More perfect regeneration

Another area to remember is immunity. One of the, perhaps the primary, benefits of exercise is that it builds a strong immune system. However, if you want to reap the benefits of this, you need to fuel your body immediately after exercise, when your immune system is vulnerable. It’s important to consume essential immune-boosting nutrients shortly after exercise, when your body’s stores are depleted. Unfortunately, too many athletes don’t do this, resulting in consistently underperforming or getting sick.
That's why this article is so important. It will help you optimize your recovery and give you guidance on what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. By following this advice, you will give your body what it needs, so it can perform at its best during your next workout.

If you’re off the saddle, you’re not done training yet! How well you rest will have a big impact on how well you perform tomorrow. Training causes physiological stress; after a good workout, you’ll be weak and your stores will be depleted. During recovery, your body rebuilds itself. Your body responds to the stress of training by increasing stress adaptation, also known as fitness, but only if all the components of recovery are present. Repeated, increasing training loads and adequate recovery will lead to better performance and overall health. Overtraining or lack of adequate recovery will lead to negative outcomes such as injury, chronic fatigue, pain, poor health, and the like. You need to pay at least as much attention to recovery as you do to the workout itself if you want to reap the benefits of your training.
Recovery involves many factors, such as rest, stretching, muscle stimulation, and sleep, but for now we’ll focus on nutrition. This article covers the four main nutritional topics of recovery: the two macronutrient types, carbohydrates and protein; micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals; antioxidants, and rehydration.

Rehydration

Technically, water has no nutritional value, but it is vital for performance and recovery. Normally, hydration is part of recovery nutrition, but it is possible for an athlete to suffer from chronic dehydration. We caution against excessive fluid intake, which is a much more common problem than dehydration, especially among recreational exercisers. Professional athletes tend to underhydrate during competition.
By the end of your workout, you should aim for a weight loss of approximately 2% of your body weight, and definitely not a weight gain. Any weight loss of more than 2%, due to fluid loss, will lead to a decrease in performance. For example, if you start your workout weighing 155 pounds and finish a few hours later weighing 155 pounds, you are probably a little dehydrated, but that is not an unusual drop after a tough race. (Obviously, an accurate scale is essential.) Losing 4 pounds means you need to drink 4.5 gallons of fluid over the next few hours. This is easy to do, and most of your fluid intake should be in conjunction with your food intake.

Fast carbohydrate loading

So let's look at carbohydrate loading. For endurance athletes, carbohydrates are the most obvious source of fuel. If you understand the mechanism of carbohydrate loading, you can plan your recovery energy replenishment program quite effectively, so now let's briefly review the scope of energy use and replenishment.
During the first 90–120 minutes of exercise, your primary source of fuel is stored muscle glycogen, the carbohydrate stored in your muscles. When this is depleted, your body switches to burning fat, along with the carbohydrates and protein you consume during exercise. Endurance training increases your muscle glycogen storage capacity and efficiency of use. Post-exercise refueling is an important part of exercise. Numerous studies have shown that pre-exercise muscle glycogen levels are the most important determinant of performance. If you want to compete or train well, you need to start with your muscle glycogen stores full.
This is why it's so important to re-carb immediately after exercise to take advantage of the high activity of glycogen synthase (an enzyme that controls glycogen storage). Glycogen synthesis induced by carbohydrate ingestion is much faster in the first hour after exercise than 4–6 hours later. Furthermore, research conducted at the University of Texas showed that glycogen synthesis was highest when subjects consumed carbohydrates immediately after exercise. So, depletion and subsequent re-loading results in maximum glycogen re-loading. (Chromium, as we'll see later, can further enhance glycogen re-loading.)

Complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides such as maltodextrin) are the right choice for glycogen replenishment. Consuming simple sugars (mono- and disaccharides) immediately after exercise has the advantage of having a high glycemic index (GI) and a fast metabolism, but the disadvantage is that they are low in calories and therefore cannot meet carbohydrate needs without digestive complaints. (You can read more about the problems caused by simple sugars in some parts of the article.) Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, have a high GI, are easily digestible, and have a high caloric value.

How many of them should I make?

Dr. Michael Colgan, in his book (Optimal Sports Nutrition – Your Competitive Limits), recommends consuming 225 grams of carbohydrates within 2-4 hours of your workout. Any more than that is stored as fat in the body. Other research suggests that the average amount of carbohydrates your body can re-store as glycogen per day is 650 grams. The table below shows your total daily carbohydrate needs based on your body weight and workout duration. To convert this to calories, calculate that one gram of carbohydrate is four calories. For example, Colgan's recommendation of 225 grams is equivalent to 900 calories.

For optimal recovery, consume 100 grams of complex carbohydrates within one hour and the remainder over the next three hours. The total daily intake – to ensure glycogen replenishment – ​​should be as per the table above. A 70kg athlete would need to consume 500 grams (2000 calories) of complex carbohydrates during a two-hour workout, 100 grams immediately after the workout, 125 grams within the next three hours, and the remaining 275 grams throughout the rest of the day, including the carbs consumed during the workout. If you just want to do an average, I would recommend 650 grams per day, or 2500–2600 calories from pure carbs.

