Do you need recovery drinks?

Trev The Rev

Do you need recovery drinks? if so why? Is there any independent evidence to back up the claims?

keef66

I think there was a thread about this recently...

Trev The Rev

keef66 wrote:

I think there was a thread about this recently...

Yes there was but it was locked.

Ricey83

I think the answer to 'what energy drink do you recommend'? was 'clipless pedals are more efficient' so that pretty much answers that.

Bozman

Google milk as a recovery drink.

Wrath Rob

Instead of answering Trev's questions, I'd like to start a tangential discussion on pedals....

Actually, a quick Google yielded this which says it better than I can. In short, you've done 2 things. 1 - depleted your body's store of glycogen. 2 - damaged muscles which require repairing. For your body to do this you need carbs for the glycogen and protein for the muscles. The sooner you get these into your body, the sooner you start recovery.

Of course, if you're doing a 1 off event then this isn't really an issue as you'll recover in time. However, if you're training several times during the week and want to make the most of those training sessions (i.e. benefits per hour on the bike) then you'll want to recover as quickly as possible to be ready for the next session. For example, my winter training is currently 2 day blocks with 1 endurance and 1 long interval session, followed by a days rest to recover. To get the most from the 2nd session, making sure I'm recovered as best I can after the 1st is a good thing.

@Bozman, read my comments in the locked thread as to why milk is not the best recovery drink.

charlie_potatoes

Wrath Rob wrote:

lots of stuff that I agree with.

Trev The Rev wrote:

lots of stuff

Just my opinion of course

Trev The Rev

Wrath Rob wrote:

Instead of answering Trev's questions, I'd like to start a tangential discussion on pedals....

Actually, a quick Google yielded this which says it better than I can. In short, you've done 2 things. 1 - depleted your body's store of glycogen. 2 - damaged muscles which require repairing. For your body to do this you need carbs for the glycogen and protein for the muscles. The sooner you get these into your body, the sooner you start recovery.

Of course, if you're doing a 1 off event then this isn't really an issue as you'll recover in time. However, if you're training several times during the week and want to make the most of those training sessions (i.e. benefits per hour on the bike) then you'll want to recover as quickly as possible to be ready for the next session. For example, my winter training is currently 2 day blocks with 1 endurance and 1 long interval session, followed by a days rest to recover. To get the most from the 2nd session, making sure I'm recovered as best I can after the 1st is a good thing.

@Bozman, read my comments in the locked thread as to why milk is not the best recovery drink.

Is this the same woman who says it better than you can?

http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/jessica-seato ... os-angeles

BillyMansell

Bozman wrote:

Google milk as a recovery drink.

Bloomin' eck! I know Google has fingers in many pies but I didn't realise they'd entered the dairy business to produce their own drinks.

What next? Google Cola?

poynedexter

i stopped using them 6 months ago. i eat food instead. and save money.

dw300

Don't drink your calories unless you are unable to prepare, carry or buy food. If you do drink them then you'll probably tend to over consume.

Alex_Simmons/RST

You need to eat and drink to replenish macro and micronutrients, and replace lost fluids. That should not be in dispute.

When one should do that depends on when they expect their next exercise bout to be. If you are not training again for another day, then timing is not that important, provided you do so at some stage in the course of the day/evening following exercise. If you are expecting to exercise again within a shorter time frame and performance matters (e.g. racing more than once per day), then it's more important to time your intake and do so sooner rather than later.

Recovery drinks are simply a convenient manner in which to attain some of these nutrients and fluids, easy to carry with you, or in the car if at a race meeting etc and the packaging can help ensure they are not spoilt by the time you want to use them. You could readily prepare your own food and drinks if you wanted, it just takes a little more time and effort.

Trev The Rev

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

You need to eat and drink to replenish macro and micronutrients, and replace lost fluids. That should not be in dispute.

When one should do that depends on when they expect their next exercise bout to be. If you are not training again for another day, then timing is not that important, provided you do so at some stage in the course of the day/evening following exercise. If you are expecting to exercise again within a shorter time frame and performance matters (e.g. racing more than once per day), then it's more important to time your intake and do so sooner rather than later.

Recovery drinks are simply a convenient manner in which to attain some of these nutrients and fluids, easy to carry with you, or in the car if at a race meeting etc and the packaging can help ensure they are not spoilt by the time you want to use them. You could readily prepare your own food and drinks if you wanted, it just takes a little more time and effort.

Alex,

Thanks for your sane, balanced & reasoned post.

The point I am trying to get across is that by obtaining your protein & carbohydrate in the form of good quality food you will get everything you need for recovery. That 'real' food will also contain many other nutrients over and above what you might find in a recovery drink. It is also very possible that the body will make better use of any protein, carbohydrate & fats because of those extra nutrients. This is why a varied, balanced all round diet is so important.

