Maintaining a well-balanced diet that’s full of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as protein sources, legumes, wholegrains and dairy will help ensure that you remain strong and healthy over the years… but if you get a lot of exercise and train hard regularly, it’s essential that you prioritise protein to help support muscle recovery.
Dietary protein is vital for a range of different metabolic activities, as well as supporting hormone synthesis and repairing cells and tissue.
While plant protein contains a lot of the nutrients you need, they do lack some amino acids that you get from animal protein, so if you’re vegan or vegetarian you may want to consider taking some sort of protein supplement to ensure that your muscles, tissues and cells are getting everything they need.
Getting 30g of protein per meal each day will ensure that you are hitting your protein goals and getting all the necessary nutrients to support your exercise and training schedule. When you train, you create microtears in your muscles, so you need to ensure that you get the right amount of protein to help them repair and strengthen themselves.
Breakfast is perhaps the hardest meal of the day to hit this amount of protein, so it might be worth using an app like My Fitness Pal to help you track it initially and work out different ways you can increase the amount of protein you’re getting in the morning.
Interestingly, the time at which you choose to ingest your protein may make a difference to training performance and your specific goals. If, for example, you want to lose weight, you might find it effective to have your protein hit after your workout, whereas if you need an energy boost, you may find it better to eat before you train.
Of course, this adds an extra level of complexity to proceedings and you may not want to overthink it too much. As long as you aim to get 90g of protein per day, you’ll be giving your body the support it needs to keep you fit, strong and healthy.
Even with all this protein, however, you may find that you need additional help when it comes to muscle repair and rehab after exercise. If you need the guidance or advice of a professional physiotherapist at any point, get in touch with the Clear Physio team today.