Protein and Recovery Post-Workout

Protein intake is an important step to a successful health plan, second only to the quality of the workout itself. Without enough protein, your muscles will struggle to return your muscles to a state of optimum performance. The easiest way to ensure your body recovers properly with adequate protein is to buy a bag or other container of protein powder, mix a single serving of it with some water and chug it down. Easy, right? Yes, that was quite easy and will work for most circumstances. Further down the line, you could notice that your normal protein shake isn't quite having the same effect it once did. Adding different ingredients to your protein shake can make that diference you're looking for. This article will delve into some of the more beneficial and popular additions you can include in your all-important post workout shake.

Jumping blindly into a list of ingredients to include seems to be a rather structureless way to go about explaining the many options you have for better recovery and nutrition, so I have taken the liberty to break these protein shake additions into categories based on their benefit. This way, if something is not to your liking for your nutritional needs, you will be given a number of options.

General vitamins/minerals:

*Dark, leafy greens-
Whether you follow nutritional trends or not, you've probably heard someone talk about leafy greens like kale, spinach, and chard as if their livelihood depended on their existence. Health benefits from these greens can be overstated to say the least, yet there is some definite benefits to including them into your diet. These greens can provide fiber for digestion, iron to increase hemoglobin and therefore oxygen in your blood, calcium for helping your muscles to contract and perform exericise, vitamins A, C, and E for antioxidant support, B vitamins for energy, vitamin K to ensure proper bone development and recovery, magnesium for electrolyte balance, and some compounds that aid in digestion.

*Fruit
*Brewer's Yeast

Vascularity:

*Beets-
This super food offers what many fruits and vegetables cannot. If you can stomach their earthy taste, beet juice supplies nitric oxide boosters to improve blood circulation, this leads to a better recovery. Better recovery leads to better consistency. Consistency is the singlemost important factor in achieving your fitness goals. If you cannot work out every week roughly the same, then changes need to be made in order to achieve consistency. Otherwise, your fitness goals may be in jeopardy.

*NO2 supplements-
Nitric oxide, known popularly as NO2, supplements and beets achieve the common goal of improving blood circulation and improving recovery. In the case of NO2 supplements, depending on its formulation, NO2 supplements can produce the effect of "pump," that increases the size and definition of one's muscles. In martial arts, and in the internal arts especially, muscles with "pump" are more easily injured due to lessened density. In short, if you take NO2 supplements, find one that is meant to improve blood circulation rather than one that is intended for body building.

Digestion:

*Fiber:
Fiber aids in digestion by helping to push digesting food along the digestive tract. Fiber is easy to supplement into a post-workout shake as it comes in many forms and is relatively inexpensive. Some common forms of iber include:

-Fiber Powder
-Ground flax seed
-Psyllium Husk
-Steel-cut oats