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.)*
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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