Document Type

Article

Department or Administrative Unit

Nutrition Exercise and Health Sciences

Publication Date

12-20-2013

Abstract

Dietary flavanols have been associated with reduced oxidative stress, however their efficacy in promoting recovery after exercise induced muscle damage is unclear. This study examined the effectiveness of acute consumption of cocoa-flavanols on indices of muscle recovery including: subsequent exercise performance, creatine kinase, muscle tenderness, force, and self-perceived muscle soreness. Eight endurance-trained athletes (VO2max 64.4 ± 7.6 mL/kg/min) completed a downhill running protocol to induce muscle soreness, and 48-h later completed a 5-K (kilometer) time trial. Muscle recovery measurements were taken at PRE, 24 h-POST, 48 h-POST, and POST-5K. Participants consumed 1.0 g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight of a randomly assigned beverage (CHOC: 0 mg flavanols vs. CocoaCHOC: 350 mg flavanols per serving) immediately after the downhill run and again 2 h later. The same protocol was repeated three weeks later with the other beverage. An ANOVA revealed no significant difference (p = 0.97) between trials for 5 K completion time (CHOC 1198.3 ± 160.6 s, CocoaCHOC 1195.5 ± 148.8 s). No significant difference was found for creatine kinase (CK) levels (p = 0.31), or muscle soreness (p = 0.21) between groups over time. These findings suggest that the acute addition of cocoa flavanols to low-fat chocolate milk offer no additional recovery benefits.

Comments

This article was originally published Open Access in Nutrients. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.

Journal

Nutrients

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Rights

© 2013 by the authors.

Download
Contact Author

Share

COinS