Top Tips For Recovery During Fasting

Ramadan is here! As you all know fasting is the most important element during the month. Whilst training might not be a priority during this holy month, there are some considerations you might want to put into practice to ensure you maintain healthy habits and optimise any training. 

Water and Hydration

It’s crucial that with every opportunity you have (Suhoor & Iftar), that you are drinking as many fluids as you can, this can include electrolytes rather than just water. It’s important that you are hydrated, to prevent feeling physically drained during the day. We would recommend drinking a minimum of 2L of water at Suhoor, with a further 1L minimum at Iftar. To ensure you’re hydrated during the day, add electrolytes to your water. This is perfect during Ramadan, to ensure you’re effectively hydrated when you’re fasting, they also taste great too!

Rest and Recovery

In Ramadan, most people are up late worshipping and at the mosque praying, this means you probably don’t get as much sleep as you need. To optimise your training try to ensure that you get as much sleep as you can to allow your body to reset and recover.  

Routines help regulate the body, try and keep to a routine of getting to sleep at a consistent time each evening. Listen to your body, if you’re tired then don’t put strain on it by training. E.g. maybe switch to a walk rather than weightlifting. 

Nutrients (vitamins and minerals)

We need vitamins and minerals for body functions, without them, your body will not function correctly. To ensure you are absorbing enough, create colourful meals packed with fruits and veggies for Iftar and Suhoor.

If you struggle with your fruit and veg intake Supergreens is a great way to get as many vitamins and minerals into your diet as possible. An option is to have Supergreens at suhoor time (just before you start fasting the next day) so that you can reduce tiredness the next day. 

Protein

What’s concerning to most is losing the gains in Ramadan. To ensure you maintain as much muscle mass, you need to make sure you are getting enough protein in. Always include bigger portions of protein in the meals you have between fasts. Having a protein shake at iftar time (time to break the fast) would be the easiest option for that protein boost. We would recommend eating a high protein meal such as salmon or chicken or having a PhD Diet Whey shake to wash down your meal. 

Training

Take Ramadan as an active rest/de-load month. Your focus should not be to lift heavy but instead it should be to keep fit and healthy and maintain muscle mass as opposed to grow it. However, Ramadan can be a good time to increase your endurance. training fasted increases your ability to take in and deliver oxygen to your muscles, therefore improving your endurance. You should be lowering the weight, and increasing your rest time. This allows your body to have enough time to recover for the next set. 

Hopefully these tips will help you get the most out of training during Ramadan.