If you follow the guidelines for safe and effective exercise and prepare and recover effectively, you should feel great after an exercise session. A well-run exercise class, led by a qualified instructor, always ends with five to 10 minutes of recovery exercises, but people outside organised aerobic classes often leave out the recovery part of an exercise session. Even some fitness centres run non-aerobic, strenuous high intensity classes that don't include a recovery phase.

The recovery phase is perhaps the most important part of keeping fit and healthy. Finish your conditioning activity five minutes early, and encourage others to join in. Full recovery can take up to 48 hours after an exercise session, depending on how hard you make your body work. An example is the way your body needs deep sleep to repair the microscopic damage done to muscles every time you exercise. So you won't even start repairing damage, let alone get fitter, until the first good nights rest after hard training. Remember that the more regularly you exercise, the less damage is done to muscles each time you exercise.

The importance of recovery

Recovery serves several functions. It gets the byproducts produced during exercise out of your muscles and into your bloodstream, where they can be transported to the kidneys, liver or lungs for processing. It gives your blood pressure time to get back to normal and keeps you sweating slightly so your body can get itself back to a temperature suited to normal activities.

Although it takes two days for full recovery from exercise, it is the first three to five minutes after an exercise session that are the most important in getting these recovery processes started.

Recovery exercises

Recovery is a continuation, at low intensity, of your exercise activity.

• If you run, walk for five minutes at the end of your run.
• If you work out with resistance equipment, spend a couple of minutes recovering on an exercise bike.
• If you swim, float and paddle for a couple of minutes.
• Make sure the recovery processes are well under way by following low level activity with these recovery exercises.
• Do each exercise about 15 times.
• Walk on the spot, lifting your knees up in front. Let your arms relax and swing freely by your sides. Shake out your hands and legs.
• Stand with your legs just wider than shoulder-width apart. Bend your knees and let your body relax. Keep your knees, legs and pelvis still, and slowly swing your arms around one way, then the other. Your upper body should follow the movements of your arms, but your lower body stays still. This is a gentle flex and extend for the muscles in your back. Shake out your hands and legs.
• Stand normally, feet together, then gently swing both arms back. As your arms swing forward, bring the leg back to its starting position. Repeat using the other leg. Shake out your hands and legs.
• Walk on the spot again, but lift the heel a little way up behind you with each step. Shake out your hands and legs one last time.

Now that you have recovered from exercise, your body is still warm and your muscles are pleasantly tired and relaxed. This is the perfect chance to increase your flexibility with some extended or deep stretching.

Original materials supplied by Monty Dortkamp, Chief Executive Officer of Fitness Australia and Managing Director of the Australian Institute of Recreation. Edited by everybody, March 2005.