In Fact, Resting Your Hands on Your Knees Is the Best Recovery Position.
Faster post-workout recovery is a good indicator of your overall fitness level and is essential for improving performance, whether it’s lifting more weight, running faster, or improving endurance. And for years, the advice has been to recover from a high-intensity workout with your arms above your head. You may have had a similar experience as a child: when I ran track and field in high school, my teammates and I were taught to resist the urge to bend over and put our hands on our feet. But the truth is different from what we have been taught.
What Research Says About Resting Your Hands on Your Knees
Research shows that your instinct to recover from a hard workout by resting your hands on your knees may be the best. In a study published in 2019 , researchers at Western Washington University asked 20 college football players to run sprint tests. For the study, each soccer player conducted two separate trials one week apart, during which they completed four 4-minute sprints while running at 90-95 percent of their maximum heart rate. After the sprint, the soccer players were asked to either keep their hands on their heads or on their knees, and the researchers collected information about how quickly their heart rate dropped in the first minute and how efficiently their lungs filled. They found that when soccer players put their hands on their knees, their heart rate drops faster in the first minute of recovery and their lungs work more efficiently. In terms of how much their heart rate dropped, the hands on knees pose was significantly better, with an average drop of 53 beats per minute compared to 31 beats per minute in the hands on head pose.
Leaning forward slightly helps your diaphragm.
The researchers suggest that the key to recovery may be a slight forward lean that maximizes the surface area of the so-called diaphragmatic contact area, or ZOA for short. This helps your diaphragm work more efficiently, which also helps your lungs work more efficiently.
As the researchers write , “the ability to recover faster from multiple sets of exercise is an important part of optimizing performance for athletes,” which in this case means that “using the best recovery method, in this case posture during HIIT, is critical to minimizing fatigue.” and potential injury.