The Key Factor of Post Workouts

The foods that you eat after a workout helps replace the nutrients your body uses during strenuous activities. Eating after a hard training session is very important because your body must repair the damage you’ve done to your muscles. In fact, it’s the damage-repair cycle that contributes to build stronger muscles in the long run. Your post workout meal can reflect to the pre-workout meal, though you can probably be a bit more liberal with your carbohydrate intake. Sport professionals recommends a 3-1 to 4-1 ratio of carbs to protein in your post workout nutrition because these carbs help your muscles absorb the protein better. Drinking whey protein shake which is easy to digest, can help your muscles recover fast. Eat your meals within an hour of your workout.

Keep in mind that a post workout nutrition is the meal eaten after working out. This post workout meal is important for helping your body recover and repair. Eating a proper post workout meal will help with the following:

• It reduces muscle fatigue and soreness
• It replenishes muscle glycogen or stored energy that was used in your workout
• It increases muscle protein synthesis and reduce the muscle protein breakdown caused by exercise

What your body is trying to tell you is you’ve used up the fuel your muscles had before and now the tank is empty. You need to fuel up and your fuel is food more specifically, particular nutrients for your body needs. Your body needs the right fuel at the right time in order to repair itself and begin this adaptation. Without it, your body will feel weak under the stress and this is why post workout nutrition is very crucial. How you take meals is up to you, some people prefer to drink their post workout meal for convenience but you could just as easily eat solid food. Both options are valid and one is not necessarily better than the other.

Also, the post workout meals play a key role in the effectiveness of those workouts:

• What you eat before your workout is a factor for fueling the workout itself and maximizing your performance throughout your workout.
• What you eat after your workout is important for the recovery process which begins as soon as your workout ends and ensuring that your body has all of it needs in order to recover, adapt and improve your body.

Many people think that eating fat after a workout slows down digestion and inhibits the absorption of nutrients. While fat might slow down the absorption of your post-workout meal and it will not reduce its benefits to your body.  Another study showed that even when ingesting a high-fat meal after working out, muscle glycogen synthesis was not affected. It might be a good point to limit the amount of fat you eat after exercise, but having some fat in your post workout meal will not affect your recovery.

Basically, post workout nutrition can be a useful tool when training but it is not the defining factor for the typical gym goer who is interested in building muscle or losing fat for aesthetic and health purposes. The fact is there are factors of bigger importance such as total calorie intake and macronutrients which are much easier to stick to and have a greater overall effect on body composition in the long-term of your journey.