The list of the health benefits exercise brings is lengthy, exercise also removes your body of essential fuels and nutrients. Drinking a drink for recovery with the proper types of nutrients at appropriate times following your workouts can make a big difference in your exercise results and overall health. Always seek advice from a qualified health professional for guidance when making adjustments in your fitness or diet routine.
Timing
Recovery drinks are a great way to replenish fluids and energy lost during your exercise routine and help ensure you are ready for your next workout. For the first two hours after exercising, your liver produces glycogen, a short-term glycogen storage type of glucose at about one-and-a-half times the normal rate. It is the best time to take a high-carbohydrate refueling drink.
Consuming carbohydrates or electrolyte powder shortly after exercise also stimulates your pancreas to release insulin, which tells your cells to absorb glucose. Over the next 4 hours, glycogen production stays elevated but gradually slows.
Fatigue
If you do your exercise twice a day, drinking a sugar-based recovery drink can give you the energy to fuel you through the second session. It can also help you prevent injury and advance more rapidly toward your exercise goals. Through time and consistent training, your glycogen storage capacity grows by 20 percent. This means you’ll have more endurance and better performance in the sport you are interested in. The goal is 1.5 grams of carbohydrates for each kilogram of your body weight for the first 30 minutes following exercise, or every second hour during the first four hours and up to six hours according to nutritionist Sari Edelstein co-author of “Life Cycle Nutrition: An Evidence-Based Approach.”
Aerobic Capacity
Recovery drinks can provide both your sugar needs as well as your chocolate cravings. As per the University of Texas at Austin Department of Kinesiology and Health Education Chocolate milk with low fat is an ideal post-workout recovery beverage to promote lean muscle mass and less fat. Chocolate milk is rich in protein, which makes it a more effective recovery drink for those with carbohydrates on their own. It can also boost the speed, strength, and aerobic capacity — which is a measure of the body’s ability to make use of oxygen up to two times.
Body Composition
A study that was published in the June 2012 issue of the “Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research” discovered the consumption of a recovery drink with carbohydrate, protein, and ribose — one component of ATP, an important energy-carrying protein — can enhance the body’s composition for endurance athletes. Participants, all males with a mid-life stage were given the drink right after exercising every day for eight weeks. Results showed decreased body fat percentage within the initial 3 to 6 weeks. The body weight, aerobic capacity, and endurance did not significantly change in response to the drink to recover in this study.