Nutrition Quarterly Fall 2022

What is the best way to recover from a good workout session? After exercising, many of us go straight for water as our recovery option. Water is great for replenishing what your body sweated out during physical activity. Along with providing hydration, it helps cool our body temperature down when we become overheated. It has other numerous benefits as well, such as carrying oxygen and nutrients to our cells. Because water does so many great things for us, we may think it’s all we need to recover after a workout. However, this is not the case! Not only is stretching good before you work out, but it can also aid in the recovery process. Post-exercise stretching during your cool-down period helps decrease muscle tension and transition your body to a more restful state. We are more flexible after exercise, so you will get more benefits from your stretch. Stretching also eliminates lactic acid, which makes the muscles feel fatigued and sore. It also helps build us up towards having a better range of motion and increases muscular coordination. Our muscles need more than just water to rebuild after a session of physical activity. Electrolytes are critical for post-workout recovery. When you sweat, you not only deplete your body’s water supply and glycogen stores, but its electrolyte supplies as well. Loss of these important resources can cause muscles to become sore and cramp. To combat this, a sports drink or recovery shake is all you need. Protein is instrumental in helping us rebuild our muscles after putting strain on them. One great way to get this protein to our muscles quickly is to drink a liquid recovery shake. A Recovery Shake is defined as liquid calories – 3:1, Carbs and Protein respectively, and should be consumed within 30 minutes of your workout. If taken within this metabolic window, all the natural carbs, protein and fats from your whole-foods based shake will go directly to your muscles. This is the perfect time to usher those amino acids from proteins back into your starving muscle cells. One function of sleep is to allow time for muscles to repair themselves. When we don’t get a good night’s sleep after a workout, our muscles cannot recover properly. How you recover (refuel, rehydrate and sleep) will also affect tomorrow’s workout in terms of how much you are able to achieve. Being overly tired, especially during exercise, could result in reduced reflex times or poor judgment, each of which could cause a training injury. One important benefit of sleep is that it allows time for the removal of unnecessary metabolic waste from brain cells. All of these post-workout recovery methods can be used in tandem with one another to help you fully recover to the best of your ability. By not participating in recovery, you can risk over-exhausting yourself during your next workout. It is vital to your health to let your body properly recover after getting physical. With a good stretch, recovery shake and enough rest we can be fully prepared for our next workout. by Erica Howarth Nutrition Quarterly · Series 3 – Volume 4