You've finished working out and now your body can take a break, right?
Wrong. After a workout, your body begins the effort to repair and rebuild.
Your goals likely include losing weight and replacing fat with muscle. This will enhance your metabolism and improve energy and stamina while stoking your strength and resilience. To help meet your goals, it's important to capitalize on recovery nutrition.
The ache you feel after you exercise is created by breaks in the muscle fibre that occur while muscle is moving through a contraction (and release). What and when you eat is important in maximizing your potential.
The best repair fuel is a combination of carbohydrate, protein and water.
When you take in carbohydrates, you return sugars to your muscle and liver to set you up for your next bout of exercise. When your recovery snack includes protein, it enhances carbohydrate uptake into the muscle and helps build new muscle.
The best time to ingest your restorative snack is in the first 20 to 30 minutes after finishing your exercise, so repair occurs at a faster rate. If you miss the boat, your muscle carbohydrate stores will remain depleted and your muscle starved of fuel. Not packing a recovery snack will leave you more susceptible to injury and prolong your physical aches and pains.
Before you head out to exercise, pack a recovery snack that is one part protein and two parts carbohydrate to be washed down by the water that you are in the habit of carrying with you. Recovery snacks include an Elev8Me bar, a Cliff Builder bar, Liberte Greek-style yogurt with fruit and granola, a protein shake, cottage cheese and fruit, quinoa tabouli or a lean turkey pepperoni and yam salad.
Magnesium also aids recovery. While calcium is involved in muscle contraction, magnesium assists in maintaining healthy blood pressure, can deepen sleep and is depleted by stress. If you experience muscle tightness or cramping, ensure you are hydrating well and look at boosting your magnesium intake. Some magnesium-rich foods are beans, almonds, cashews, barley, oats, and green leafy vegetables (such as kale, spinach and chard).
You don't need to ingest these in the first recovery window but roll them into your daily nutrition. You can also soak in an Epsom salt bath; Epsom salts are rich in magnesium, which your skin will absorb.
- Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence
