Ask Adam: How Often Should I Stretch?

Posted by Adam - 02/16/09 at 12:02:33 pm

I have found that stretching is one of the most underrated forms of exercise there is. Even I used to scoff at the time put into lengthy stretching that I have seen people do. Only when I began to realize that my muscles were becoming too big, and I had a difficult time scratching my back did I realize that I needed to take action. After just 3 weeks in a twice a week power-yoga class, I began to notice serious improvements in not only my flexibility, but also my strength gains, and lack of soreness after exercise. Impressed as I was, I needed to find out more information.

There is loads of information related to stretching in health journals and on the internet that I had consistently overlooked before. Mainly because at some point it had been engrained into my mind that I just didn’t have the flexible gene (no one in my family can touch their toes) and yoga was just too girly for a weightlifter like myself. Oh, how I was wrong…

Before we begin, keep in mind that there are several important factors that can affect your flexible abilities. The first is age: flexibility increases through adolescence up until the age of 20, after which it gradually decreases over time. The second is gender: women are generally more flexible than men. The third and the one that this post will focus on is activity: obviously people who remain active throughout their lives will generally be more supple than those who are sedentary. Being flexible is extremely important to in regards to exercise and general health, and this blog will cover the basic premises of stretching and how to do it safely and effectively.

Flexibility is defined as the ability of a joint to move through its full range of motion. Flexibility is specific to each joint, therefore having “good” flexibility implies that you have good range of motion in all your joints, not just one joint. Thankfully, flexibility is highly adaptable, and will increase with regular activity and stretching exercises. However, flexibility also has quick reversibility and decreases without inactivity. It is extremely important to any sort of physical activity especially in terms of skill-related fitness. A runner who has tight hamstrings will have restricted flexion in the hip joint, resulting in shorter stride length. Regardless of whether you are running competitively, increased flexibility in the hamstrings and other leg muscles will increase your speed and reduce the amount of energy used while running. For general well being, how easily, smoothly, and painlessly you can bend, reach, twist, and turn depends on how flexible your body is. Benefits of flexibility include:

• more efficient body movement
• increased performance capabilities in sports
• reduction of muscle soreness after exercise
• improvement and maintenance of food posture (reduces lower back problems)
• reduces chance of injury
• relaxation and relief from aches and pains from sitting too long while reducing blood pressure and mental tension.

So why are we not flexible? What makes us unable to bend over and touch our toes or tie our legs into a pretzel? There are five main structural limitations:

• Bone: can restrict the endpoint in range of motion, mostly due to past injury.
• Fat: gets in the way of limbs moving
• Skin: may restrict range of motion if there is old scar tissue
• Muscle: muscles are highly elastic and it is possible to increase the length the amount muscles can be stretched.
• Tendons: though not nearly as lithe as muscles, tendons may also stretch
• Ligaments: have very limited flexibility, but are majorly affected by long periods of inactivity and injury.

Now that you know the basics, understand this: stretching is NOT beneficial BEFORE you exercise. “Whoa,” you say, “why have I constantly been taught to stretch before my workout?” The answer is not so simple, but it’s largely due to lack of research and understanding of beneficial stretching in previous decades. Yes, decades. That is how overlooked stretching was for some time. Until only recently, the past 10-20 years, has there been a large focus on stretching for exercise. This means that all of your parents, coaches, and friends were fed incorrect information in regards to stretch technique (albeit, to not fault of theirs).

Stretching should never be the first part of your workout. Stretching cold, or resting muscles, can actually cause more harm than good. This is why having a short cardio warm up is highly recommended before any sort of exercise, even over traditional stretching. The best time to stretch, get this, is AFTER you have completed your workout. Your muscles are warm, loosened up, and already elongated. Stretching at this stage is crucial if you want to see improvement. Immediately after exercise, before you hit the shower, spend at minimum 10 minutes stretching. Here are some guidelines to follow:

• It is recommended that your stretch at minimum 2-3 days a week to maintain your flexibility, 5-6 days a week for best results.
• When stretching, your intensity is very important. You should create a stretch that causes mild discomfort in the muscle surrounding the joint being stretched. Do not stretch so hard that it causes pain.
• 2-3 repetitions of each stretch, holding each for 10-20 seconds.

There are three basic types of stretching: Static Stretching, Ballistic Stretching, & PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation).

