Are recovery drinks necessary for IM training or will a healthy, well-rounded diet with lots of fruits and veggies be sufficient? I’m tired of spending lots of $$$ on this stuff and wondering if I really need to without sacrificing recovery.
I’ve heard chocolate milk makes an excellent recovery drink. But I would think a well rounded diet, with a little something extra after hard training sessions would be good enough.
If you feel good about recovery drinks, fine. Choc milk is as good. Anything with 10+ grams protein and 30+ grams carbohydrate is good as a post workout drink. I think a meal replacement drink is better. I like Carnation Instant Breakfast. As an endurance athlete you go through about 20 times more oxygen than a sedentary person so antioxidants (think brightly colored fruits and veggies) are crutial in preventing cellular damage. Also, consider a supplement with Chromium - some evidence your post workout carbohydrate assimilation will be considerably improved, which, in time, will give you a bigger carb fuel tank from which to draw. Actually, consider suppliments in general - it’s probably impossible to get all the nutrients you need from a good diet alone.
I don’t bother with recovery drinks if I have an easy day or rest day the next day.
i second the chco milk or protein and carbo fluid after.
http://i36.tinypic.com/2chuarl.jpg for short workouts and
http://i37.tinypic.com/w8rw2h.jpg on the long days.
yeah, I stopped taking recovery drinks just recently. So far I haven’t noticed any difference but my longest bike has only been 4 hours after I stopped taking the recovery drink. I took them after every long work out when I was training for my IM. Maybe after a really long workout I may feel a difference. But I decided to cut them out as I think I was taking in too many calories. I would take in a recovery drink and then I would also eat a big meal. I am not lean like a lot of FP’ers so I think it will help me shave off some lbs. But so far no difference except for I don’t feel it as bad in my wallet.
I just use them (endurox) when I know real food won’t be close at hand at the end of a workout. Other than that it’s chocolate soy milk for me.
Regardless of whether you’re doing nothing the next day or not, a recovery drink after longer workouts is a good idea. Over time you will extend your muscle glycogen storage capacity (sedentary folks might have as little as 15 min worth, well trained well recovered athletes up to 90 min). This can come in damn handy during an IM length swim when it’s impossible to fuel during the swim.
The idea with recovery drinks is that after exercise, your body’s glycogen resynthesis is higher than normal: the little cell receptors for glycogen storage are nearer the membrane, so if you get CHO quickly then you’ll store more glycogen then if you wait a few hrs to eat.
So, get a snack or a drink right after your workout that’s mostly CHO, no need to spend tons of $ on commercially produced recovery drinks. Studies really have shown chocolate milk to be just as effective.
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
Whey protein digests better than milk? Are you aware where whey comes from?
oh i do realize they both appear in milk, but whey is only a small part, < 20%
.
They may cost a lot of $$$…but you make a lot of $$$. And if you have a lot of $$$, you can get a lot of cat. That can help with recovery.
Of course they are not necessary.
It is just food.
Are recovery drinks necessary for IM training or will a healthy, well-rounded diet with lots of fruits and veggies be sufficient? I’m tired of spending lots of $$$ on this stuff and wondering if I really need to without sacrificing recovery.
whey protein is “fater acting” than the combinations of proteins in milk (some of which are whey, by the way)
but the idea that this leads to “better muscle recovery” is complete speculation and almost certainly false.
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
What I don’t get is people keep trying to apply bodybuilding principles to an endurance activity. Bodybuilding is short, highly intense muscular overload. It’s designed to create microtears in the muscle which need protein in a quick way to start the healing/hypertrophy process. Endurance activities (generally) don’t create the muscle damage that weightlifting does, so your primary goal is not to replenish the building blocks, but to replenish the fuel that they use. Glycogen is a CHO derivative, and the CHO in milk is just fine for glycogen replenishment.
John
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
Chocolate milk is high in carbohydrates. CHO digests faster than protein, even a fast digesting protein. Re-read tigerchick’s answer.
Edit: and then listen to Devlin.
I’m pretty sure endurance excersize does in fact cause the same kind of muscle damage.
so many people keep saying chocolate milk but i strongly disagree.
according to all the bodybuilder forums, they say that the milk protein is slow digesting and best consumed before you go to sleep at night.
instead, they recommend whey protein isolate within 30mins post workout. whey protein is said to digest faster and yield better recovery for muscles.
What I don’t get is people keep trying to apply bodybuilding principles to an endurance activity. Bodybuilding is short, highly intense muscular overload. It’s designed to create microtears in the muscle which need protein in a quick way to start the healing/hypertrophy process. Endurance activities (generally) don’t create the muscle damage that weightlifting does, so your primary goal is not to replenish the building blocks, but to replenish the fuel that they use. Glycogen is a CHO derivative, and the CHO in milk is just fine for glycogen replenishment.
John
I’m pretty sure endurance excersize does in fact cause the same kind of muscle damage.
Not necessarily, and even if there is some damage to the muscle that needs to be repaired, it’s not from the exercise itself (Unless you’re deliberately overloading the muscle on the bike doing hills in an insanely high gear or similar). You do get natural hypertrophy as an adaption to exercise, but not the same growth that you get from microtears.
As an example, look at the legs of endurance cyclists such as TdF riders, vs. the massive quads that you see on track sprinters. Track sprinting is a short, anaerobic hammering of the legs. It does create the microtears, which result in the normal hypertrophic growth plus the additional growth due to microtear repair. (Think of a broken bone, it gets thicker in the area of the break after healing, which can be seen on x-rays). Aerobic endurance cycling won’t have near the same impact, and will not create the same amount of growth, nor the same type.
John