The Post Workout Meal
Being a personal trainer, I am often
times preaching the importance of a quality post workout meal. Why is a post
workout meal important? What are the benefits? Let's take a look.
When we work out we are causing micro
tears in are muscle fibers. We are putting our muscles under a load which in
turn is causing the muscles to break down and become catabolic. In order for
these muscles to respond from exercise and become stronger and recover, it's
important that we infuse the muscle with protein and carbohydrate, and most
importantly post-workout.
The protein is important in that is
going to help with growing, maintaining and rebuilding the muscle tissue. The
carbohydrate is going to be important in that it's going to replenish the
glycogen supply that was lost during exercise. Additionally, carbohydrate post
workout is going to help stimulate the secretion of insulin which in turn will
deliver the nutrients from the post workout meal into the muscles most
rapidly.
Since during exercise the blood is going
to be in our muscles it's a good idea to incorporate the post-workout meal as
a liquid or shake. That way blood isn't needed in the digestive tract to break
down the post-workout meal and assimilate. So add a post-workout shake to your
work out and see the benefits.