This is a highly effective method that involves gradually stretching a muscle by placing it in a maximal stretch position and holding that position for 10-30 seconds. This is the safest method of stretching, particularly for untrained or sedentary people.

This involves short, bouncing movements such as touching your toes in rapid succession. Because the bouncing movements may be greater than the muscle’s extensibility, injury may occur, and caution is absolutely necessary (I personally would never recommend this type).

PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation):

This is the most effective method of stretching, but requires the use of a partner to help. PNF involves a series of pushing and relaxing movements by you and your partner. Using a hamstring stretch as an example, you would lie on your back with your leg extended and your partner would push against your leg until you feel a slight discomfort in your muscle. At this point you would push against your partner’s resistance by contracting the hamstring. After 10 seconds of this, you would relax your muscle, and your partner would apply even more pressure for another 10 seconds. This push-relax technique should be repeated at least 3 times.

Remember again, that these should be done after the workout, never before to avoid injury. A short cardio warm up should be done before any exercise.

As for yoga, it certainly is not girly. I joined a power yoga class that focuses more on stretching than on meditation. I can happily say that it was one of the best decisions of my health life in the past year. It may be intimidating at first (the first day of my class my instructor stood on her head with her arms crossed over her chest while talking to the class) but you will get better, and you will see improvements.

On Gyminee, feel free to join the flexibility exercise group or a number of the yoga groups that have been created. Wii fit has some fantastic yoga exercises, and is very popular among Gyminee users. You can also download weekly or daily podcasts on iTunes for free if you cannot afford either Wii Fit or a yoga class. Good quality yoga mats can be bought for as little as $10.

The most important thing is to start adding complimentary stretching to your workout routine as soon as possible.

Fun Nutrition Fact of the Week:

Did you know that one of America’s most famous snacks, Tortilla Chips, has had the same recipe for over a millenia?  The ancient Aztecs invented the now popular food, using the same 3 ingredients as today: corn meal, water, and salt.  Today, companies such as Frito-Lay produce the food on a much larger scale, but there has never been an a change to the oringal recipe.  The only thing that separates the different varieties are the types of corn and the shape of the chip.

Facebook + Challenges = More Fun

Posted by Stephen - 02/09/09 at 10:02:40 am

A cool new feature was added over this past weekend. Facebook provides some amazing tools that allow other web applications to integrate their site with facebook.com. We have started to take advantage of these tools and believe it will help users better share their fitness activity, and also begin to help solve the problems that arise with having multiple accounts on multiple social networks.

After joining a Challenge you will now see a link towards the top of the page like the following.

Clicking this link will display a window - one that should look familiar to you if you have used Facebook before (and who hasn’t?).

From here you may customize what the story will look like and choose whether or not you would like to post this to your Facebook Profile. If you have friends on Facebook who may be interested in either competing with you in a challenge or in simply keeping up with your progress, then this is a very quick and easy way to let them know about what you’re doing.

Of course this is all optional and nothing will be posted to your Facebook account without your explicit permission. Depending on how well-received this feature is, we plan to add more Facebook integration down the road, so be sure to let us know what you think about Facebook integration (and also post one or more of your challenges to Facebook).

P.S. We plan to post to our Twitter account more often. Click here to follow us if you would like to stay posted about some of the smaller development updates that don’t necessarily make it to the blog.

Thanks and have a great day!

The High Fructose Corn Syrup Controversy

Posted by Susan - 02/03/09 at 09:02:14 am

I find myself struggling lately with the High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) topic.

Don’t get me wrong; I get that sugar is bad for a variety of reasons. I rarely, if ever, exceed more than 40 grams of sugar in a day. What I’ve been struggling with is whether or not HFCS is really any different than sucrose (table sugar)?

Chemistry Refresher

Sugar is a simple carbohydrate which means it is broken down quickly by the body and used as a source of energy. Sugars include monosaccharides, disaccharides, trisaccharides and oligosaccharides. As the names suggest, multiple sugar molecules (monosacharides) can be combined.

Monosaccharides are the simplest form of carbohydrates. They consist of one sugar and include glucose, fructose, galactose, xylose and ribose.

Disaccharides are made up of two monosaccharides and include sucrose (table sugar), lactose and maltose.

Like other carbohydrates, sugar contributes 4 calories per gram.

