“Study”: Chocolate Milk Builds More Muscle? -Erm, No. Probably Just Proper Recovery

green door steel handle plants are up to something illuminati symbol from cathedral

After doing some sniffing around, I’m willing to believe there are probably some lobbying/marketing motives to this work.

The concerns with Milk, especially non-organic, remain. It has Saturated Fat -even in 1%. It has Several Hormones and Antibiotics and Other Chemicals in it.

Frankly, your best bet for building more muscle and endurance is a good commercial post-workout-recovery shake, like any one of the multitudes that have been engineered and deployed at your local Vitamin Shoppe.

Even if I were making it myself, I’d just do the calcs, throw my favorite proteins, and my favorite carbs together with some flavorings and engineer my own.

The issue is this, as Bodybuilding.com’s Jim Brewster puts it:

“After the workout is the other time to take in simple carbs: this is critical because it starts the whole recovery/muscle growth process. Following a hard workout, your body is severely depleted of glycogen and glucose.

During the workout hard working muscles use glucose (usable energy) and glycogen (stored energy) for energy. As such, there is a point at which blood glucose levels (available energy) and glycogen levels (stored energy) get so low that intense exercise can’t continue. There just isn’t enough available energy for your muscles to use.

So what happens is that the hormone cortisol is secreted, this is your body’s “stress” hormone and it has very catabolic effects. What cortisol does is eat up muscle tissue for protein and convert it into glucose. A process called gluconeogenesis ensues, producing glucose from these amino acids in the liver. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue.”

So you see, it’s not really an issue of Chocolate Milk. -As a matter of fact, chocolate milk may have A)The Wrong type of sweetners, ie:HFCS, in it and B)Possibly Too Much of Them.

cats gathered in midday shade black surrounding grey and white suspicious

Furthermore, just like general Calorie Requirements, Protein Requirements, Activity Factors, etc. Scientists have +/- worked out the Ratios you need for these things.

So: The general numbers out there say you need a minimum of about 0.3-0.6g/lb. of bodyweight in Carbs, AND 1/4 that number of grams in Protein to recover the glycogen and start rebuilding muscle, as your MUST-TAKE-WITHIN-30-MINUTES shake.

Note Also, that some studies show Carbs taken WITH Protein after the exercise DOUBLED the glycogen stores that were recovered.
-I would also bet there are studies out there showing if you have protein w/in 30 minutes after lifting, the muscle-recovery is similarly increased.

So, that’s the phenom going on. Carbs And Protein.
-Anything specific to Chocolate Milk?
-I would guess absolutely not.
Would I drink it? No.
Would I recommend it to a friend? No.

Photo Credits:
“The great plant conspiracy”, by Quinn Dombrowski, quinndombrowski.com
“Corruption 2 [Summer Vacation]”, by Bryan Schoemaker
“Cat Conspiracy”, by Craig Elliott

Links:
• via: LifeHacker
• More Coverage:
Bodybuilding.com-Post Workout Carbs, Best Choices To Grow & Recover | About.com-Eating After Exercise – What to Eat After a Workout | SmallBites (crunchy-greeny-vegomentalist-tantrum; -though to be fair, when not pushing a political agenda or cherry-picking, he does make some good points) | Wikipedia-V02Max
• Source Study: JSCR-Postexercise Carbohydrate–Protein Supplementation Improves Subsequent Exercise Performance and Intracellular Signaling for Protein Synthesis (in-cooperation with UT@A if I’m not mistaken)