A carbohydrate beverage with additional protein calories produced significant improvements in time to fatigue and reductions in muscle damage in endurance athletes. Further research is necessary to determine whether these effects were the result of higher total caloric content of the CHO+P beverage or due to specific protein-mediated mechanisms.

No differences in time to fatigue were observed between the beverages, despite lower total carbohydrate content in the CHOPA beverage. The CHOPA beverage attenuated postexercise muscle damage, as evidenced by CK and LDH values, compared with an isocaloric CHO beverage.

These findings suggest that at least some of the reported improvements in endurance with CHO+Pro beverages might be related to caloric differences between treatments. Postexercise improvements in markers of muscle disruption with CHO+Pro ingestion appear to be independent of carbohydrate and caloric content and were elicited with beverages consumed only during exercise.

The authors investigated the effects of postexercise carbohydrate-protein-antioxidant (CHO+P+A) ingestion on plasma creatine kinase (CK), muscle soreness, and subsequent cross-country race performance. Twenty-three runners consumed 10 mL/kg body weight of CHO or CHO+P+A beverage immediately after each training session for 6 d before a cross-country race. After a 21-d washout period, subjects repeated the protocol with the alternate beverage. Postintervention CK (223.21 +/- 160.71 U/L; 307.3 +/- 312.9 U/L) and soreness (medians = 1.0, 2.0) were significantly lower after CHO+P+A intervention than after CHO, despite no differences in baseline measures. There were no overall differences in running performance after CHO and CHO+P+A interventions. There were, however, significant correlations between treatment differences and running mileage, with higher mileage runners having trends toward improved attenuations in CK and race performance after CHO+P+A intervention than lower mileage runners. We conclude that muscle damage incurred during training was attenuated with postexercise CHO+P+A ingestion, which could lead to performance improvements in high-mileage runners.

BackgroundThe efficacy of chocolate milk (CM) as a recovery beverage following a period of increased training duration (ITD) was studied in intercollegiate soccer players.Methods13 subjects completed one week of normal 'baseline' training followed by four days of ITD. After each day of ITD, subjects received either a high-carbohydrate (504 kcal; CHO: 122 g; 2 g Fat) or isocaloric CM (504 kcal; 84 g CHO; 28 g Pro; 7 g Fat) recovery beverage. Serum creatine kinase (CK), myoglobin (Mb), muscle soreness, fatigue ratings and isometric quadriceps force (MVC) were obtained prior to ITD, and following 2- and 4-days of ITD. Performance tests (T-drill, vertical jump) were performed within training sessions. Treatments were administered in a randomly counterbalanced protocol, and subjects repeated the procedures with the alternate beverage following a two-week washout period.ResultsMean daily training time and HR increased (p < 0.05) between baseline training and ITD, with no differences between treatments. No treatment*time effects were observed for Mb, muscle soreness, fatigue ratings and MVC. However, serum CK was significantly lower (p < 0.05) following four days of ITD with CM (316.9 ± 188.3 U·L-1) compared to CHO (431.6 ± 310.8 U·L-1). No treatment differences were observed for the performance tests.ConclusionsPost-exercise CM provided similar muscle recovery responses to an isocaloric CHO beverage during four-days of ITD. Future studies should investigate if the attenuated CK levels observed with CM have functional significance during more demanding periods of training.