If one is trying to consume fewer calories overall it becomes more important to get good quality calories and rely less on heavily processed packaged food, energy gels, drinks or shakes.

I agree recovery drinks are convenient and easy and can be beneficial if used as supplementary to a good balanced diet.

ShutUpLegs

Trev The Rev wrote:

I agree recovery drinks are convenient and easy and can be beneficial if used as supplementary to a good balanced diet.

Here we are Trev:
viewtopic.php?f=40011&t=12890213#p17989471

okgo

How quickly can the body make use of normal food, a chicken breast for example, after excersise?

I was under the impression that whey protein was absorbed very quickly, and is obviously pretty cheap, has low cals and contains a lot of protein, and of course as said above can be taken anywhere! I was previously just eating normal food (well, good food but not shakes etc) but I've recently bought some more whey protein as I want I see if I can cut my recovery time down a bit. It seems to work well for other riders I know who seem to be able to do 20 hours a week most weeks, I think anything past 15 and my legs would really complain.

Trev The Rev

okgo wrote:

How quickly can the body make use of normal food, a chicken breast for example, after excersise?

I was under the impression that whey protein was absorbed very quickly, and is obviously pretty cheap, has low cals and contains a lot of protein, and of course as said above can be taken anywhere! I was previously just eating normal food (well, good food but not shakes etc) but I've recently bought some more whey protein as I want I see if I can cut my recovery time down a bit. It seems to work well for other riders I know who seem to be able to do 20 hours a week most weeks, I think anything past 15 and my legs would really complain.

The body can make use of normal or real food fast enough. This has been tried and tested over hundreds of thousands of years. However there is some evidence that in about 1980 a virus caused many humans to need recovery drinks to enable them to recover fast enough to train again the next day. People borne before 1960 seem to be immune and can function as normal eating only real food.

(Reuters) - Older people who have been infected with some strains of seasonal flu may have a type of immunity produced by cells that protects them from the 'slow recovery' virus which affects endurance athletes, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

They said the virus has parts found in earlier strains, and some people past age 52, who may have been exposed to similar viruses in their youth, may have some latent immune cells that protect them.

"These findings indicate that human populations may have some level of existing immunity to the virus and may explain why the related symptoms have been generally mild," said Carol Cardona of the University of California Davis School of Medicine. Her study appears in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Cardona said cell-based immunity may be serving to weaken the effects of the slow recovery virus which affects endurance athletes.

"The meaning clinically is you are going to get sick but it may not be as severe if you had no immunity whatsoever," Cardona said in a telephone interview.

Cardona said much attention is given to antibodies that recognize and destroy foreign invaders.

The body also makes cells, known as cytotoxic T-cells, which secrete antiviral chemicals that kill infected cells and clear the virus from the body. It is these cells that may be offering protection.

"It's part of the primary immune response. It just is not the one that is classically measured," Cardona said.

Cardona and colleague Zheng Xing analyzed data from prior studies of the virus, looking at short stretches of proteins known as epitopes found in regions of the virus that are less likely to change from strain to strain.

"We simply went in and reanalyzed it," Cardona said.

They found more than a dozen of these epitopes on the virus also are found in seasonal flu viruses that have been circulating for years.

"Not every single person can process these stretches of the protein," said Cardona, which may explain why some people who get the illness more severely while others have milder cases.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most serious cases have been in people under the age of 52.

"It's the younger ones who are slow to recover from endurance training sessions," the CDC's Dr. Tim Uyeki told a meeting of the Pan American Health Organization on Wednesday.

Dr. Yoshi Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin said studies showed people born in 1960 or earlier had many antibodies against the virus and said it may more closely resemble its distant 1980s cousin.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Bill Trott)

markp80

Trev The Rev wrote:

However there is some evidence that in about 1980 a virus caused many humans to need recovery drinks to enable them to recover fast enough to train again the next day. People borne before 1960 seem to be immune and can function as normal eating only real food.

- wow, I've never heard that before! Any links, I'd be interested to read more about this?

Cheers,
MarkP

Trev The Rev

MarkP80 wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

However there is some evidence that in about 1980 a virus caused many humans to need recovery drinks to enable them to recover fast enough to train again the next day. People borne before 1960 seem to be immune and can function as normal eating only real food.

- wow, I've never heard that before! Any links, I'd be interested to read more about this?

