The Benefits of Post Workout Nutrition

A largely overlooked area of fitness is the post workout shake or meal. Simply gorging yourself after a workout is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the importance of refueling your body with the essentials, especially after long or strenuous activity. Taking in the right kind of nutrition will not only impact the quality and rate of recovery, but also combat fatigue, help you to avoid the "crappy" workouts, and avoid prolonged soreness.

Research continues to show that taking in the right nutrition right after your workout, within 90 minutes or earlier if you can, will dramatically improve recovery time. If I'm good about getting my recovery drink in immediately following my workout I find that I'm not nearly as hungry later on. Personally I like to use Muscle Milk's powered protein, which is a whey isolate. It absorbs quickly and doesn't taste like @*^#*!$.







 So what are some great recovery nutrition ideas? Since everyone has different tastes and tolerances for post workout meals. The best recovery nutrition would be a drink that contains a combination of carbs and protein. Since you just depleted your system you must replenish it. I recommend having a beverage as opposed to a solid food because its most quickly absorbed into you system and you'll gain the benefits of re-hydration at the same time. Having a big ole steak immediately following your workout won't really do you much good in terms of immediate recovery benefits. Luckily, changes are you have the makings for the perfect recovery drink in your house already. The best, most popular and least expensive recovery drink is a glass of chocolate milk!

Stronger Faster Better

Stretch people stretch! I can't tell you how many people I know that simply don't stretch. Whether your someone that sits at a desk for eight hours a day, you run six days a week or you carry kids back and forth from soccer to daycare. Stretch whenever you can, it doesn't take a ton of time and believe-you-me, you'll be happier for it.

First thing in the morning, when you're in the shower, go through several gentle slow neck stretches. Bring your chin down to you chest. Then look side to side, then ear to shoulder and then look up. With the hot water of the shower coming down on your neck you'll feel more refreshed and less likely to strain your neck later in the day. That's simple enough right? Can you manage that?

If you're someone that sits at their desk for hours on end, only getting up only to pee or to get more Mt. Dew, try some dynamic stretching on your way to the WC. Kick your knees up nice and tight a couple of times, sing your arms back and forth, shake things out a bit. Suddenly your muscles will wake up and you won't feel quiet so pooped. Maybe get enough blood flow to your limbs and you'll forgo that Mt. Dew altogether!

When you should you stretch? I would say "always" but you would never want to stretch a pulled muscle. But aside from that, stretch anytime you can, every muscle that you can. While stretching takes a little time and in some cases motivation, the benefits are endless. Why do you think that yoga is so popular? It feels great and it is actually a workout!

If your muscles are already warm from a run or a bike ride, or even from spending the last hour shoveling snow off your driveway, take advantage of this for static stretching. These are long slow movements, no jerks or bouncing, hold the stretch for 20 second or so, then move to another muscle. There's no part of your body that won't benefit from this kind of stretching and the more often you incorporate this into your daily life, the more flexible you'll become.

People don't become less flexible with age, they become less mobile and therefore less flexible. As a kid you ran around jumping off of things, twisting and tweaking every which way, you were flexible. But as you got older and your butt started to mold to the shape of a chair throughout high school, college, work, your couch, the muscles stopped getting used and stopped getting stretched.

One of the best ways to stretch is called PNF stretching (or proprioceptive muscular facilitation), this is one of the most effective forms of stretching and can be the most efficient flexibility training for increasing range of motion. Have you ever noticed that pro-athletes, like baseball players, get stretched out by someone else? This is PNF stretching. When someone else can stretch you out, this is of great benefit to you. PNF stretching allows a muscle to be isolated, you put no effort and exert no force on any other part of your body. This particularly effective with hamstring and quads. To learn more about PNF stretching, check out the Sport and Fitness Advisor site.

Your muscles will always benefit from stretching if you take the time to do it right and do the right stretches at the right time. Form and posture are important elements to keep in mind, you don't want to hurt yourself stretching. Its nice to put a little effort into your stretch so that the pull feels good, but remember that a stretch should never be painful. If you feel pain, stop! If you're uncertain of how to stretch, ask someone that you know, talk to a trainer at the gym or geez louise people, check out a yoga class. One of the best yoga classes that I've been to is at 37th & Grand in Minneapolis called TaraNa. The first time I went in I simply told them that I had no idea what I was doing, I was not only treated with the utmost respect, but also was guided through the session, making it a really kick-ass experience!


