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Every athlete knows that taking care of your body doesn’t stop when your workout ends. The right recovery routine can provide you with the optimal conditions for rest and repair, helping you feel refreshed and energetic. You’ll be able to reduce soreness and stiffness, all while enjoying the myriad of health benefits that athlete recovery equipment can provide.
If you’re looking for the best recovery equipment for athletes, there are plenty of science-backed options for you to choose from, each with its own unique benefits for different health and rehabilitation goals. To uncover new ways to soothe and rejuvenate your body after a workout, check out our list of the top 10 recovery aides for athletes.
#1 Massage Guns
The power of sports massage is well-documented in the athletic community. It can stimulate blood flow to boost academic performance before workouts and provides invaluable pain relief after exercise. But you don’t have to visit a massage therapist every time you go to the gym. With at-home massage guns, you can give yourself bursts of relief and relaxation anywhere, anytime.
Massage guns deliver high-frequency vibrations to your muscles and connective tissue, directly targeting tight knots and sore areas after a workout. The rapid vibrations encourage your muscles to relax and release, which can both decrease future soreness and treat any active discomfort. By stimulating your circulation, these devices can speed up the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, decreasing your recovery time after the hardest workouts.1
With different modes and speeds to simulate various massage techniques, massage guns make it easy to unwind after a workout session while supporting your overall wellness.
#2 Foam Rollers
Foam rollers have been around for decades as a tool for self-massage. By leveraging your own body weight against the dense foam, you can apply direct pressure to your sore, tight, or aching muscles. Gliding your body across a foam roller in different positions can stretch out your muscles and break up knots across your back, neck, and extremities. Using a foam roller activates your neuromuscular system, improves your mobility, and targets pain and soreness throughout your full body.2 Learn how to use a foam roller effectively in our blog.
You can find foam rollers with different densities, textures, and sizes, making it easy to adjust your recovery regimen to focus on different areas of your body. For example:
- Small, firm rollers provide more intense pressure for painful trigger points
- Large, softer models offer a gentle, surface-level massage to promote widespread relaxation
- Textured foam rollers feature small protruding bumps for a deeper tissue massage—if you’re new to foam rolling, start slowly and apply minimal pressure!
#3 Massage Balls
Much like massage rollers, massage balls let you use your body weight to attack tight, tense knots and trigger points. When you wedge a massage ball between your body and the wall or floor, the intense, rolling pressure loosens your muscles and connective tissue.
Because they’re compact and portable, it’s easy to bring a massage ball in your gym bag to work out problem areas after you exercise. Position the ball over your sore spots and apply pressure until you start to feel relief, then repeat in different areas of your body. By slowly rolling back and forth, you can give yourself a deep tissue massage that rivals professional treatment. When considering a foam roller vs massage ball, both tools offer unique benefits and can be used to complement each other in your recovery routine.
#4 Vibration Plates
Vibration doesn’t just have massaging power. Vibration therapy is an emerging treatment that stimulates muscles throughout your body and enhances circulation. When you’re standing or sitting on a vibration plate, the high-frequency micro-movements engage your muscles, forcing them to rapidly contract and relax. As your muscles move in response to the vibration, your circulation speeds up, oxygenating your muscles and encouraging cellular regeneration to speed up muscle recovery.3
Regularly using vibration plates to wind down after a workout has the potential to enhance your metabolism and build muscle without putting additional strain on your body. You can also perform light cooldown exercises and stretches on your vibration pad to target multiple fitness and recovery goals at once. Learn more about the benefits of vibration plates in our blog.
#5 Exercise Bands
Exercise bands are a cornerstone of resistance workouts, facilitating low-impact, lower-intensity exercises that still keep you moving and active. By pulling or pushing against the stretch and resistance of an exercise band, you can guide your movements in a safe, slow, and controlled way. Resistance training can strengthen your musculoskeletal system, boost your stability, and improve mobility.4
Because exercise bands allow for a light workout that doesn’t require full-body movement, they’re ideal for returning to exercise after a knee, hip, or shoulder injury. Whether you’re recovering from a sports injury or an especially strenuous workout and simply want to remain active, exercise bands with different levels of resistance should be a staple in your arsenal of recovery tools.
#6 Infrared Saunas
While stretching and light cooldown exercises can support your muscles after a serious workout, you shouldn’t overlook true rest and relaxation, either. When you sit in an infrared sauna, your whole body is bathed in healing infrared light that encourages cellular rejuvenation, speeds up muscle repair, gently stimulates blood flow, and reduces potential joint pain.5 Infrared light penetrates deep into your muscles to target soreness and provide a full-body experience of soothing relaxation.
More and more workout facilities are starting to install different types of infrared saunas so you can relax and unwind directly after your workout. However, portable saunas like infrared sauna blankets make it possible for you to experience the rehabilitating benefits of infrared frequencies in your own home while you watch a movie, read a book, or simply relax in bed.
