Recovery process of elite athletes: A review of contemporary methods

Abstract

A numerous training stimulus and competition as well can reduce level of abilities among athletes. This decline of performance can be a temporary phenomenon, with duration of several minutes or several hours after a workout, or take much longer, even a several days. The lack of adequate recovery process can influence on athletes not being able to train at the desired intensity or do not fully meet the tasks at the next training session. Chronic fatigue can lead to injuries, and therefore, full recovery is necessary for achieving optimal level of abilities that will ensure a better athletic performance. For this reasons, athletes often carry out a variety of techniques and methods aimed to recover after training or match. They have become a part of the training process and their purpose is reduction of stress and fatigue incurred as a result of daily exposure to intense training stimulus. There are numerous methods and techniques today that can accelerate the recovery process of athletes. For this reason it is necessary to know the efficiency of an adequate method which will be applied in the training process. The aim of this review article is to point to those currently used and their effects on the process of recovery after physical activity in elite sport.

Keywords

• athletes
• fatigue
• recovery