Topic: Recovery Food

[Matt Hein]

Ok, Right now I am sooo freakin' sore. I am so sore/weak at this point that I am unable to do an L sit. Usually I can hold one for about 30 sec. What are good foods to rebound from a hard workout that will leave you sore. Like what foods will help me recover faster?

[Patrick Yang]

Chocolate milk.

EDIT: It's unknown the exact mechanism through which DOMS occurs.  I don't know that any food actually reduces soreness, though there have been anecdotal evidence that breathing exercises, stretching, proper warm-down, and contrast showers can lessen its effects.  Chocolate milk is a good recovery food, but I don't know that it will keep you from being sore.

From what I understand, it's okay to train through DOMS, though if you're constantly sore over several days, you may be overtraining.  Overtraining is a Bad Thing, and could lead to damage to your body, including even rhabdomyolysis.

It's likely that Chris will come correct me in a bit. 

[tombb]

Chocolate milk.

That's mostly for immediately after a workout (as the article itself mentions), going along the same discussion of a good mix of simple carbs and protein immediately after an intense workout to get the most muscle growth potential (especially for something like bodybuilding).

So I am not disagreeing but I am just pointing out you don't necessarily need to drink nothing but chocolate milk for days and days after your workout.
After the initial post-exercise food right after a workout, you probably just want a well balanced diet as usual but with more protein than usual (and possibly a little more calories too depending on your goals and appetite). And other things like getting enough sleep and rest in general will all help.

But going back to the original poster, I want to suggest one thing:

Ok, Right now I am sooo freakin' sore. I am so sore/weak at this point that I am unable to do an L sit. Usually I can hold one for about 30 sec. What are good foods to rebound from a hard workout that will leave you sore. Like what foods will help me recover faster?

I would just point out your goal probably shouldn't be to recover as -fast- as possible necessarily, but rather to get the most out of your recovery. You gave a stimulus to your muscles to adapt, and in the recovery phase is when the changes really happen, you want to help your body out to adapt as best as possible by giving it all the resources it needs, so you get more improvements out of each workout.
Balanced food and rest can do that for you, they won't shorten your recovery time in any productive way.

If you just want to relieve some of the sensation of soreness, even warming up, stretching, massages and hot/cold baths can do that, they again won't make you recover faster, but might allow you to keep training more comfortably while recovering if you choose to do that.
There has been some discussion on this (soreness) in these forums already, if you want to read up more on it.

[Muse_of_Fire]

Recovery foods, I am clueless on. Best you listen to others here who have more knowledge than I.

But as Tom alluded to in his response, it looks like you are combining two issues:

1. You feel sore and it's unpleasant.
2. You want to eat something that will enhance recovery (and I presume by "recovery" you mean that actual muscle recovery that results in muscle adaptation which yields increased strength, rather than simply recovering from the soreness).

As mentioned, I don't know what to tell you to eat that will help your muscles adapt and get stronger after a workout, but others on here do so listen to what they have to tell you. You do not necessarily have to be sore for your muscles to adapt (or, I assume, for the "recovery foods" to "work.") However, if you simply want the soreness to lessen, independent of your muscle adaptation/recovery, here is what I recommend:

1. Immediately after your workout/training session, when the muscles are still very warm, engage in some whole-body stretches to calm and elongate the muscles. Massage can be really nice here also.

2. Take a cool/cold shower. If this is unpleasant for you, take a contrast shower, alternating hot and cold water, for about 10 minutes each. If you contrast, be sure to end on cold.

3. Take a pain reliever such as Aleve. I have heard that ibuprofen interferes with muscle fiber development, but Steve Low has the actual real medical facts on this. Aleve is what has been recommended to me and what I use, others may have differing opinions.

4. Drink lots of water, and rest your body-mind.

5. Eat a healthy meal, and sleep well (and for a sufficient amount of time!)

6. The next day, engage in some light activity such as stretching, yoga, jogging, tai chi, etc. to allow the body to move.

Hope that helps. It works for me!

[tombb]

I didn't notice Patrick's edits before but I should correct one or two things in it:

EDIT: It's unknown the exact mechanism through which DOMS occurs.

Most of the mechanisms of muscle soreness and DOMS are very well understood, the parts that still need more study are interesting academically but don't have too many practical implications.
I am saying this because people should -not- get the wrong impression that, ~hey we don't know anything about it so anything is possible~.