HFCS Versus Other Sugars

The Corn Refiners Association will argue that HFCS is similar in composition to sucrose (table sugar). A recent article by Lyle McDonald compared the percentage of fructose and glucose content across different sweeteners and indeed, the composition of HFCS is similar to its counterparts:

Health Concerns Surrounding HFCS

I was listening to a podcast the other day that quickly demonized HFCS by referring to a study that indicates that un-bound fructose causes extremely elevated levels of reactive carbonyls - compounds that are typically elevated in the blood of people with diabetes.

Specifically, here is what was said during the podcast:

It is true that, in fact, high fructose corn syrup is far more sinister than regular sugar. They were doing a study with diabetics and they were finding a compound called carbonyl at extremely elevated levels in diabetics.

When high fructose corn syrup is manufactured there’s a reaction with fructose and glucose molecules where they become unbound and they elevate the level of carbonyls and this is obviously what’s going on with your soda.

With regular sugar, sucrose does not become unbound. The way that it’s processed is totally different.

The podcast in question is one that is hosted by an individual that I feel is extremely intelligent and well versed in many areas of health and fitness. Unfortunately, the information reported is simply incorrect.

The study being referenced is a 2007 research paper by Dr. Chi-Tang Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. Dr. Ho’s study did not use diabetics as a control base. Rather, it was a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages. If you read on you’ll better understand as to why sucrose does indeed become unbound if used in the manufacturing of soda.

For full disclosure, I requested Lyle McDonald’s assistance in deciphering Dr. Ho’s research and, as always, Lyle’s input was very insightful.

The Research Study De-Constructed

The original news report entitled Soda Warning? New Study Supports Link Between Diabetes, High-Fructose Corn Syrup points out that Dr. Ho’s team tested 11 carbonated soft drinks that contained HFCS and found

‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable, the research notes.

Keep that last sentence in mind as we’re going to get back to that point later on in this posting.

The news article goes on to point out that

Ho’s group is also probing the mechanisms by which carbonation increases the amount of reactive carbonyls formed in sodas containing HFCS. They note that non-carbonated fruit juices containing HFCS have one-third the amount of reactive carbonyl species found in carbonated sodas with HFCS.

The diabetes connection is that reactive carbonyls are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes.

The question begs to be asked, is HFCS the problem, or is it carbonation plus HFCS that is the real issue?

Lyle was able to pinpoint a blog posting with the following information:

First, Chi-Tang Ho et al did not compare the HFCS sodas to sucrose sodas. They compared 11 HFCS sodas to a diet soda control. There was no sucrose soda control, so this research does not allows us to make comparisons.

Second, though the article states that sucrose does not have reactive carbonyls by virtue of the fact that fructose and glucose are bound together in sucrose, this overlooks the fact that sucrose is in fact hydrolyzed in soft drinks into - you guessed it - fructose and glucose.

For instance, The Soft Drinks Companion: A Technical Handbook for the Beverage Industry, Maurice Shachman, pp. 81 - 82, states:

The sugar inversion process takes place under acidic conditions and speeds up with a decrease in pH. Soft drinks are flavored with acids to achieve the sourness notes essential for their taste profiles. They are therefore acidic drinks, usually in the pH+3 range. This is especially true of the sour fruit flavors, such as lemon and other citrus fruit species. Cola beverages that often use phosphoric acid as the acidulant are at even lower pH values. In carbonated soft drinks, the dissolved carbon dioxide is converted to carbonic acid, which further adds to the acidification of these drinks. Regardless of the exact acid content of such beverages, they can all be considered to a lesser or greater degree, as acidic solutions. As such, some inversion of the sucrose in these beverages will take place.

So, even if the drinks starts with sucrose, much if not most of it will be broken down into unbound fructose and glucse by the acid in the soda. In fact, according to Marov and Dowling (1990)*, at typical storage times and temperatures, more than 90% of the sucrose in soft drinks can by hydrolyzed. Therefore, even if a soft drink is sweetened with sucrose, unbound glucose and fructose will start to appear immediately and be available to participate in carbonyl forming reactions.

* Marov, G. J., Dowling, J.F., 1990. Sugar in beverages. In: Pennington, N.L., Baker, C.W. (Eds.(, Sugar: A User’s Guide to Sucrose, vol. 13. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, pp. 189 - 211.

