Why chocolate milk is awesome

So most of you that train will undoubtedly have reached for a recovery drink of some sort that is usually packed full of carbs and all sorts of other goodies to replenish what you just burned in your exercise.  But even though many studies have shown that you need things like carbs to repack into your muscles and protein to help rebuild muscles, the debate still rages what the best way to do this is. 

In order to hit it hard again the day after, and the day after that you need to be in a condition to do so, so you need to be able to recover.  One of the less refined, but nonetheless proven ways of recovering is just to jam as many calories as you burned back in.  The only problem with this is most people, myself included sometimes don't exactly feel like stuffing your face right after a nice long hard run.  So this is where you have the recovery drink market.

All companies will say that their product is best and you have everything out there ranging from protein powders, to recovery powders, to magical formulas.  Then you have your not so typical replacement plans including bars, meal replacement drinks..... and then you have chocolate milk.

Not your typical recovery drink

Now it started out first being used by american swimmer Michael Phelps, the beast in the pool that apparently eats a baby cow for breakfast (well maybe not quite but this guy eats a LOT.)  There was then a study that was funded by International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Granted it was partially funded by the dairy industry, and it wasn't huge in scale, it still showed a few things that are really interesting.  

Now here are a few basic assumptions/known facts about exercise and recovery that we're basing our understanding on why Chocolate milk is awesome. 
1) Intense or vigorous exercise depletes glycogen stores in muscles
2) This is usually dealt with by intaking carbohydrates which will refill your stores
3) There is this "magical" window of 30 minutes where it is recommended that you intake a helping or carbs both for recovery and better packing of glycogen
4) Protein can also help insulin in packing glycogen into muscles.

All the carbs and electrolytes you want or need

So sport drinks will usually fill that idea of giving you carbs and even some electrolytes to replace what you've already sweated out.  So this is where companies have started making targeted "recovery" drinks that usually contain your typical carb, maybe some electrolytes but then there's also some protein in there as well. Companies such as Pacific Health Labs made a product called Endurox R4 which was touted as something that will help with recovery.

Carbs and Protein

So of course studies are going to be done to see if this stuff really works and companies will always find info to back up their claims.  They tested cyclists by working them till glycogen depletion, and then either fueled them up with Gatorade, Chocolate Mark or this new fangled Endurox.  Now the results were slightly unexpected in that those who drank chocolate milk could go 50% more than those who had Endurox and about as long as those that had Gatorade.  Now wait a minute, didn't I just say that protein helps with glycogen packing?  There are a couple theories as to why the chocolate milk just outperformed other more expensive alternatives.

Is there more behind the brown cow?

So it's been predicted that one of the reason why chocolate milk works so well has to do with sugar composition.  Not only are they structured differently, but they can also be absorbed by the gut easier.  Other thoughts include that it's because the protein in milk is high quality, add in carbs and magic.  Well not quite the entire picture.  You also get a lot of other things in milk such as calcium, pottasium and magnesium, and vitamin d.  So there's other natural things in chocolate that makes it much more than awesome tasting protein and carbs.  Happy muscles mean you can hit it again the next day and keep at it.  Less unscheduled rest days are a good thing

So if it's good enough for professional athletes, it's good enough for me, and chances are it's probably good enough for you too!