Cheers,
MarkP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV40/B

The hypothesis that SV40/B might cause slow recovery after endurance exercise in humans has been a particularly controversial area of research.[5] Several different methods have been used to detect SV40/B , although how reliable these detection methods are, and whether SV40/B has any role in causing slow recovery, remains unclear.[6] As a result of these uncertainties, academic opinion remains divided, with some arguing that this hypothesis is not supported by the data,[7] and others arguing that some slow recovery symptoms may involve SV40/B.[8][9] However, the United States National Institute announced in 2004 that although SV40/B does cause slow recovery from intensive endurance exercise in some animal models, "substantial epidemiological evidence has accumulated to indicate that SV40/B likely does cause slow recovery from endurance exercise in humans".[10] This announcement is based on two recent studies.[11][12]

The virus was first identified by Dr. Bernice E. Eddy (based on a work of her and Dr. Sarah Stewart about Polyoma viruses) in 1960 in cultures of rhesus monkey kidney cells that were being used to produce polio vaccine.[2] It was named for the effect it produced on infected green monkey cells, which developed an unusual number of vacuoles. The complete viral genome was sequenced by Walter Fiers and his team at the University of Ghent (Belgium) in 1978.[3] The virus is dormant and is asymptomatic in Rhesus monkeys. The virus has been found in many macaque populations in the wild, where it rarely causes disease. However, in monkeys that are immunodeficient—due to, for example, infection with Simian immunodeficiency virus—SV40/B acts much like the human JC and BK polyomaviruses, producing kidney disease and sometimes a demyelinating disease similar to PML. In other species, particularly hamsters, SV40/B causes a variety of mental problems, generally severe stress related interval running in their exercise wheels to exhaustion and sometimes death. In rats, the oncogenic SV40/B Large T-antigen was used to establish a brain tumor model for PNETs and medulloblastomas.[4]
The molecular mechanisms by which the virus reproduces and alters cell function were previously unknown, and research into SV40/B vastly increased biologists' understanding of gene expression and the regulation of cell growth.

Slack

This subject has been discussed many times before on this forum. The original post is simply designed so he can get on his orange box, as he feels he has another point to prove and squabble about.

t.m.h.n.e.t

Slack wrote:

This subject has been discussed many times before on this forum. The original post is simply designed so he can get on his orange box, as he feels he has another point to prove and squabble about.

Pretty much all he does.

Trev The Rev

Slack wrote:

This subject has been discussed many times before on this forum. The original post is simply designed so he can get on his orange box, as he feels he has another point to prove and squabble about.

How odd that people can post endlessly about sports drinks, but when someone questions their use and the claims made by those selling them, people get so upset.

The fact is the manufacturers can not back up their claims. I refer you once again to Dr Carl Heneghan BM, BCH, MA (Hons), MRCGP, DPhil and his papers published in the British Medical Journal.

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/4/e001702.full

And yes his work is relevant to endurance athletes.

Sprool

Key messages
The current evidence is not of sufficient quality to inform the public about the benefits and harms of sports products.

There is a need to improve the quality and reporting of research, a move towards using systematic review evidence to inform decisions.

Strength and limitations of this study
We attempted to identify a representative sample of products, but it is possible the products we analysed are at the worst end of the spectrum.

We did not give the manufacturers much time to respond to requests for information, given more time a number may have provided more references.

Not really much of a strong conclusion to decide that all sports drinks are a waste of money. I'd conclude that better studies need to take place before any definitive statements can be made.
My gut feeling, however, is that most of the pseudo-science benefit claims are marketing-driven and a bottle of milk is better for you. I however prefer to drink something sweeter packed with artificial colouring, not cos I think it replenishes my fading isotopes, but because I like the taste.

Trev The Rev

The sad thing is so many people do prefer the taste of these drinks.

t.m.h.n.e.t

Trev The Rev wrote:

The sad thing is so many people do prefer the taste of these drinks.

Why is making a personal choice or having a preference sad? You make choices too ( and hell,haven't you moaned about them), is that sad too?

Trev The Rev

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

The sad thing is so many people do prefer the taste of these drinks.

Why is making a personal choice or having a preference sad? You make choices too ( and hell,haven't you moaned about them), is that sad too?

Well I would moan and be very sad if people who like the taste of sports drinks started eating in the sort of restaurants I do.

Tom Dean

haha let's hear what sort of restaurants you eat in and we can find out. (I like lemon & lime SIS Go)

Trev The Rev

Tom Dean wrote:

haha let's hear what sort of restaurants you eat in and we can find out. (I like lemon & lime SIS Go)

http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Restaurants

mattshrops

Not sure what to make of you Trev. Maybe thats what you are after - a little bit of attention? Are you lonely?

We now all understand you dont like anything invented after 1960.
Any other sh@t to add?


P.S.- the discussion does have some validity but seeing as its you......

Tom Dean

Michelin! no marketing hype involved there :roll:

chris_bass

Bozman wrote:

Google milk as a recovery drink.

i didnt know google had brached out to dairy products now