Post Workout Nutrition

After struggling mightily with any and all sets of stairs I've encountered in the last 48 hours, I got to thinking about what exactly I did wrong to cause my legs to be functionally useless days after the workout ended. My post-workout nutrition has been shit for most of the past few months. So, after reading up a little bit on the subject to refresh my memory on what to eat, why to eat it, and when exactly to eat it, I figured I'd share my newly rediscovered knowledge on here...

As far as nutrition and fitness are concerned, you're most important meal of the day should be you're post-workout meal. There are a few things you need to keep in mind about what you eat after you tear up a WOD: 1) what exactly to eat post-workout, and 2) the timing of the post-workout meal.

What To Eat

Carbs: Post-workout, your meal should consist of a mixture of carbs and protein. Carbs are necessary because they restore muscle glycogen, an energy source that has been depleted during an intense workout. If you don't resupply your muscle glycogen, your body can actually start breaking down muscle tissue for energy. On the carb side of things, you'll also want to eat something that digests quickly (anything that has dextrose, a simple sugar, in it is ideal). Why? When you eat carbs, your body releases insulin into your system. Among various other functions, insulin helps carry nutrients to your muscles more efficiently. The faster your body digests the carbs, the faster it can release insulin into your system, and the faster you can get all them good nutrients into your muscle tissues to repair the damage that those pesky overhead squats did in your legs (true story).

Protein: You can get away without having those simple sugar carbs in your post workout meal. The same cannot be said of protein. When you lift weights/work out in general, your muscles develop tiny microtears. Eventually, these tears get filled in with new muscle tissue. However, this entire muscle-building process is only possible with protein. When the microtears are fresh, getting protein into your system quickly becomes paramount. The protein you consume in your post-workout meal starts the muscle rebuilding process quickly, thus reducing the amount of time you have to spend on the sidelines due to DOMS. Like carbs, the best type of protein to consume post-workout is fast-acting protein that your body can digest quickly and efficiently (the faster you digest it, the faster it can move to your muscles to start rebuilding tissue). The fastest-acting protein is whey protein, mostly because it's in liquid form, making it easier for your body to digest quickly.

Fats: Should good fats or bad fats be included in your post-workout meal? No. Fats slow down the digestion process, which works against everything else in your post-workout meal. Just save the Omega-3's for dinner time...

When To Eat It

Your post-workout meal should be eaten as soon as possible after you finish working out. Does that mean that you should be chugging your litre of Kool-Ade and whey protein shake 15 seconds after your last pull-up in Fran? If you have the presence of mind to grab your protein shake 15 seconds after you finish your WOD, go for it. For the rest of us who finish the last rep of a WOD and look like the guy below, that 15 second approach might not be the easiest idea in the world to get behind.
Otherwise, just know that there is a window where your post-workout nutrition goes from super effective to not really effective at all. Aim for getting your post-workout meal in somewhere between 0-30 minutes after the end of your workout. Anything in the 30-60 minute range is still effective at rebuilding muscle tissue and minimizing soreness in the day or two afterward, but anything after 60 minutes is almost not even worth it.

Here's the upshot: Buy a big bag of whey protein from Sam's Club, have a shake mixed up with either one or two scoops of whey protein powder mixed up in a water bottle/shaker, and gulp it down on your walk back to your apartment/dorms. If you do that, you should be in pretty good shape. If not, then you end up being a 3 day hobbling sack of worthlessness like me. Treat your muscles with respect, and in return, the next day they'll be much kinder to you.

For some different perspectives on post-workout nutrition, check out this article from intense-workout.com, as well as this article on post-workout nutrition myths from T-Nation.

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Cake - The Distance

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WOD 100728 Wednesday

Rest Day