ITRC: Recovery Redux

To build lean, powerful, rock-hard muscle, you must lift weights with intensity. But you already know that. You also need to give your body a constant supply of proteins, carbohydrates and good fats throughout the day. Weight training stimulates muscle growth and strength increases, while the combination of proteins, carbs and fats fuels your body with the energy and the tools it needs to accelerate the process.

Whether you’ve been lifting weights consistently for a only a few months or many years, you’ve no doubt learned that building muscle isn’t always as easy it should be’but it seems to be practically effortless for a select few people in your gym. They’re the lucky ones, the people who don’t seem to be overly dedicated yet make consistent progress.

While exercise routines may vary, most people train hard enough to bring about significant gains in muscle and strength. So why, then, doesn’t everyone progress at the same rate? Of course genetics plays a part, but your genetic blueprint for building muscle is beyond your control. A more important factor has to do with recuperation’specifically how fast or how slowly you recover and rebuild from hard weight-training sessions. The faster you recover, the faster you’ll increase your muscle mass and strength.

Here’s how it works: The faster you recover from training sessions, the more often you can train’without overtraining. If you maximize every training session, turning it into an anabolic experience, you’ll gain muscle and strength after every one.

It sounds good, right? Speed up your recuperation time, and chiseled muscle mass combined with constant strength increases will logically follow. But’and it’s a big but’you have to recover fully every time. If you don’t, your subsequent workouts (no matter how much effort you expend) can actually be counterproductive, setting off a catabolic process. It’s the primary reason training on its own is not enough to guarantee muscle gains.

So the key is complete recovery as quickly as possible, and once again genetics plays a part. Again, there’s not much you can do about it, but, fortunately, there is a way to get the most out of what you’ve got. It is within your power to greatly increase your body’s ability to recover rapidly and completely from the muscle breakdown that occurs during hard training. That puts you in charge of your muscle-building destiny.

The most important factor in recovering from intense training is to maximize the anabolic window with specific postworkout nutrition. You’re probably saying to yourself, ‘That’s nothing new. I eat after my workouts.’ Well, the secret to faster recovery is understanding exactly what to eat and when to eat after training. If you’re really serious about building the physique of your dreams, it’s not enough simply to eat haphazardly at some point after training. You have to be as committed to your postworkout nutrition as you are to the workout itself. Despite how obvious that may seem, you’ll find very few serious bodybuilders who adhere to that vital principle of muscle growth. If you want more muscle and strength, you have to make the commitment, right now, to follow the simple guidelines for postworkout nutrition. When and what you eat’or, more specifically, drink’after training, can make or break you in the battle to build ripped muscle mass.

The anabolic window is the period immediately following an intense weight-training session. It’s open for only a short time, about 45 minutes. Ideally, you should eat something within 10 to 30 minutes after training’the sooner, the better.

Understand that the anabolic window opens up completely only if you train extremely hard. A half-assed workout is like Pee-Wee Herman struggling to open a window’and barely getting it to budge. A hardcore workout is like the Hulk ripping the window out of the frame. One gets the job done, the other has no effect.

Most of the time protein synthesis is like street racing with high-octane fuel, but when you open up the anabolic window, it’s like you switched on the nitrous for supercharged power. Your body can absorb protein more quickly and completely than at any other time. That means optimized protein synthesis, which leads to rapid gains in muscle mass and the resulting strength increases.

Taking advantage of the anabolic window by drinking the perfect postworkout recovery drink is a failsafe way to increase muscle mass and strength levels. Failing to do so is the equivalent of getting a hockey puck 10 feet from an empty net and instead of shooting it, waiting for the defenseman to come and slide tackle you into oblivion.

It seems obvious when you think about it in those terms. Of course you’d score. Too often, however, people train very hard and then don’t finish the job’they don’t immediately deliver the protein and nutrients they need to maximize the muscle-building potential of their hard workouts. It’s such a common, glaring mistake, and it probably bears more responsibility for the lack of muscular progress among trainees than all the other reasons combined.