Based on this information, Lyle drew the following conclusion and I concur -

There is still NO functional difference in a soda sweetened with HFCS vs. sucrose vs. invert sugar vs. anything else. Put them in acid and they become unbound; carbonate them and you generate carbonyls.

My Two Cents

I myself was on the anti-HFCS bandwagon. The fact is, several times I started to compose seething postings in regards to the commercials run by The Corn Refiners Association.

However, the more I have researched the topic, the more questions I have. Ultimately, it seems as if current research is inconclusive and High Fructose Corn Syrup is simply today’s whipping-boy, same as dietary fat and carbohydrates have been in the past.

We live in a sound-bite era where context is often missing and it becomes easy to draw conclusions without having reviewed all the evidence.

I read a statistic that stated that the per-capita consumption of soft drinks is in excess of 150 quarts per year, or about three quarts per week in the U.S. When you consider that a 20 oz bottle of soda contains 250 calories and the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar, it seems to me that we’re kidding ourselves by focusing on HFCS as being the problem.

My opinion on HFCS is the same as it is in regards to all simple carbohydrates - they should be limited as they are wasted calories, void of any nutritional value.

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan

www.catapultfitnessblog.com

Coming To A Supermarket Near You

Posted by Susan - 01/19/09 at 09:01:09 am

Over the next year you will start to see a new “number” in your grocery stores - the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI).  This new index is being marketed under the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System and was to have launched in three major US supermarket chains this past September, although I have not been able to pinpoint the names of the three chains.

The system, developed over a two-year period by a panel of 12 medical and nutrition experts from leading North American universities and health organizations, uses a proprietary algorithmic formula to score the nutritional value of foods on a scale of one to 100, weighing some 30 different nutrient factors including fiber, Vitamin content, Omega 3 fatty acids, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, sugar, protein quality, energy density, glycemic load, et al.

A higher ONQI score reflects foods with higher nutritional value, offering consumers the opportunity to evaluate products within and across specific food categories -

• Fruits & Vegetables
• Meat & Poultry
• Seafood
• Frozen Vegetables
• Canned Vegetables
• Salty Snacks
• Cereal
• Cookies
• Crackers
• Pasta

So, now shoppers can literally compare apples to oranges, as well as apples to chocolate, apples to potato chips and just about anything else you would care to compare an apple to.

My Two Cents:

I have admit that I am pretty skeptical about the value of this system.  Do we really need someone to tell us that Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux Cookies (ONQI score: 2) are not as healthy for us as blueberries (ONQI score: 100)?

As Michael Pollan points out in his stellar book, In Defense of Food, if you stick to the perimeter of the supermarket and eat foods that your great grandparents would recognize as food, the better your overall nutrition will likely be.

Clearly, processed foods are not as good as whole foods.

Clearly, we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic.

Historically, in times of recession consumers turn to cheaper food options such as energy-dense foods high in starch, sugar and fat.

This past December, New York’s Governor, David Paterson, proposed an 18% sales tax on sugary beverages such as soda.  The estimated $404 million that this tax would generate over the course of a year would go towards funding public health programs, including obesity prevention programs, across New York State.

This to me seems like a step in the right direction.  The next obvious step would be to subsidize more healthy foods (fruits and vegetables) so that consumers have a great incentive to buy them.

The real “numbers” consumers need to help motivate them to purchase more healthful foods are the numbers that will impact their wallets.

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan

www.catapultfitnessblog.com

Coffee: Friend or Foe?

Posted by Susan - 01/05/09 at 11:01:22 am

Depending on what camp you’re in, it is not difficult to find research supporting the pros and cons of coffee consumption.

It is important to acknowledge that caffeine is considered to be a drug; specifically a stimulant. While I leave it to the readers of this posting to decide whether or not caffeine consumption should be part of your diet, I do want to point out that pregnant women need to be aware that there is research that associates an increase in the risk of miscarriage with caffeine consumption.

With that out of the way, I’ll disclose that I am a coffee-holic. I will defend my right to drink coffee until the day I am no longer here on Earth. However, if this stuff is eventually going to kill me, I wouldn’t mind knowing so I have been pouring over what seems like an insurmountable amount of research trying to determine if coffee is actually my friend or foe.

For years there have been correlations made between caffeine and cardiovascular disease and in my research I was able to find several older studies that support the hypothesis that caffeine consumption increases the risk of heart disease.

