5 Products to Help Boost Sports Recovery & Healing

Whether you’re old or young, breaking into the professional game or a casual player, sports recovery is important. Not only can a solid recovery routine help prevent injury, but it can improve your longevity, make you feel better, and allow you to perform to your best ability on game day or in the gym.

Botthms’ Lite Massage Gun v1: A personal sports massage in your home

Price: R2,399.99

Botthms’ Lite Massage Gun v1 is a solid everyday-use version among their massage gun range. It features 4 different massage heads for varying levels of muscle treatment, and a 2600mAh battery, along with a 3,200 RPM capacity. It also comes bundled with a carry case, which is always a nice bonus.

While it can take a bit of getting used to (remember, working out those knots and tight muscles is not always going to be painless), having a go-to massage gun is ideal when relaxing on the couch and focusing on recovery after a tough gym session or sports match. It does come with a cost, but factoring in the amount of physio and massage sessions people spend money on, it’s well worth the price-tag.

Red Lab Flex Pad – Red Light Therapy

Price: R6,999

Red Lab, one of the company’s highlighting the benefits of red light therapy in South Africa, has launched a range of at-home red light solutions to help people with muscle pains and fatigue, amongst other ailments. fungal infections, eczema, sleep disorders, psoriasis and emotional well-being, amongst other ailments.

One of Red Lab’s products is the Red Lab Flex Pad (R6,999), which is a portable, rechargeable neoprene pad, embedded with 60 NIR and Red Light LEDs. The handy Velcro straps allow you to strap the fully charged device to any part of the body requiring treatment, allowing a recommended time of 20 minutes per treatment area. Unlike a heating pad, NIR and Red Light Therapy works below the skin’s surface, reaching deep into tissues, stimulating and healing cells and increasing circulation to target pain at the source.

The heat generated from the red light is beneficial itself, and using it over the course of a few weeks on niggly areas can produce improved healing. The fact you can also just strap the Flex Pad to the part of your body needing attention, and continue with your day, is a huge bonus. There’s no doubt that the product is rather expensive, but if you have the budget, it’s a great addition to your post-workout plan.

Beurer MG 10 Electric Massage Ball

Price: R379

While massage guns are incredible additions to any athlete’s arsenal, there are certain places that you just can’t reach with them — most notably, the shoulder-blade area, which is a huge problem-zone for many people. The Beurer MG 10 massage ball features a rubberised exterior with little nubs and takes 3 AAA batteries, giving it a vibration function. Lying on this ball and manoeuvring it into those tight and knotted areas, while tender, can be incredibly therapeutic.

Thankfully, it’s also super compact and can easily be thrown into any gym bag or pocket to take on-the-go.

Wintergreen Magnesium Bath Soak

Price: R119.99

While many of us jump into a quick shower after a game of football, rugby, or a tough session at the gym, it may be worth looking at rather having a bath post-workout. The reason being is that it gives you the chance to use some good recovery products, such as Wintergreen’s Magnesium Soak.

Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxer and rejuvenator and Magnesium Soak aims to release physical tension in the body and calm an anxious mind. A warm 20 minute bath in a sachet made with pure magnesium sulphate (AKA Epsom salts and magnesium chloride), will open the pores in the skin allowing for the best possible absorption, improving circulation, helping to ease stiffness and pain in the muscles while reducing inflammation in aching joints, and helping to detox the body from the effects of lactic acid build-up after an intense workout.

Compression socks

Many people believe muscle soreness following a workout is a good thing — an indicator you’ve had a good workout. However, muscle soreness is caused by a swelling of the muscles, which in turn causes pain. To relieve the pain, you’ll need to relieve the swelling. Enter compression socks.

A good pair of compression socks help reduce swelling in your muscles, thereby helping them recover faster. Swelling is caused by poor circulation in your legs and feet caused by overworking your heart and gravity during your workout. The snugness of compression socks promotes better circulation to help relieve pain. Compression socks can also assist with heel pain and shin splints from running on pavement or concrete.

We tried Botthms’ compression socks, and to great effect, a) helping keep our meat pins warm, and b) adding a bit of a squeeze to help produce blood flow and keep the calves from bouncing around and taking too much impact.

Any sports recovery tips you’d like to share with us? Let us know by tweeting @MenStuffZA, posting on our Facebook page, or commenting below.