Replace, restore, revive: the keys to recovery after exercise

Recovery from exercise (2) has emerged as a hot topic in sport and exercise science. Exercise has long been considered important to assist recovery and rehabilitation from injury (15, 20). Over the last 10 yr or so, exercise physiologists and sports scientists have also become increasingly interested in developing strategies to promote recovery between successive training sessions and competitive events (2). Enhancing recovery has a twofold benefit: it provides a competitive edge and minimizes the risk of an imbalance between training load and recovery that can potentially result in overtraining (12). Fundamental to understanding recovery from exercise is knowledge of how various physiological systems respond to different forms of exercise and when (and how) these systems return to their “normal” state after exercise. Recovery remains one of the least understood aspects of the exercise-adaptation cycle. Several reviews have described the general exercise recovery process (2, 9), specific aspects of exercise recovery for certain sports (14), and the effects of nutritional and physical interventions to promote recovery (1, 6). However, recovery from exercise is multifaceted and encompasses many different physiological systems. To gain a better understanding of the recovery process, it is necessary to consider the roles of these various systems from an integrated perspective..