Recovery Smoothies - What You Should Add
Your workout is both physically and nutritionally demanding. It depletes your muscles of glycogen and causes stress to the muscle fibres. In order to recover, the body needs an infusion of solid nutrition after your training session is over. The recovery smoothie is a great way to get it. Smoothies are easy to digest and absorb so that the nutrients will get into the muscle faster.
In this article, we will consider the three key ingredients that you should include in your recovery smoothie.
Protein
A key post-workout smoothie ingredient is protein. Your workout may actually cause micro-tears in the muscle fibres. After the workout, protein is required to repair these fibres. The body is designed so that the muscle builds back a little bit bigger and stronger in order to meet a similar demand in the future.
Your muscles can only build back stronger if they have the building blocks to do so. These building blocks are in the form of amino acids, the basic structure of protein. Of the essential amino acids, the three most important for muscle growth are leucine, valine, and iso-leucine. These are known as the branch chain amino acids (BCAAs).
The best type of protein to add to your recovery smoothie is whey isolate. This is a fast-acting form of protein that has the milk sugars, or lactose removed. Many people experience bloating and gas when they consume lactose.
Look for a protein powder that is fortified with extra BCAAs. The ideal ratio of BCAAs is to have twice as much leucine as valine and isoleucine. So, look for a powder that has at least six grams of added BCAAs in a leucine:valine:isoleucine ratio of 2:1:1.
Carbohydrates
Your body can only store a small amount of glycogen, which is the broken-down form of carbohydrates. An intense workout will almost completely use them up. So, in addition to protein, your body needs carbohydrates after the workout.
As a result, you should include carbohydrates in your recovery smoothie. These will be driven directly into your muscle cells to replenish your glycogen supplies. The form of carbs we recommend are maltose or dextrose. Maltose is a form of sugar that is made from broken-down rice and potato starches. Dextrose is a simple sugar that is made from corn or wheat.
If you don’t have access to a smoothie after your workout, this is the one time of the day you can eat a sweet treat without it going directly to fat stores. Those simple sugars will go into the muscle cell to boost your glycogen levels.
Glutamine
Glutamine is one of the most abundant amino acids in your body. It gets rapidly used up during a workout. It is a key transporter of nitrogen which makes it vital for proper exercise recovery. The loss of glutamine during your workout is a contributor to feelings of fatigue and loss of strength,
By replacing glutamine after your workout, you will speed up your recovery.
Wrap Up
Add our three key ingredients:
Whey Protein Isolate fortified with BCAAs
Carbohydrates
Glutamine
to your post-workout recovery smoothie to speed up your recovery, help build new muscle and prepare yourself for your next gym session.
