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How much time do you spend planning your recovery? All the gains of a workout are made during recovery, the time after a workout when your body grows stronger and regenerates itself. If you can’t recover, you can’t build, you can’t get better. The good news is the body can heal itself and transform more efficiently when nutrients are readily available before and after workout. Nutrient balance and timing are essential to the recovery process.

Most nutritionists and trainers recommend a balanced diet, loaded with fresh fruits & vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and in accordance with the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals. However, opponents of nutritional supplements often argue if we ate properly, we wouldn’t need food supplements. For the best possible post-exercise recovery, this is simply not true. There is a crucial window of time where the body can repair itself and develop at an accelerated rate after exercise. This is due to hormonal changes within the body during intense exercise, but the changes are temporary and return to normal rapidly.^[1]

Everything about recovery nutrition is about the speed at which nutrients can get from the mouth to the cellular level. This window is a roller coaster curve, greatest immediately after exercise, and rapidly declining. Ingestion of solid food can take hours to digest, empty the stomach, enter the blood stream, and arrive at the cellular level. At this point, the hormonal window is long gone, and no added benefits from nutrition can occur. Solid food simply takes too long to capitalize on the window of opportunity.^[2]

Exercise can provide wonderful benefits, but it can also be stressful on the body. It can break down muscle, inflame joints and tendons, cause soreness, compromise the immune system, empty glycogen stores, cause dehydration, upset electrolyte balance, and put the body into a needed state of repair.^[3]

The 30/30 System

The body should be prepared to begin strenuous exercise with small amounts of readily available carbohydrate, and is best consumed as a liquid to ensure digestion, hydration, and prevent gastric upset. The solution should be between 4-8% carbohydrate with minimal sugar. This way as soon as a training session is starting, nutrients are readily available.^[4]

This is the famous "Recovery Window". The body is in a heightened state where it can repair itself and develop at an accelerated rate. If nutrients are not readily available, the body misses the window of opportunity to repair itself at the accelerated rate, and recovers at a lower rate. Research has shown that providing the body with a carbohydrate-protein complex immediately following training will speed the process of restoring glycogen, and rebuilding muscle. Muscle repair cannot occur without available carboyhydrate for the body to use in the repair process. This is why low carbohydrate-high protein recovery drinks are not ideal, and how similar diets are an athlete’s worst enemy.^[5]

L-Glutamine

This is an extremely important amino acid shown to directly fuel and support the immune system, decrease muscle soreness, act as a potent anti-inflammatory, increase muscle protein synthesis, and facilitate carbohydrate absorption.

Carb : Protein Ration

Numerous reports indicate that for maximum recovery and nutrition potential, carbohydrate and protein should be available in a ratio between 3:1 to 5:1, carbohydrate to protein. This is an example of where the ratio should lie in recovery or sports drinks.

Total Carbohydrate 25g 8%

Protein 7g 14%

Whey Protein Isolate

Whey is fast digesting, unlike milk or meat protein, and contains more essential amino acids than soy protein.

Foundational Carbohydrates

Maltodextrin, a well rounded carbohydrate complex that’s most effective in replenishing glycogen stores and fueling the next workout. The use of only crystalline fructose, an all natural fruit sugar for light sweetness is preferred. Also no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup, and no sugar alcohols.

Electrolyte Complex

The most important electrolytes to ingest post exercise are sodium and potassium to regulate heart rhythm and nerve transmission. Both of these are included, while other electrolytes and minerals that can interfere with taste and are not time sensitive are excluded.

Numerous companies have come forward practicing new recovery science of a "Recovery Drink". These companies created an immediate response to the post-exercise stress that goes along with athletics.

Follow link for more information on each.

Fluid[[1]]
Clif [[2]]
Hammer[[3]]
Powerbar [[4]]
Endurox [[5]]
Cytosport [[6]]
Infinit [[7]]
^[6]

Advantage of a Recovery Drink

The biggest benefit of recovery nutrition comes from immediate post-workout consumption of liquid carbohydrates and proteins. Numerous university studies have shown benefits including speeding glycogen replenishment, reducing muscle damage, inflammation and muscle soreness, and decreasing the likelihood of injuries and illness. The ability of an athlete to stay healthy and consistently perform at peak levels is highly limited by the degree of recovery between training sessions. Here are some of the results of recent research:

   1. Distance runners who consume recovery drinks post-workout vs. carbohydrate beverages only consistently report less muscle soreness.
   2. Trained cyclists who consume recovery drinks vs. traditional sports drink show reduced post-workout amounts of the enzymes CK and LDH, biomarkers of muscle damage and breakdown.
   3. Non endurance athletes involved in resistance training show a 300% increase in protein synthesis when they consume a recovery drink immediately after exercise vs. those who consume the same drink 3 hours later. So not only is a recovery drink crucial, drinking it immediately after exercise is just as important.

Even more exciting, is the recent research done on marine recruits using a recovery drink over 54 days of basic training. The investigators report that, “Compared to placebo and control groups, the protein supplemented group had an average of 33% fewer total medical visits, 28% fewer visits due to bacterial/viral infections, 37% fewer visits due to muscle/joint problems, and 83% fewer visits due to heat exhaustion.” Essentially, marines who consumed a post workout recovery drink made faster muscle recovery, and were overall healthier than their counterparts.^[7]

Written by expert strength and training coach Richard Smith for Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo on AmateurEndurance.com

While solid "real food" packed with all the nutrients you need is the ideal candidate for recovery. Drinks such as these give the athlete the ability to get an instant satisfaction from not only accessibility but immediate delivery of nutrients into the body. While these drinks speed up the recovery process, proper nutrition and rest are cornerstones to recovery.

[8] Fluid Recovery School [9] Recovery 101