Perfecting Your Post Workout Nutrition.

Post-workout nutrition CAN make a difference to your progress and outcomes, even if "The Window of Opportunity" is less in vogue these days. It's less in vogue because for most people, trying to perfect the intricacies of the one meal you have 45-60 minute after training is wasted time if your habits, routines, and relationships with food elsewhere aren't where they need to be. It's the cherry on top. BUT... if you do have those things in line, this could be a great read for you. An Overview... Post-workout nutrition works on the basic principle that:

• Nutrients get used differently at different times.

• What activities you do is one of the biggest drivers of these differences.

So, consuming the right things at the right time can therefore lead to a beneficial outcome. This is because when you workout or perform in your sport, a few things will happen including:

• Your energy demands increase

• Muscle damage occurs

• Hormones adjust to maximise performance and recovery.

All of which are processes that lean on your dietary intake to be optimised and get your body where you want it to be. So with this in mind, the main things you can control when it comes to post-workout nutrition are decreasing your protein breakdown, increasing your protein synthesis and replenishing your glycogen stores. An if you can get this right, your recovery will improve, you'll build and/or strengthen muscle, maintain better health, and perform better again in the future as a cumulative result of these things. The Macros The processes mentioned above are based mainly around 2 of the three main macronutrients, proteins and carbohydrates. Proteins are used in the form of amino acids to construct new proteins (muscle) via protein synthesis to counteract the protein breakdown caused by intense physical activity. This is known as protein turnover. Carbohydrates are broken down and used to replenish the body's glycogen stores, which are used during exercise to fuel your activity. Fats generally aren't efficiently involved in these two processes and may even slow digestion of proteins and carbs down detrimentally in the post-workout period. As such, they won't really be the focus of this post. This is because the need for these nutrients is acute, as in "this activity happened now and I need to recover from it now", having readily available proteins an carbs in the form of amino acids and glucose is much more beneficial than having hard to access/digest nutrition in the post-workout window. So when we consume these macros, they need to be in simple and easily digestible forms to take advantage of the increased need for them alongside the increased bloodflow from activity to help deliver these nutrients to where they are needed. So what should you eat? So we know we need proteins and carbohydrates and that they need to be in simple and easy to digest forms. We also know we should probably avoid large amounts of fats as they're not really needed at this time and they may even slow down the digestion of the nutrients we really need. But what does that mean in like... food? It can vary person to person, and there are generally two routes you can go down.

• A whole food traditional meal

• A specialised post-workout liquid "meal"
  

Which one you choose may be down to personal preference. If it's whole food you want to eat, then a lean cut of meat giving around 20g of protein to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis is ideal, with a high starch low fibre carbohydrate to partner it (rice is an obvious choice) to the tune of 30-40g of total carbs. But if you're one of many people who aren't hugely hungry after intense exercise or don't find it convenient to take in that kind of meal post-training, then a protein shake with the same 20g of protein in it and 30-40g of a powdered carbohydrate like maltodextrin or dextrose of a simple glucose based food can work a treat. And when? It was initially thought that the post-workout window of opportunity was around 45-60 minutes, but it's much more likely to be closer to two hours, so there is no huge rush. Just get some good food in after training before you get crazy hungry. And if you don't every now and then, don't worry as protein synthesis will likely be elevated for at least 48 hours post-workout so you will still get benefits from many more meals than just the first one after your activity. It just won't be quite as optimal than if you get it in sooner in the right way. And don't kid yourself, this only counts if the activity is sustained and intense. These recommendations would suit things like:

• 45 minutes + of sports training/completition

• 45 minutes + of intense weightlifting

• 45 minutes plus of steady state cardio at around 70% Max HR

• 30 minutes plus of intense anaerobic intervals.
  

You don't need to worry about things like this after deload sessions, low intensity work, recovery runs or playtime with the kids. Keep it real