The New Recovery Drink: Chocolate Milk

(This post doesn't necessarily belong in the current series on Exercise Programming, but it's posted as a supplement.  Enjoy!)

At this point I hope that everyone has begun to incorporate some of this material into their exercise program.  My goal is for this website to be a resource for you, a place where you can get all your exercise information and motivation.  Need more?  Find me on Twitter, Facebook, or email.

If you've started to ramp up your exercise program, your body is working hard and needs to learn how to recover.  Our last post talked about the importance of stretching to facilitate muscle recovery.  One of the biggest omissions from an exercise routine is the area of nutrition.  Today I'm giving you permission to enjoy one of our favorite kids' drinks: chocolate milk.

Sure, you should drink the chocolate milk because you just had a great workout and "you deserve it."  But that's not why I'm telling you to drink it.  Current research has found that chocolate milk has the perfect balance of carbohydrates to protein to facilitate muscle recovery.  (You can read an interesting article with more details at CBS.com here.)

I can already hear the experience athletes: "Hans, the last think I'd want to drink after a long run or bike ride is chocolate milk."  I can hear you because that's what I was thinking until I tried it.  It's way better than you'd think.  After I finished the Madison Marathon last year, they had small cartons of chocolate milk available for all the runners and it was the best drink I had all day.

If nothing else, go run for 30-40 minutes and cap it off with a glass of chocolate milk.  And if you're wondering which kind to buy, it doesn't matter.  I mix Hershey's syrup with 1% milk.  Bottoms up!