Specifically, we do know it's a good and necessary thing for substantial muscle growth.  We have some uncertainty about what are the major factors in turning on this growth mechanism and are still sorting out some side details. For example some evidence shows it's not always caused by microtrauma, but then again microtrauma will definitely cause it, and who cares exactly if there are even 10 ways to get there.

It's also not too hard to tell good soreness (starting 24hr after, peaking at 48hrs after, and then lasting 2-4 additional days) apart from soreness in overtraining, or other things that might feel similar but don't have all the nice associated muscle growth mechanism with it and are caused by other things.

Chocolate milk is a good recovery food, but I don't know that it will keep you from being sore.

Since the soreness you feel from muscles growing is a good thing, no healthy food will reduce it (poison and starvation might shorten it but for all the wrong reasons)

From what I understand, it's okay to train through DOMS, though if you're constantly sore over several days, you may be overtraining.  ...

As far as training while sore, you can definitely do it, but you don't always want to, depending on what you are trying to improe with your training.
If you could only work out twice within a week, you would be better off spreading them out so you can recover as much as possible before your next workout.
To think that working out while your muscles are trying to grow has no effect on your total growth would be naive in my opinion, and even in terms of your max muscle output we know it is reduced, so that second overlapping workout won't be as good as it could be.
But, if you can workout as often as you like, squeezing an extra workout even while sore would still end up giving you better total results than skipping it, as long as it doesn't cause you to become overtrained. Just think of each workout while not sore as being say 100 points, and ones while sore as being like 50 points or something.
And different things recover at different rates, muscle size vs strenght vs coordination, so you can always try to plan overlapping workouts to focus on more different aspects (e.g., maybe some techniques would lead to injury if you are still sore so you can train them on a different day to be safer, etc).

[Chris Salvato]

Specifically, we do know it's a good and necessary thing for substantial muscle growth.  We have some uncertainty about what are the major factors in turning on this growth mechanism and are still sorting out some side details. For example some evidence shows it's not always caused by microtrauma, but then again microtrauma will definitely cause it, and who cares exactly if there are even 10 ways to get there.

I think "good and necessary" might be pushing it

You will get sore if you train at some point -- but you can go MONTHS without getting sore with substantial gains.  I put on 25# of mass (17# of which was lean) and got up to a 1.7xBW squat, 2xBW DL, etc without getting sore once in 4 months.

Soreness is only bad if it interferes with your training or daily lifestyle routines.

Since the soreness you feel from muscles growing is a good thing, no healthy food will reduce it (poison and starvation might shorten it but for all the wrong reasons)

I tend to disagree.

Muscle soreness is an injury, in its most simplest and boiled down sense.

Foods that reduce inflammation and oxidation such as fish oil (reduces inflammation) and berries (high in anti-oxidants) will severely limit how sore you feel.  Hydration is also important for avoiding DOMS.

For example, when I let my diet go to hell and start binging on the carbs (promotes inflammation) or drink myself silly (dehydration) I get significantly more sore.

[tombb]

I think "good and necessary" might be pushing it

My disclaimer was the qualifier "substantial" but I guess I should have included rapid. But yes I would agree with you that you can still gain lean muscle mass without soreness (or with soreness processes below a perceivable threshold).
But if you were a professional bodybuilder you would not be able to gain enough muscle mass at a sufficient rate without soreness. If you found a successful professional bodybuilder that tries to avoid soreness instead of trying to get sore more often, that would be very good support for your position, but as far as I know that's not something you can find.

I tend to disagree.

Muscle soreness is an injury, in its most simplest and boiled down sense.

Foods that reduce inflammation and oxidation such as fish oil (reduces inflammation) and berries (high in anti-oxidants) will severely limit how sore you feel.  Hydration is also important for avoiding DOMS.

I think we do disagree on this point in particular, because I would say the soreness is not an injury at all, it's a remodeling growth process.

In fact you can have the same 48hr delay muscle soreness without any microtrauma or tissue damage (see here for example, or any of the papers referenced and linked about actual sore muscle biopsies showing no damage). 

So, you don't have damage and yet 48hrs when your body decided to build new muscle, you have soreness (from among other things local directed inflammation). But you need it, because it's important to make it easier for satellite/stem cells to penetrate and reach the muscle fibers you stimulated so they can merge with them and increase their size, and that's a good positive use of local directed inflammation.

Not all inflammation is bad, and generally foods that are good at reducing inflammation do -not- cripple your ability to produce inflammatory or immune response when needed (you don't get sick more easily for example), they just help you avoid unnecessary ones that you shouldn't have anyways.