Fell free to leave a comment about your own stretching techniques or even leave a question. Out of all the fitness hoopla, this is an important one, and one that will make you stronger, faster and better.

Shifting Gears in a New Season

I remember that at about this time last year my motivation somehow shifted. Getting through winter feels like an accomplishment. But we're quickly reminded that winter is over quite yet. The news reported this morning that we'll have rain in the coming days that will likely turn to snow. The temperature jumps from 50-degrees to 20-degrees and back again. As much as I'd love to jump on my bike and ride outside, ultimately I'm a wimp. It will undoubtedly be cold and damp. I haven't moved to running outside because I'm still afraid of getting assaulted by pot holes and rogue patches of ice. I've confined myself to the safety of the gym for so many months  at this point, that facing the world seems more like summitting Mt. Washington and less like a typical day of working out. I do know that in another month or so I will have forgotten this feeling all-together and there will be nothing that can keep me inside.

As far as training and working out goes, I'm pretty happy with my results as of late. I stopped by TC Running for the first time on Friday evening. I'm at the point where I'm ready to put these feet in to new running shoes. Normally this is a something that I look forward to, but with my foot still looking more like road-kill, I was leery to buy a new pair of shoes. TC Running is a great store, tucked away in Eden Prairie, far from the safety of my Minneapolis, but well worth the drive. I was greeted by smiling faces, both employees and customer's alike. I immediately felt like plopping myself down and hanging out with what felt like old friends. The selection of running shoes was far greater than that of any other running store I've been to and the knowledge of the sales staff was, well, unparalleled. But this isn't an add for TC Running. I left with a pair of Saucony's- a huge deviation from my Asics-loyal feet. I figured I'd run on them a couple of times and see how my feet do.

Saturday morning was greeted by a nice six-mile run in my shiny  new kicks. Grant it I was on a treadmill, but non-the less a solid six miles. My feet felt good. I think I'll give these shoes another run to make sure they work, but I must give kudos to the dude (aka store owner) that recommended them.

Saturday was a killer day of running. To push it just a little bit more I put myself through one hell of a lower body workout. I'm including the actual workout in this blog piece because I will no doubt do it again, and I certainly recommend it!

• Split squats (3 sets of 15 reps on each leg)
• Lateral step-ups, step down into a lateral lunge, 5lb weight on each ankle (3 sets of 12 on each leg)
• Front step-up onto Bosu, step down into squat, 5lb weight on each ankle (3 sets of 12 on each leg)
• Squats against a stability ball on the wall, 6lb medicine ball between knees, 10lb dumbbell curls during the downward squat (3 sets of 15)
• Theraband walk-out (3 sets of 15)
• Single-leg press, (60lbs, 3 sets of 12)
• Standing calf raises (20bls, 3 sets of 12 on each leg)
• Total time: about 1 hour with about :30 rest between sets.

I will no doubt be doing that lower body workout again. Two days later my legs still hurt.

Reasonable Expectations

I've spent the last couple of months thinking or rather feeling like I was in better shape than I really am. Don't get me wrong, my strength far exceeds what it used to be, but my endurance however, is in the tank right now. If you look back into older blog posts you'll see me mention going down to the river with Molly to workout. The great thing about those workouts was that it always kicked my ass, but I could do them. I could keep up and I always felt great after. These workouts consisted of a lot of step-ups, some running, lunges, squats, running up steps sideways, stuff like that. Things that got my heart rate up, made me sweat and were different from the every day swim, bike, run routine. Last night I attempted to a similar workout. The difference was that fifteen minutes into it I was bright red, gasping for air, sweating like a pig and just about ready to puke. That doesn't sound like the Jenny you know, does it? It sure doesn't sound like the Jenny that I know.

It was a huge wake-up call. I'm glad that over the last several months I've been able to focus on strength training, the kind of training that I never had time for before. Now I need to rebuild, from the ground up, my endurance. The run that I did on Saturday was great, but it was nothing compared to what I expect my body to be able to do. Last night freaked me out, to be quite honest. In a matter of months I went from being as strong as a horse to, well... not. I need to increase my endurance training and somehow decrease or augment my strength training. Getting back into the pool will have to be a big part of that. Time to evaluate where I am, take a good hard look at what I need to accomplish and do my best getting there.