How to perform well in your sporting practice, how to train well and enjoy surpassing yourself without getting injured? The Euro football championship, the Paris Olympics are all showcases for high-level sport, with its athletes followed day by day, sometimes by armies of doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, etc. For the Sunday athlete to the hardened amateur, it is impossible to be as well supported. The wealthiest turn to personal coaches, while most glean recommendations from fellow athletes, connected tools, or even YouTube, Instagram or TikTok… where good and often not so good advice abounds. However, many scientific studies provide serious answers as to proven methods for improving. L’Express reviews four essential themes: mental preparation, diet, recovery methods and how to deal with injuries. In this fourth and final episode, the secrets of good recovery.
EPISODE 1 – Science’s Tips for Improving Your Sports Skills: The Brain, an Ally Too Often Neglected
EPISODE 2 – Diets, gels, bars… What diet should you eat as an athlete? Advice from science
EPISODE 3 – Does Stretching Always Help? Science’s (Sometimes Confusing) Answers
A little too much contact? Quick, cold. Stiffness after a long session? Especially heat. If you look at the athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, or at the Euro football tournament, nothing would be as good as changes in temperature to speed up recovery and avoid the big bouts of fatigue that linger after exercise. It is impossible to practice a sport without being recommended, by choice, sprays, balms, baths…
What are all these techniques worth? Studies on the subject are rare and not very thorough. But, at the risk of disappointing their followers, the few elements available in the scientific literature converge towards a very weak or even zero effect. “Most of the time, they have no effectiveness beyond the placebo,” warns Professor Nicolas Pinsault, director of the physiotherapy department at the University of Grenoble.
They all work on the same principle: cold makes blood vessels narrow and expels blood; heat makes them swell and increases blood flow. A good idea, in theory. Blood brings the molecules needed for muscle recovery to the muscles and circulates those that have accumulated during exercise, which helps transform them. This circulation is one of the main levers for good recovery.
On the importance of the placebo effect
But these techniques have a major flaw: they do not penetrate inside the body. It is impossible to heat or cool the abdominals for example, at the risk of disrupting the body temperature. They can only act on the surface of the body, on the skin. This can be useful for reducing the discomfort of hematomas and contusions for example: “It anesthetizes for a few minutes. The athlete starts again, and the blood flow is contained”, explains Christophe Delong, head of the physical medicine department at Sainte-Périne (Paris Hospitals).
It is difficult to claim to change the general state of fitness after sport. There are indeed contact phenomena that occur, the surface of the skin is connected with the rest of the body, but all this remains very limited. Which does not mean that we must necessarily do without it. Because in sport, the placebo effect is never useless: “Thinking that we are going to feel better makes us already feel a little better, which greatly affects motivation and performance”, explains Alexandre Rambaud, director of the French Society of Sports Physiotherapy.
Some studies seem to indicate an effect on localized pain. But no miracle cure, however. “The improvement in pain has proven to be minimal according to the literature, and has not shown any significant differences compared to placebo treatments,” states an opinion issued by the college of american physical therapists in 2017. The institution looked at heat pockets, but also at all non-medicinal practices, from massage to relaxation.
A very limited action
The same goes for saunas, which also cause changes in blood circulation, but in a more generalized way. The scientific literature on possible restorative effects is contradictory. A study published in Biology of Sport in 2023 seems to indicate that they are rather useful, at least on the “feeling” of having recovered. Another one published in 2019 in International Journal of Sport Physiology and Performanceon the contrary, finds the athletes less good the next day.
Several studies summarized in an article in the journal of the Mayo Clinica famous American medical institution, found a small protective effect on the heart when the sauna is combined with physical activity. Some scientists even go so far as to observe better cognitive performancewithout really being able to say it with certainty, because of methodological biases. In the same way, some hormones may vary because of the stress induced by this activity, without knowing if this is of any interest.
A literature review published in 2016 in Sports Medicine detected a slightly better recovery on average, but only slightly, thanks to cold baths. But again, nothing very conclusive. Cold seems to be able to reduce inflammation, in a very localized way. And temporarily tones the ligaments for example. Ideal temperature, according to this work: 11 to 15 °C. No more than 15 minutes, at the risk of generating lesions.
Physiotherapists have thus developed other techniques to stimulate blood circulation, less sexy but much more effective for recovery. Alexandre Rambaud, when he worked for the Saint-Etienne football team, then with the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale cyclists, during the Tour de France, had his athletes wear compression socks. Or pressotherapy boots, which inflate with air. By pressing the legs, these tools help the return of blood to the body, which is always more difficult than ejection to the limbs.
Effort after effort
Devices that send small electric shocks have also appeared on the market, and seem to help, on the same principle. More archaic, but also effective: raise the legs after exercise, especially in case of cramps. The specialist has never stopped massages, even though they are outdated: “They soften the muscle”. He also recommends them before activity, as a sort of appetizer. But nothing beats, in addition to a healthy diet, hydration and sleep, the good old detox,” he assures.
What exactly is it? Cyclists, who ride hundreds of kilometers of trails day after day, have a secret. After the race, they rush to their exercise bike. And pedal at a low speed. An effort that costs little energy, but which prevents the blood from stagnating too much, which, it seems, accelerates the return to fitness. In the field, we call this active recovery. This way, the blood does not stagnate. Sport, to get the effects of sport across.
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