So that's my take on it, if you see any study to support your view or correct mine please let me know.

[Chris Salvato]

But if you were a professional bodybuilder you would not be able to gain enough muscle mass at a sufficient rate without soreness. If you found a successful professional bodybuilder that tries to avoid soreness instead of trying to get sore more often, that would be very good support for your position, but as far as I know that's not something you can find.

Anecdotally, if you read Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bible of Bodybuilding, he does make quite a few statements on soreness.

Being that he was a multiple-winner of things like Mr. Universe and a very successful bodybuilder, his insights into soreness may be relevant here...though i always hesitate to reference back to Arnold

According to both of their books, Arnold and his training partner, Franco Columbo, tried to avoid soreness as much as possible...though a day here or there being sore was welcomed to "let me know i worked" [sic].

So that's my take on it, if you see any study to support your view or correct mine please let me know.

I think we are discussing semantics and diction, now

[tombb]

Well I should look into that Arnold thing you mentioned, although maybe I should find some quote from his training partner instead since if you ever saw any part of his old movie Pumping Iron, Arnold was giving all the wrong advice on purpose to Lou F. to make him lose, and later he became a politician too, so even less trustworthy
I guess what I should try to find is a study where they look at muscle gained in two workout groups, soreness-inducing and barely avoiding soreness but with similar amount of work or something, and comparing total muscle growth rates.

I think we are discussing semantics and diction, now

I would say it's not just semantics here because it leads to two completely different recommendations or views.

If you believe it's an injury, as you suggest, you would think it unnecessary and would reasonably recommend to avoid it.

If you believe it's not an injury at all and instead it's a growth mechanism, you would not want to avoid it and would think of it as very useful and important (like, say, puberty or even simple things like sleep)

[Charles Moreland]

Tom, I think this discussion is going in a really positive way. To make a quick point though:

I know you mention the possibility of it being a "growth mechanism" however, I can forward you to many different examples of people who have seen incredible strength gains without ever feeling the effect of soreness (myself, Chris, and Steve alike).

If it is some contribution, we know enough to say it might not be worth the effort to experience DOMS seeing as growth can occur without it. It's applicability in a workout routine, then, is solely dependent on the intensity or volume changes required to push DOMS and the effect DOMS may play on muscle growth.

[Chris Salvato]

Well I should look into that Arnold thing you mentioned, although maybe I should find some quote from his training partner instead since if you ever saw any part of his old movie Pumping Iron, Arnold was giving all the wrong advice on purpose to Lou F. to make him lose, and later he became a politician too, so even less trustworthy
I guess what I should try to find is a study where they look at muscle gained in two workout groups, soreness-inducing and barely avoiding soreness but with similar amount of work or something, and comparing total muscle growth rates.

Such a study would be worthless imho because of the amount of variables that exist in the design alone.  Degree of training plays too huge of a part in recovery/soreness -- as does muscle growth -- finding a population large enough would be next to impossible thus the data wouldn't be worthwhile.  Also, the best movements for gains are compound -- which take training -- lots of it -- which puts a severe restriction on population...this is a main reason for the disconnect we mentioned earlier...anecdotal black box evidence works best (as my personal experience listed above that is consistent with many others)

A field study would be best -- but those alone are unreliable and as "anecdotal" as the evidence of using myself as an example.

If you believe it's an injury, as you suggest, you would think it unnecessary and would reasonably recommend to avoid it.

Injury carries a negative connotation -- which is why this is a discussion of diction now..

The body handles training as it would an injury, that is all I meant.  It is a welcomed injury, to say the least.

[tombb]

Charles,
I agree with you on strength, but my main point about soreness was not on strength but strictly on muscle mass.
As you know the two are not too related, while total muscle size caps the total strength potential you can achieve, you can have the same muscle size and very different ability to generate strength. That's for all the various mechanisms like nerve firing coordination, amount of innervation and training, chemical and protein changes in muscles that are not related to size.
The size increase from DOMS and myoblasts fusing into existing fibers does not increase strength much, but it adds more nuclei, mitochondria, cellular size and contractile protein to the fiber. Growth or adaptation that doesn't involve cells merging after recruitment from inflammation absolutely cannot add more nuclei to muscle fibers for example (the muscle fiber is functionally incapable to replicate and split any of its nuclei since it's now permeated by a huge network of contractile proteins).