Carbohydrates, protein and regeneration

By consuming ample amounts of carbohydrates immediately after and after exercise, athletes successfully begin to refuel their muscles. They also tip the balance from protein catabolism to protein synthesis. In other words, an ample supply of carbohydrates is essential for rebuilding muscle cells as well as for replenishing muscle glycogen. Studies show that carbohydrate ingestion provides muscle cells with the essential fuel they need to begin the rebuilding process. Using the energy provided by carbohydrates, muscles absorb amino acids from the bloodstream, helping to initiate protein synthesis.

Additionally, carbohydrates increase the production and release of insulin from the pancreas. Insulin is an anabolic hormone that has a positive effect on muscle protein synthesis and suppresses protein catabolism. According to a study conducted at the University of Texas, plasma insulin levels were three times higher after exercise in subjects who consumed carbohydrates than in those who consumed a placebo.

The benefits of protein, especially whey protein

While carbohydrates can help with post-workout recovery in many ways, they can’t do the job on their own. You also need protein, so let’s take a look at some of the important reasons why your recovery meal should include protein. For example, research shows that consuming protein post-workout, when combined with carbohydrates, can nearly double your insulin response. This alone is a good reason to consume protein in addition to your complex carbohydrates. A 3:1 or 4:1 (carbs to protein) ratio is a good ratio.

Obviously, we need protein to rebuild stressed muscles. Endurance athletes often think that protein intake is for bodybuilders, but your body thinks differently! It's true that weight training puts your muscles under different stress than cycling, but the breakdown of muscle is the same in both cases, and endurance athletes need much more protein than a normal diet provides.
Whey protein is the most readily available of all proteins and is a primary protein source for the recovery process. Whey protein has the highest percentage of essential amino acids, which are the ones that the body cannot produce and must be obtained through diet. In fact, 25% of the essential amino acid components are the three amino acids that are most important for muscle tissue repair, the BCAAs (leucine, isoleucine and valine).
Whey protein is also rich in two other very useful amino acids, methionine and cysteine. These two substances stimulate the production of glutathione, one of the body's most powerful antioxidants. Endurance training increases free radical production, so athletes who do this type of exercise need extra antioxidant protection. Glutathione also supports the immune system and liver function. Short chains of four amino acids, also known as quaternary peptides, are also important components of whey protein. These have analgesic effects, which can help relieve pain after a hard workout or competition.
One more thing about whey protein: before using it, make sure you are eating whey protein isolate, not concentrate. Whey protein isolate is lactose and fat free; many people are lactose intolerant and can eat whey protein. Additionally, whey protein isolate is 90–97% protein, while concentrate is only 70–80%. Whey protein isolate is the purest protein and the best thing you can give your body after a workout.

Vitamins, minerals and antioxidants

We’ve already discussed rehydration, carbohydrates and proteins, now let’s move on to the fourth group of nutrients that are essential for perfect recovery. These are called micronutrients because we only need them in very small amounts. Unlike liters of water and hundreds of grams of carbohydrates or proteins, these substances are measured in milligrams or micrograms. We can’t possibly cover all of these substances and their effects on recovery, so we’ll just cover a few key ones and look at them from a holistic perspective. Some athletes think, “I’m going to train now, which will last for several hours and will be quite intense. It’s important to have enough vitamins in my body before the workout so I don’t get hungry, so I’ll take my daily vitamin dose before the workout.” Because of the way your body produces nutrients, this reasoning isn’t entirely correct. It’s true that you need plenty of vitamins to perform endurance training. However, –except for electrolytes and vitamin B6– there’s not much you can do to improve your body’s micronutrient supply before training. You should be replenishing your body immediately after training. Your body is more susceptible when it’s depleted. It’s running on stored nutrients. This is true in general, especially when it comes to vitamins and minerals. You need to replenish yourself, and regeneration also requires a lot of micronutrients.
Don't forget that you lose a lot of vitamins and minerals not only during energy production but also through sweating. That's why you need a good kind of multivitamin, one that contains key nutrients in an easily absorbable form and in sufficient quantities.
I have to mention chromium in particular, as it plays an important role in insulin function. Studies have shown that athletes who consumed chromium polynicotinate (along with carbohydrates) within two hours of exercise experienced a 300% increase in glycogen synthesis. If you are not currently taking a multivitamin that contains 200–400 mcg of chromium, you should seriously consider it.

Antioxidants are another group of micronutrients that are definitely needed after exercise. Some vitamins (C, E) have antioxidant effects. You need a broad spectrum antioxidant, as long exercise causes the production of multiple antioxidants. Each antioxidant has its own free radical target. Don't even think that, say, vitamin E alone protects against all free radicals.

The final group of micronutrients are various biologically active compounds that aid in the regeneration process. These are carnosine, glutamine, and glutathione; you can read more about them below.

Summary

The improvement of an athlete's performance depends on successive training sessions of increasing intensity, which stimulate the adaptation of the muscles and the cardiovascular system, after a regeneration period, when the body rebuilds itself, slightly better than before.

Thus, the real benefits of training are revealed during regeneration, but only if there is sufficient rest and nutrition. Therefore, how well you manage to rest yourself will have a decisive impact on your performance tomorrow. A comprehensive regeneration program includes all the nutrients mentioned above, in addition to rest, stretching and other physiological modalities. Athletes who pay at least as much attention to regeneration as they do to training will get much further and will undoubtedly enjoy the effects of their increased performance.