These studies for the most part are focused on “heavy” coffee consumption (which I will define as five or more 8 oz cups per day) and the role caffeinated drinks play in regards to increased blood pressure. When coffee drinkers ceased drinking coffee, they experienced significant reductions in measured blood pressure, thus reducing their risk for a cardiac event.

A little discouraged I dug a little deeper and found research published this past summer in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This study concluded that regular coffee consumption was not associated with an increased mortality rate in either men or women, and may actually be associated with lower cardiovascular mortality.

These findings are supported by research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which suggests that in adults older than 65 without existing high blood pressure, caffeine intake may be associated with reduced cardiovascular mortality.

As stated earlier, it is not difficult to find research to support your side of the argument.

Caffeine and Fat Loss

Consumed ‘wisely’, caffeine can have a positive impact on fat loss.

A recent study documented in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning supports the use of caffeine as an ergogenic aid in untrained to moderately trained individuals.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers reported that weight-trained men who took a supplement containing about 200 mg of caffeine (equivalent to 16 fluid ounces of regular coffee or a 12 fluid ounce cup of Starbucks regular coffee) before working out, increased their one rep max (1RM) on the bench press by about 5 pounds. An earlier study also found that caffeine increased subjects’ 8 RM. In addition, researchers from the University of Georgia found that when subjects consumed caffeine about an hour before intense cycling exercise that was designed to make their thighs sore, they reported significantly less pain than when taking a placebo.

This means that caffeine can increase muscle strength, as well as your ability to endure more reps at the end of a grueling workout. Over the long, this can lead to greater fat loss and increased muscle growth.

My Two Cents

It is likely that an individual’s response to caffeine will vary and the amount of caffeine which improves performance in one individual may result in negative side effects in another.

Clearly, if you are pregnant or prone to hypertension, drinking coffee may be harmful to your health. Similarly, if you have high cholesterol it would be advisable to limit whole egg consumption, and if you suffer from vertigo my recommendation would be not to climb the Statue of Liberty.

The point is, there are a myriad of factors that dictate how something we consume interacts with an individual. We need to stop trying to neatly fit foods into a “good” or “bad” column and instead look at the big picture to determine what is best for ourselves, at a given point in time.

Ultimately, as with just about everything we consume, my take-away is that moderation is key.

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan

“Baby Steps” in 2009

Posted by Scott - 12/29/08 at 11:12:21 am

So, you are about to make it through the holidays and you are figuring out your New Year’s resolution. Some of you may be giving up a vice or perhaps joining a gym on January 2nd. There are thousands of documented resolutions, but if yours includes losing weight and getting in shape I have a nickel’s-worth of free advice for you: make your goals reasonable, you don’t have to take over the world in one year; make your goals attainable and in stages. If you’d like to drop 30-40 pounds, don’t simply set that as your total goal and start running; cut that goal up into smaller reachable units. It is much less daunting to say that you’d like to drop 10 pounds in three months, then the whole 30 or 40. This will help keep you motivated and on track, you will have a tighter deadline and see your goal weight getting closer sooner rather than later.

How many times have you been given a task with a distant deadline and then ended up waiting until the last possible moment to do it? I did that all of the time until I finally sat down and wrote out my goals. I decided to go for it in 10 pound increments, and I found it was much easier to do. The next thing I knew, I was halfway to my goals in less time than I thought. I doubled my weight loss goals in the time I originally set. My results were due to hard work and strict discipline, but anything is possible if you keep it realistic. I have seen many friends and family members go full-boar towards a goal as lofty as losing 50 pounds during the year. The first 3 or 4 weeks they really try hard, but when they see that they still have so many pounds to go and they really haven’t made a dent they lose confidence and motivation. This is why if you set those goals in smaller increments you’ll feel great when you reach one and you will be excited to give the next one a go. Baby steps are the best approach. My favorite quote about this subject:

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Best of luck and stay strong.

Scott Fitz

How Bad Do I Want It?

Posted by Scott - 12/19/08 at 09:12:28 am

This is the most important question most of us should ask ourselves during the most tempting time of the year. It is the holiday season again, apple pie, beer and wine, this and that — and lots more FAT! Many people fall off of the wagon now more than ever, and simply figure they’ll get back into it after the New Year. Many people gain 1-2 pounds per year of adult life, and these are usually packed on during the HO- HO- Holidays. If you are already overweight, you have an even greater risk of gaining 5 or more pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years.