I would say in parkour you would care most about strength and coordination improvements anyways aside from when starting out, (and really a lot of people that are amazing at this don't look like bodybuilders), but I am just trying to keep the two mechanisms clear from each other.


Chris,
I see what you mean about diction now so I guess we are not disagreeing much.

About what study would be useful, there are ways to make it easier and more reliable.
I agree with you that anecdotal or a posteriori studies are not very good because they tend to pick up on coincidences as well.

But there are many ways to make well-designed studies and fully control for individual variables.  You can have people train their left leg and right arm one way and their right leg and left arm another way for example, or test group1 with training1 for 4 weeks, then with training2 for 4 weeks, and have group2 do the opposite order. And throw in a few control groups to be even safer.
You can learn a lot of interesting and very repeatable and statistically sound facts by comparing results that way.

Also in general you narrow down your question to one that is easily measurable. So you wouldn't ask "what is the best possible type of exercise", because that's like asking what is the best painting of all times, including those that have not been painted yet.

But if you asked something more specific, your answers would be much more easily tested and answered.

For example you might notice that if you wait too long between sets, you don't get soreness even doing exactly the same exercise and total number of reps and intensity, while you do get sore if you wait less (this is totally just an example, I am not sure if this is the case).
Then you could compare those cases and simply ask, which one generates the most muscle growth over a few months? The results to that specific question would be absolutely clear and conclusive.

It's not the large question you might want to address at first but it's good especially to discount wrong theories or wrong conclusions that would make the opposite prediction in that situation.

[Steven Low]

I've found that too many carbs = inflammation = terrible ability to recover from training.

I did (inadvertently) about 2 years back I believe eating about 70% carbs macros per day. Result was that training sessions that I normally recovered from in 1-2 days were taking 3-5 days to recover from, and I was sore all the time.

So I would say to avoid carbs.. but hey experiment a bit with your body and see if this is the same for you. Maybe your body tolerates carbs well and improves with a better macro. Maybe not.

Fish oil = good. Any other anti inflammatory foods are generally good.

Stuff that alleviates soreness are also nice but not necessary... tombb already mentioned most of them.

---------------------------------

Tombb:

The problem with soreness studies is people will NEVER be able to fully control all the factors that need to be controlled. Mostly recovery -- how much sleep someone is getting, their nutritional status (and depending on the persons genetics they might need different macros to operate optimally, etc.), stress in their lives, etc. So.. I don't see a point.

Managing volume and intensity and frequency is nice.. might give a decent picture. But I don't like using the same people as their own controls because the adaptations they get from initial training DO carry over. And no one is going to wait a month or two for them to go away... unless you paid them a lot (and then again you can never be too sure..).

Plus the fact that soreness, like pain, is sometimes completely arbitrary to the person. Very hard to quantify what is "too sore" to workout and whatnot.

[tombb]

Tombb:

The problem with soreness studies is people will NEVER be able to fully control all the factors that need to be controlled. Mostly recovery -- how much sleep someone is getting, their nutritional status (and depending on the persons genetics they might need different macros to operate optimally, etc.), stress in their lives, etc. So.. I don't see a point.

Managing volume and intensity and frequency is nice.. might give a decent picture. But I don't like using the same people as their own controls because the adaptations they get from initial training DO carry over. And no one is going to wait a month or two for them to go away... unless you paid them a lot (and then again you can never be too sure..).

Plus the fact that soreness, like pain, is sometimes completely arbitrary to the person. Very hard to quantify what is "too sore" to workout and whatnot.

I think the examples I gave do fully control for all factors.

Take the example of left vs right on the same person. Which factor would not be controlled for? It's the same person so all individual variables are the same. Same for recovery, they sleep the same amount because they are the same person.
Now if you do that with say 10 or even 50 people, you get quite a spread of various individual differences and resting patters. Now you perform the experiments, and the results show that -everybody- got a 10-20% increase on whichever side used training 2, compared to training 1.

I would say that would be unequivocal proof that training 2 is better than training 1. Would that result be pointless? Not at all, it would be very useful.

That's the advantage that you get from actually testing reality by using science.

Did we test all possible cases including training effects on people not sleeping at all for weeks? No, but does it matter? Obviously not, if you care about the effect of combining complete prolonged lack of sleep, you would just do a study on that. 
The results were about the average situation and you generally would expect those results should hold in many more cases since they were so uniform over such a random sample to begin with.