Accelerade during Cycling Boosts Recovery
The laboratory of Michael Saunders at James Madison University has produced a number of excellent studies comparing the effects of carb-protein sports drinks and conventional sports drinks on endurance performance, muscle damage and recovery. In their newest study, published in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metablism, Saunders' team tried to shed more light on how carb-protein sports drinks such as Accelerade achieve their advantages.
In this study, the authors compared the effects of Accelerade, flavored water, and carbohydrate sports drinks matched for carbohydrate content and total calories on endurance and markers of muscle tissue disruption during exhaustive cycling. Eleven cyclists completed four rides to exhaustion--one with each treatment--at 75 percent of VO2peak. The subjects were not aware of which beverage their were consuming in each trial. The average time to exhaustion was longest when the subjects drank Accelerade, followed by the high-carb sports drink, then the moderate-carb sports drink and then flavored water. Markers of muscle tissue disruption were significantly lower after the Accelerade trial than after all of the other trials. In addition, subjects were able to perform a significantly more leg extensions 24 hours after the carb-protein trial than after the other trials.
Based on these results, the authors of the study concluded, "These findings suggest that at least some of the reported improvements in endurance with carbohydrate-protein beverages might be related to caloric differences between treatments. Postexercise improvements in markers of muscle disruption with carbohydrate-protein ingestion appear to be independent of carbohydrate and caloric content and were elicited with beverages consumed only during exercise." |