#7 Red Light Therapy Devices
Infrared isn’t the only light frequency that can encourage healing after a workout or exercise injury. The full range of red light can reduce inflammation and activate the mitochondria in your cells to regenerate damaged and strained tissues.6 Portable red light therapy devices, from wands to wearable bands, are designed to deliver healing red light wavelengths to the top layer of your skin and muscles.
Regular use of red light devices can rejuvenate your connective tissue and heal inflamed joints after overuse. They also have the added benefit of refreshing your skin, so you can improve the appearance of your complexion while enhancing your workout recovery—talk about two birds with one tool!
#8 Compression Machines
You may already use compression tools, such as compression socks or shirts, to passively improve your circulation, decrease muscle soreness, and eliminate swelling. Compression machines take this same concept and ramp up the intensity. When you slip your legs into the air-filled cuffs of a compression machine, the device will squeeze and release your muscles to increase blood flow and break up muscle tension.
As the cuffs inflate and deflate, the massaging movements prevent the pooling of blood that causes uncomfortable swelling after some workouts. By using compression cuffs right away after exercise, the intense pumping movements will help deliver much-needed oxygen to your exhausted and worn-out muscles, accelerating your recovery in just a few minutes.
#9 Massage Therapy Machines
Whether you use massage to work out tension from a day of weight training, to stretch out tense muscles, or just to relax, the mental and physical benefits are undeniable.
Because each person has their own preferences when it comes to massage style and intensity, there are tons of at-home massage devices on the market suited to different modalities. Some options to consider are:
- Shiatsu mats
- Heated neck and back massagers
- Deep tissue rollers
- Handheld massage sticks
- Massage wands
Chances are, there’s a therapeutic massage device that’s perfect for your active recovery.
#10 Ice Tubs
Cold plunges are currently trending as a new and innovative way to improve your immune system, boost mental clarity, and relieve pain after workouts. However, ice baths have been around for centuries, and the healing benefits of cold therapy have been well-documented throughout history. Studies show that ice baths reduce the muscle damage you incur from working out, helping you get back on your feet more quickly after pushing yourself at the gym.7
Instead of just applying ice to a sore area like a knee, shoulder, or lower back, you can deliver a healing chill to your entire body at once, reducing inflammation and numbing post-workout pain in an instant. Specially engineered portable ice baths are built for maximum insulation, so you can complete a full cold plunge session at home.
Adjusting to ice plunges can take time, so start out by submerging yourself for just a few seconds at a time. As your body acclimates, you can enjoy longer ice baths of up to 15 minutes.
Explore Recovery Tools from Lifepro Today
When you invest in your post-exercise recovery, you make the most of each workout. By ensuring that your body feels good and that you bounce back quickly after strain, you can stay consistent with your fitness goals and take an active role in your physical well-being.
That’s why Lifepro offers a wide range of high-quality fitness and post-exercise recovery tools designed to support wellness. Explore the Lifepro collection of athletic recovery equipment, including red light therapy devices, vibration plates, massage guns, and more.
Sources:
- Hackensack Meridian Health. Are Massage Guns Good for You? A PT Explains. https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/en/healthu/2022/04/01/are-massage-guns-good-for-you-a-pt-explains
- AXIS Sports Medicine. The science behind foam rolling + why it helps your recovery. https://axissportsmedicine.com/2023/12/27/the-science-behind-foam-rolling-why-it-helps-your-recovery/
- National Library of Medicine. Whole-Body Vibration and Blood Flow and Muscle Oxygenation: A Meta-Analysis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4560014/
- Better Health Channel. Resistance training — health benefits. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/resistance-training-health-benefits#health-benefits-of-resistance-training
- Cleveland Clinic. Infrared Saunas: What They Do and 6 Health Benefits. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/infrared-sauna-benefits
- National Library of Medicine. Significant Improvements in Cognitive Performance Post-Transcranial, Red/Near-Infrared Light-Emitting Diode Treatments in Chronic, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Open-Protocol Study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4043367/
- Mayo Clinic Health System. Can taking a cold plunge after your workout be beneficial? https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/cold-plunge-after-workouts
Author
Joel Gottehrer is the Co-Founder of Lifepro Fitness and has dedicated his life to helping people transform theirs. With over 12 years of experience in the fitness industry as a personal trainer and owner of two personal training studios, Joel has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to helping transform lives. After suffering from physical injuries, Joel and his business partner, Abraham Brach, came together with a common goal to alleviate the pain caused by their injuries.
They continued to find themselves disappointed with the results stemming from various products promising to relieve their pain, and with that – Lifepro Fitness was born. Joel's mission is to have a positive impact on millions of lives with the Lifepro brand. Whether it's finding new and innovative ways to help people recover from injuries or developing products to improve overall wellness, Joel is always looking for ways to push the boundaries. Thanks to his commitment to help people live their lives free of pain, Lifepro has been able to do this for thousands of people since its founding in 2017.
