Sports Reality
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by Jeff Appel

What you eat is important. However, when you eat it can be just as critical. Post-workout nutrition is an interesting topic. The body deals with nutrients differently at different times, depending on activity.
What you consume before, during, and especially after your workout is important. By consuming particular nutrients after your workouts (aka post-workout nutrition), you can improve your body composition, performance, and overall recovery. Numerous studies have examined everything from the composition of the carbohydrate in post-workout drinks to exact amino acid combinations.

Generally, post-workout nutrition has three specific purposes:

Replenish glycogen
Decrease protein breakdown
Increase protein synthesis
In other words, athletes/exercisers want to:
replenish their energy stores, increase muscle size and/or muscle quality, repair any damage caused by the workout.

In doing so, they want to increase performance, improve their appearance, and enable their bodies to remain injury-free.
Proposed benefits of good post-workout nutrition include:
Improved recovery
Less muscle soreness
Increased ability to build muscle
Improved immune function
Improved bone mass
Improved ability to utilize body fat

Why are workout and post-workout nutrition so important?
When we work out intensely, we damage tissues at the microlevel, and we use fuel.
This is what ultimately makes us stronger, leaner, fitter, and more muscular, but in the short term it requires repair. Repair and rebuilding occurs through the breakdown of old, damaged proteins (aka protein breakdown) and the construction of new ones (aka protein synthesis) — a process known collectively as protein turnover.

Muscle protein synthesis is increased slightly (or unchanged) after resistance workouts, while protein breakdown increases dramatically. We’re doing a lot more breaking-down than building-up. The relationship between these two parameters (rate of muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown) represents the metabolic basis for muscle growth. Muscle hypertrophy occurs when a positive protein balance can be established during recovery in other words, when we make sure we have enough raw materials available for protein synthesis to occur, so that it doesn’t lag behind protein breakdown.

anabolic

Protein breakdown and synthesis
Studies show that this trend can be reversed – specifically, protein synthesis is stimulated and protein breakdown is suppressed when you consume the right type of nutrients after exercise. Protein is not the only concern, however. During exercise sessions, stored carbohydrates can be substantially depleted.

Thus, during the post workout period, we require protein and carbohydrates. The raw materials we give our body through the consumption of food/supplements in the workout and post-workout periods are critical to creating the metabolic environment we desire. DON’T MISS THE ANABOLIC WINDOW…. YOU WON’T GET IT BACK!

 

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