2 Stages of Post Run Recovery

Post Run Recovery

Your post run recovery habit is the first and most important nutrition habit to establish! After a typical hour run you have drained:

• About 100-175 grams of carbohydrate from your muscle tissue 
• crushed red blood cells from the force of impact 
• torn muscle fibers and connective tissues 
• caused inflammation 
• lost key minerals from sweating 
• started a chain reaction of unstable atoms called free radicals (worse than normal because you are breathing in 20 times more oxygen than the normal sedentary person.)*   

Whew! That’s a lot to get recovered from!

The two most important macronutrients at this point are carbohydrate and protein. The carbohydrate will help resupply the muscle tissue with fuel, while the protein will help repair the torn tissues and blood cells. There are also a whole spectrum of antioxidant vitamins that have got to be replaced to fight of excessive oxidation and electrolyte minerals to replace what has been lost in sweat. So, how are you going to get all these needs met? There are two easy stages of recovery eating to understand and do.

STAGE 1

This stage only lasts about 30 minutes long. It is when your muscle tissues are wide open and ready to receive a lot of carbohydrate. In order to reach the muscle tissue as quickly as possible it is best eat your carbs as a drink at this point so they absorb very quickly. You will also need protein, vitamins and minerals so some drinks work much better than others at getting the job done. The first goal with the drink is to take in half of your bodyweight in grams of carbohydrate. Read those labels! Drink as much as you need.  Purchasing a drink like Endurox is the easiest and best option at this point. Or, you can use 16 oz of real juices, 32 oz bottles of Gatorade or any other carb recovery drink in liquid or powder form. All of these 3 choices will require some protein added though.

STAGE 2

This stage lasts about as long as the workout was. So an hour workout has an hour long stage 2.  The point of this part of the recovery process is to eat real, whole food.  You need protein, carbs and fats. Lots of lean protein and produce at this time is a great idea. But, in order to reach your carbohydrate need, you will need more than just fruit.  You will need to eat ANOTHER serving of half your bodyweight in carbs. That will be a bit easier if you eat, not only fruit or potatoes, but whole grains as well.

Drink	Cost per “serving”	Comments
Endurox	$1.39/52 grams/2 scoops	Carb,Prot,Vit,electro
Cytomax	$.95/66 grams/3 scoops	Carb,electro,amino
Powerbar Recovery	$1.10/60 grams/3 scoops	Carb,Prot,electro
Gatorade	$.50/56grams/4 scoops	Carb,some electro
100% Juice		Carb, vit, potassium

*Although oxygen is necessary for survival, breathing in oxygen also produces ‘oxidative stress’ in our bodies which leads to the to formation of free radicals and lipid peroxidation. Sadly, exercise just makes this worse since you are breathing in more air. These free radicals are atoms or groups of atoms that are short one electron.  Being short one electron causes the atom to be unstable, so it seeks out and steals another electron from another atom, usually oxygen. This then causes a chain reaction as the victim of the stealing then needs to be stabilized and steals from yet another atom.  The problem here is that once an atom has lost the original electron, the new one gained does not provide as strong or stable of an atom as the original.  The problem that free radicals cause is system wide. They can attack the walls of your muscle cells and mitochondria and are at least partially to blame for muscle inflammation and soreness, which contributes to reduced endurance.24 Internal oxidation is also a cause of other serious problems including cancers, diseases and heart problems.25

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24 Burke Edmund Phd Optimal Muscle Recovery Garden City Park, NY Avery Publishing 1999 Pg 40

25 Colgan ,M Phd The New Nutrition Vancouver BC apple publishing company LTD 1995 CH 20