress placed upon it.
There are 5 areas we are going to look at:
Sleep
Foam Rolling
Injury Prevention
Hand Care
Ligament strength
A foam roller is not vital but can come in handy for mobility and recovery on those days your body is feeling particularly tight. The act of rolling simply applies pressure on a muscle or a muscle group can help align the muscle fibres, releasing the fascia from the muscle and generally getting rid of any sore parts, scar tissue and knots in the muscle fibre.
As you head into the more advanced exercises, calisthenics places a large amount of stress and strain on the bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments of the body. There are some steps you can take to avoid becoming injured such as not overtraining, only progressing when you are ready and above all else allowing enough time for your body to adapt to the demands being placed upon it but also making sure to keep on top of your mobility and flexibility.
If you do become injured, then the best response is to rest and seek professional advice, preferably from a reputable physiotherapist with knowledge of sports and strength training injuries.
The most common niggles and injuries you may come across in your own training are unique to calisthenics, and it is worth talking about a few of them so we know the tell tale signs and what to do if you succumb to them.
When you first start training calisthenics, you may notice that the palms of the hands can become sore, especially after a heavy pull-up session or after using parallettes for an extended period. This is a normal reaction on the body’s part, you should not try to inhibit the soreness except rest and maybe moisturise. Do not be tempted to start using gloves, this will only cause more problems later on, especially when you begin learning the false grip and other movements that require complete feel and sensitivity in the hands.
The second change that will happen in response to the soreness and the use of the hands, is that you will start to form calluses around the points where the fingers join to the palm and on each joint of the finger themselves. Again, this will be normal reaction. You should however, not allow them to become too big as these will run the risk of getting caught on ledges and increase the chance of ripping. Ouch!
The best solution is to occasionally sand down and reduce the height of the calluses to the point that they do not feel like they catch on ledges or pull-up bars.
Lastly, if you are an avid user of chalk – you will want to remember to moisturise your hands after every workout. The alcohol in liquid chalk will dry out your hands completely, leaving them more prone to damage from rips and tears.
Not all parts of the body take the same time to heal & recover. Estimates vary, but for the average person, tendons and ligaments take up to ten times as long to heal if they are injured than the muscles surrounding them. If you feel pain in the elbows or any other area not associated with muscular soreness, then rest. Do not feel tempted to push your luck: you will injure yourself even more and may set yourself back weeks or even months.