Optimize Your Mountain Bike Recovery With Nutrition
By Kristy L. Richardson, MS, MPH, RD, CSSD, CHES
Did you know that adjusting the timing and nutrient composition of your meals after your MTB training can increase your energy, enhance your ability to gain muscle mass and improve your mountain bike performance in subsequent workouts and on race day?
The 2 hour Window
Your body has an enhanced ability to replenish muscle glycogen stores (one of your main fuel sources during workouts) and repair muscle tissue during the 2 hours following your MTB training. In order to optimize recovery, make sure to consume a recovery snack within 30 minutes of your mountain bike workout, and a real meal within 2 hours. The recovery snack and real meal should include carbohydrates and protein. When choosing sports drinks, energy bars or other recovery foods, look for a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein.
Here are a few mountain bike recovery recommendations for sports drinks, energy bars and other foods:
Recovery Drinks
- Low fat milk, chocolate milk or soy milk
- Recovery shake made with milk/yogurt, fruit & 1 scoop of whey protein
- Light Muscle Milk or Light Myoplex with a banana
- Endurox R4
Recovery Bars
- Kashi Go Lean
- Luna
- Powerbar Harvest
- Clif
- Balance or Zone Bar with a banana
Other Convenient Recovery Foods
- Low fat yogurt or cottage cheese & fruit
- Sandwich containing lean meats or peanut butter
- Lean Ole’ frozen burrito from Costco
- BRC burrito from El Pollo Loco
Recovery nutrition is most important following:
- Intense MTB training longer than 90 minutes with less than 24 hours of recovery
- Intense resistance training with the goal of increasing muscle mass
With proper recovery after each MTB training session, you’ll feel stronger, less fatigue, have more energy, and be ready to tackle your next mountain bike venture.
Kristy L. Richardson is a Registered Dietitian & Exercise Physiologist for OC Nutrition, which offers sports nutrition counseling services over the phone, or in person in Newport Beach, Irvine, Orange, Anaheim Hills, Chino, Glendora and Long Beach.
Tagged with: energy bars • mountain bike nutrition • mountain bike recovery • mtb nutrition • Performance Nutrition • Post Workout Recovery • recovery drinks • sports drinks • sports recovery • sports recovery foods
Filed under: Performance Nutrition
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
I like cliff bars, but it feels like over the past few years their recipe has been changing to add more and more sweetening syrup to them. It is making them unpalatable.
Less fatigue and more energy are definitely what I am striving for! I am mindful of my nutrition before hitting the road but this information on recovery nutrition will be very useful. Thank you!
Our body is a wonderful machine that was designed to maintain itself as long as it is not exposed to too many stressors, can get as much downtime (rest) as it can and be fueled with the proper nutrition.
I love soy milks so this is great news for me. The peanut butter sandwich is also one of my favorite snacks. This is totally awesome because I can enjoy my snack while regaining my strength for my workouts.