Extra benefits from taking REGO immediately after your training sessions

Most people understand that it is important to drink and take on board nutrients after exercise in order to aid recovery, and many athletes are aware of the ‘window of opportunity’. This is the time immediately after exercise where carbohydrates and amino acids are most readily taken into your muscles. Unfortunately this window of opportunity is only open for about 45 minutes. If you wait too long to feed your muscles the chances are that you won’t be benefitting as much. Various studies have shown a positive effect on protein building and carbohydrate energy stores when a carbohydrate-protein drink like REGO was taken immediately after exercise compared to taking it one or more hours later.  Recent evidence also suggests that taking REGO immediately after exercise also helps the immune system.

Bangor University recently performed a study to establish just how significant taking REGO within this window of opportunity is for your immune system.

This study gives some good evidence that REGO can not only replenish your carbohydrate energy stores and start rebuilding your muscles immediately after training but also help your immune system to recover from exercise, especially when you take it immediately after your training sessions. Good advice, therefore, is to make sure you pre-mix your REGO before your session. You can keep it in the fridge, which also chills your drink making it nice and refreshing. If you’re training away from home, it is worth having a sachet and a bottle or protein shaker in your kit bag (or even your car) to make sure you can mix yourself a drink straight away as soon as you have finished your work out.

In this study nine experienced club level endurance runners performed three different exercise tests during which they ran for two hours on a treadmill at an intensity of 75% of their earlier established VO2max. Following one test the participants were given water immediately after their test and again 1 hour later. After another test the participants were given REGO immediately after and water 1 hour after. Finally after another test all participants were given water immediately after and REGO 1 hour after they had completed their exercise. They then rested for 140 minutes during which blood and saliva samples were collected to establish various immune function responses.

One of the responses that were measured was neutrophil degranulation, which indicates the function of the white blood cells. A decrease in white blood cell function, which is often associated with the stress that your body is under following endurance exercise, has been associated with raised infection risk.
All subjects had a decreased level of function of their white blood cells after all of the tests. It was found however that by taking REGO straight away some of these responses settled back to normal values a lot quicker compared to taking REGO 1 hour later or not taking REGO at all.