Perfect Post Exercise Recovery Using Natural Foods

A good workout feels great!

All athletes are looking for the edge when it comes to better performance. Athletes often think about the types of training they are doing, the number of sessions they take part in and the intensity with which they train. Consequently a lot of athletes finish their exercise routine and feel horrible in the days afterwards. Post exercise recovery is about cooling your body down, and giving it the right nutrients after exercise. Many athletes and gym goers believe that something in powdered form as a shake in the minutes following a workout, but today we will look at perfect recovery, without the need for tubs of powder, shakers and gallons of milk. This is natural recovery.

What’s Going on After Exercise

Post exercise, your body is in a catabolic state. This means that it is breaking down fuels and tissues to create energy and create force for contraction. As such, your body is already in a state that needs repair.

After exercise, you need the right
nutrition

·         The body has usually broken down a number of muscle fibre tissues as your contractions pull muscles, causing tears in the tissue.

·         Your heart rate and breathing rate remain elevated as you replace oxygen and removed carbon dioxide.

·         Your liver begins the breakdown of lactic acid and your internal environment gradually returns to normal.

·         Your blood is thicker than normal as you deal with the increased heat created by cells by sweating, reducing water and salt levels in the blood.

·         This reduction in salt leads to cramping.

Recovering Fluids

Getting the right fluid is
essential

Fluid recovery is the first and most essential recovery phase. Subsequent recovery phases aid in performance, but it is crucial that you replace lost fluid. Dehydration of just 2% can lead to reduced physiological performance, but dehydration closer to 5% can lead to hospitalisation and potential fatality. Make sure you address your fluid balance early. If you’re worried about getting the right amount, weigh yourself before exercise, and after. Take the difference in grams and convert that to millilitres. Take in that amount of fluid.

The Effects of Fluid Recovery

·         Normal blood viscosity

·         Reduced heart rate

·         Reduced breathing rate

·         Reduced chances of cramp

The Perfect Drink

The best drink will have about 13g of sugar in glucose form per 100ml. It should also contain a pinch of salt per 100ml. You can make this yourself easily, adding sugar, water (mixed with cordial for flavour) and salt.

Recovering Fuels

After exercise, you need to consider that you have used a large amount of carbohydrates to perform. It is therefore essential to recover these. A failure to eat carbohydrates in the two hours after exercise can lead to

·         Poor recovery

·         Reduced muscle glycogen

·         General feelings of lethargy

Quinoa is a perfect fuel recover food.

Ensure that you take on board some form of starch based carbohydrate, like quinoa (see here for the info on quinoa and why it is perfect) that will replace your carbohydrates, while giving you other recovery essential vitamins and minerals. In addition to this, you need extra glucose, for immediate sugars, which comes from the drink in the hydration phase of recovery.

Repairing and Growing Muscle

The final phase of nutrition recovery comes in the form of repair of muscles. The small tears in muscles, if left untreated, can become DOMS in the two days after exercise has finished. DOMS is the aching sore feeling in muscles after exercise. To combat this you need effective protein synthesis. To do this, you need two aspects of nutrition. Firstly, you need to make your body anabolic, which means your body is building fibres. This can be done naturally be increasing your insulin levels. Insulin is released in response to high blood sugar levels, and reduces the amount of sugar in blood. If you drink a high sugar drink, you will spike your insulin levels. Do this immediately after exercise and you will instantly begin recovery of muscles.

What is the right protein?

The next stage is to get high quality protein into your diet as soon as possible. This is not just any protein, as the correct amino acids are required for maximising potential. Leucine is one of the essential  amino acids and an increased amount of leucine after exercise, combined with insulin can cause a 36 fold increase in protein synthesis, improving muscular recovery. This will also fuel increased hypertrophy. To get this protein, meat is your best option. 


The following meats are good options:

·         Salmon (100g) – 22g protein with 1796mg leucine

·         Beef Steak (100g) – 30g protein with 2360mg leucine

·         Tinned Tuna (100g) – 26g protein with 2073mg leucine

·         Chicken breast (100g) – 31g protein with 2328mg leucine

·         Pork Loin (100g) – 28g protein with 2196mg leucine

Tinned tuna is already easily minced, and therefore easier to digest. For more on meats, check our blog about meat for muscle.  Each of these options contains the right balance of proteins for excellent recovery, so the choice is yours. You can only take in about 0.8g-1.3g of protein per day per kilo of bodyweight, so you should look for about half a gram of protein per kilo bodyweight in your meat choice after exercise. For a 70kg person, this would mean 105g of chicken in your post exercise meal.

Conclusions

Natural exercise recovery for athletes is an attainable and beneficial strategy, as long as you are aware of the methodology and types of food. If you hit the gym, or play some sport, and want excellent recovery, start with a sugary drink with salts, follow that with the right amount of your protein source and a healthy helping of quinoa. This will pack in the right macronutrients for recovery, as well as strong amount of supporting vitamins and minerals which improve energy metabolism and facilitate protein synthesis and cell recovery. Follow the rules and after your workout, you’ll feel and look great!

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Happy Eating!