ALLSo what is the perfect postworkout meal? Do you just eat real food like chicken breasts, steak, potatoes and rice’the staples of the bodybuilder’s diet? Those are all great, but the problem with solid foods is that you don’t absorb and digest them quickly enough. Plus, it can be a pain to prepare the food, and even at a restaurant you have to wait, which can cause you to miss the anabolic window entirely. That’s why bodybuilders have used protein powders and meal replacements for years’and with great success. Simply by mixing a drink containing protein, carbs and fats, they took advantage of the anabolic window.

So is the answer to drink a meal replacement after training? Well, if you want to settle for 20th-century technology, you can do that, but if you’re really serious about using the latest, cutting-edge 21st-century formula for the fastest gains possible, you’ll want to learn about the most revolutionary postworkout recovery product ever developed.

As mentioned above, weight training increases protein synthesis by up to 100 percent, which means your body is twice as efficient at absorbing protein after training sessions. So simply by working out, you cause your body to absorb protein better. High levels of the anabolic hormone insulin will further increase protein synthesis, as will amino acids taken after workouts. (That’s why many top pro and amateur bodybuilders have used insulin injections after training in recent years.)

Weight training, high insulin levels and high levels of amino acids, specifically glutamine and arginine, will practically guarantee incredible protein synthesis, which in turn will result in rapid recovery and muscular gains. The ideal postworkout recovery drink goes far beyond the basic formulas and ingredients found in meal replacements. It’s called RecoverX, by Muscle-Link, and each serving provides 40 grams of whey protein (which is quickly and easily absorbed), 10 grams of glutamine peptides (the most abundant amino acid in muscle), two grams of arginine and 60 grams of carbs, specifically formulated to cause an insulin spike to quickly drive the protein and amino acids into the muscle cells.

The carbs are also transported into the muscle to replenish glycogen storage, which was diminished during training. So you get the necessary nutrients for muscle repair and growth (proteins and aminos) along with the delivery system (carbs), which also increases muscle fullness.

As an added benefit RecoverX provides 100 milligrams of the potent anabolic compound methoxyisoflavone. Over the past few years many so-called anabolic supplements have come and gone, but methoxyisoflavone has proven its effectiveness as a safe nonsteroidal anabolic that helps increase muscle tissue, improve endurance and decrease fat stores. If that weren’t enough, methoxyisoflavone has powerful anticatabolic properties because it can nullify the effects of cortisol.

When you train hard, your body releases cortisol in response to stress. Cortisol is supposed to protect your body, but, unfortunately, it’s catabolic and is counterproductive to muscle growth. You can’t stop cortisol release, but methoxyisoflavone will lower cortisol levels and minimize its catabolic effects.

Think about it. If you want more muscle, you have to train with weights, recover quickly after training and synthesize protein efficiently. You already know how to train hard, and, fortunately, it’s possible to increase insulin levels using carbs, without resorting to injecting insulin (which, incidentally, is very dangerous). Not until the introduction of RecoverX, though, was the problem of maximizing the anabolic window ever addressed.

This amazing drink combines fast-acting whey protein, some of it hydrolyzed for even faster absorption, with the specific carbs that stimulate the release of insulin. Plus, it’s fortified with high levels of amino acids. RecoverX practically eliminates the recuperation dilemma while simultaneously maximizing anabolic activity. Slow recovery and limited gains are finally a thing of the past’and the creamy orange flavor is absolutely delicious.

Now that you understand how critical the anabolic window is in your quest for ripped muscle mass and incredible strength, you need to add RecoverX to your supplement arsenal. You’ll feel your body recovering from workouts much faster almost from the first day, and within as few as five days you’ll notice muscular changes.

During your first month of using RecoverX, those changes will add up to significant improvements in your overall lean mass. You’ll actually see a big difference when you look in the mirror’and everyone else in your gym will notice it as well. Your strength will also likely go up, to the point where you shatter every personal-best lift you’ve set. When you use RecoverX over the next few months, and beyond, the gains will just keep on coming.

Editor’s note: To get RecoverX at the best prices, call 1-800-667-4626 or order online at Home-Gym.com. IM