Pneumatic compression – speed up your muscle recovery!

In competitive sports every second, even every hundredth of a second, counts! Many athletes train hard and prepare for competitions. During training, metabolic processes that supply the energy for muscle work produce many breakdown products (metabolites). This is especially true during high-intensity work near the aerobic–anaerobic threshold. One of the best-known substances is lactic acid. When it accumulates in the muscles, it causes muscle fatigue and stiffness (in untrained people it causes muscle soreness). In this state you must reduce training intensity at the next session. If you don’t, it easily leads to injury. But if you reduce training intensity, performance improvement may not occur – and that can mean saying goodbye to good results.

You don’t have to be an athlete to wake up the day after physical activity with unpleasant heaviness in your limbs. After age 35, especially if you exercise irregularly, you may notice that after a friendly soccer game, a basketball match, or a bit of cycling, even walking feels uncomfortable; your thigh may feel tight going down the stairs, almost painful. You can thank the metabolites left in your muscles for this.

The importance of muscle recovery

Athletes have long known how important it is to get rid of metabolites. The traditional “cool-down” after training is an old method that consists of lower-intensity movement: slow jogging followed by stretching and relaxation exercises focused on the muscles most worked during the session.

Katinka Hosszú's cold-water baths also serve recovery. Nowadays, alongside or instead of traditional methods, instrument-based recovery techniques such as muscle stimulation or compression therapy are becoming increasingly common.

Faster muscle recovery is very important in sport. Those who recover more quickly can sustain high-intensity training for longer periods. Since muscle strength and performance increase mostly at high intensity, it’s hardly a question that you should do everything possible to speed up recovery.

Another important role of recovery is reducing the likelihood of injuries. Stiff, fatigued muscles are more prone to injury.

Recovery is therefore an indispensable, integral part of sport. Perform it immediately after activity, but within a maximum of 90 minutes.

Pneumatic compression – how does it work?

Compression devices connect to cuffs that treat the legs, trunk and arms. Which cuffs you use depends on what you trained – if you worked the upper body, you would naturally use the arm and trunk cuffs afterward.

The cuffs are made up of multiple segments called airchambers. The device inflates these airchambers individually or in groups, in a preset sequence, to the set pressure.

This compresses the muscles and the blood vessels within them. By adjusting the inflation sequence you can direct and channel the fluid in the tissues as well as the blood in capillaries and veins.

It relaxes stiff muscles, removes excess blood and fluid, and also “carries out” and squeezes metabolites and lactic acid from the muscles.

When should you use it?

You should use pneumatic compression after every training session on the muscles most heavily used. There are cuffs for the legs, arms and trunk, so you can treat any area. It can always be used after an injury because it passively mobilizes the muscles, improves microcirculation and thus speeds up healing.

It’s a useful aid not only after training but also during competitions that include repeated efforts (e.g., fencers’ successive bouts or matches in combat sports). It enables more optimal recovery when used as a complement to massage and other techniques.

In the United States it’s already so popular that not only sports clubs use it, but in fitness centers you can choose Recovery services after training (massage, sauna, muscle stimulation, compression therapy, ice bath).

I made a video in which I demonstrate compression recovery in detail using the Power Q-1000 Premium pneumatic compression (also known as a compression therapy unit); it’s worth watching.