 

It is so easy to just let things slide and eat that piece of pie. But do you really want to undo all of this year’s hard work? If it were easy to have an incredibly fit and trim body, everyone would, right? You have to ask yourself everyday: “How bad do I want it?” I hear people claiming that since they’ve worked hard they deserve a little treat. This is true to some extent, and it mostly depends on how close you are to your goals. But sometimes it can be no different than a former alcoholic having a drink because he or she has been sober for 11 months. A little treat that could undo the progress of the previous 11 months. The mental setback can be more detrimental than the physical.

It is the ultimate question to ask yourself when you are at the precipice: “How bad do I want it?” When you answer it, you can usually muster the strength to say “No thank you”. Just remember, there is no piece of pie, slice of cake or bowl of pudding that is so good, it can ever replace that feeling you get inside when someone says, “Wow! You look great! You’re so skinny!”

Happy Holidays and stay strong.

Don’t Panic, Here’s a Great Gift Idea!

Posted by derek - 12/14/08 at 02:12:22 pm

With Christmas less than 2 weeks away and the start of a New Year just around the corner, you’re probably beginning to panic as you try to think of what to get that special someone. There is no shortage of ideas but finding something meaningful is no easy task.

Wouldn’t it be great to give a gift that could change that special someone’s life?  Well, here is one idea…

How about giving the ‘Gift of  Health’ ?  The timing is perfect and armed with our new 1 year Gyminee PRO Membership, he or she can start fresh and begin that ‘Life Change’ in 2009!  Subscribing to PRO workouts, setting some achievable fitness goals, and participating in a Challenge are just a few of the small steps that lead to significant change.

Now if you wanted to impress them even more, you could add a cool Gyminee T-shirt from our Gyminee Store with that membership!. If you have a humorous side, go a size or two up or down as an incentive for them to reach their goals.

Healthy holidays from the Gyminee Team.

Milk Does A Body Good

Posted by Susan - 12/11/08 at 10:12:20 am

In his book In Defense Of Food, Michael Pollan suggests that we shouldn’t eat anything that our grandmother’s wouldn’t recognize as food.

The same can be applied to what we drink, which has resulted in my taking a very close look at my post-exercise supplementation.

I came across several studies comparing cows’ milk (whole milk, low-fat, skimmed and chocolate) to soy-based and commercial sports drinks (e.g, Gatorade, Powerade) and each supports cows milk as a good post-workout drink for both endurance and strength training.

In looking at the chemical make-up of milk, it contains casein and whey protein, carbohydrates, calcium, and a host of vitamins including D and B12. Compare that to Gatorade which is primarily composed of sugary carbohydrates, and already milk is looking pretty good.

But the news gets even better for cows’ milk as a post-exercise beverage:

- Research suggests that proteins in cows’ milk supports greater muscle hypertrophy post exercise than soy-based protein beverages.

- In addition to building more muscle, research has shown milk drinkers to lose almost double the amount of fat of athletes drinking a commercial carbohydrate beverage. Soy-protein drinkers lose no fat.

- One study found that when endurance athletes consumed chocolate milk as a recovery aid between exercise sessions, they were able to work out longer during the second round of exercise compared to when they drank a carbohydrate replacement beverage.

- Researchers have also found milk to be better at restoring hydration than other commonly used post-exercise beverages including water and Powerade

Personally, I’m not sure I can drink enough milk to reap the same benefits that I realize from using a whey protein supplementation, but I like the idea of mixing the whey powder with skim milk and adding a banana for extra carbohydrates, when necessary.

At the end of the day however, in a pinch, milk looks to be a good post-exercise recovery aid and certainly a cost-effective alternative.

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan

www.catapultfitnessblog.com

Gyminee Wins Mashable Open Web Awards - Blogger’s Choice

Posted by Andy - 12/10/08 at 12:12:43 pm

We are pleased to announce that Gyminee has been selected to receive the Blogger’s Choice Open Web Award for 2008.  We were selected as the best in the “Sports and Fitness” category by a panel of over 100 Blog Partners.  The full announcement can be found on the Mashable blog.

The final round voting for the People’s Choice is still in progress.  You can vote for us once per day, per email address by using the following widget:

Voting closes this Sunday night at midnight!  Thanks for your support!

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