EndurElite Chief Endurance Officer Matt Mosman discusses two common recovery supplements that may do more harm than good in runners, cyclists, and other endurance athletes.

Video Transcription:

Two Recovery Supplements Endurance Athletes Should Avoid

Would you care for a spot of green tea, my good fellow? Why, yes, and thank you kind sir. By the way, have you heard the one about how green tea can help promote recovery after endurance exercise? Why no, I haven't, kind sir. Well, let me tell you that it's a bunch of balderdash.

Good afternoon EndurElite family of fast. Matt Mosman, the nutrition supplement and endurance guru coming at you today with our endurance fast fact. Now, I apologize ahead of time for the terrible English accent there but I'm American, I like coffee, but green tea is gonna be our topic today, and green tea seems to be a popular drink and a popular supplement, more specifically green tea extract.

And then when I ask people why they take green tea, it goes something like this, "Well, you know, it has a lot of antioxidants and it really cleanses me on a cellular level and it really helps me with my recovery after exercise." Okay. So those first two parts may be true. Without a doubt, green tea extract does have a lot of antioxidants and it does have a lot of health benefits. It can also decrease inflammation after exercise, but I'm going to tell you why this last point is something we want to avoid with and during the exercise and why you should avoid any kind of supplement with green tea extract in it, as more specifically if it's found in a recovery product.

So when we exercise, a tremendous amount of stress is put on our muscles. Cortisol levels raise, muscle protein breakdown happens, and basically, your muscles get the hell beaten out of them and then they want to recovery. So the body goes through a natural process of repair and recovery that involves inflammation, proliferation, and then repair and your muscle is back to good. So when you take green tea extract and why this is a bad idea, this actually minimizes the inflammation process and can lead to negatively impacting adaptations to exercise. Meaning that is gonna affect your gains.

So we want that acute inflammation to occur in the body, to go through the natural repair process, so those adaptations to exercise can be made. Now, if it's chronic inflammation, that's one thing, but acute inflammation through exercise again is something we want the body to go through to get the adaptations from exercise to improve, to run faster, jump higher, things of that nature. So when you take that green tea extract, minimizes the inflammation process and interferes with the body's natural recovery process.

So that is why I would avoid green tea extract, especially after endurance exercise and especially if it's found in a recovery product. Other ingredients or recovery ingredients that I would avoid are tart cherry and then I would also avoid, and some people are really gonna hate me for this, I would avoid any kind of ice bath or cryotherapy after endurance exercise because again this is going to inhibit the body's natural repair process through minimizing inflammation, which we don't want to do.

So that is the down entirety on why I would not recommend green tea extract or other recovery agents, because of how it minimizes the inflammation process. Sorry, I'm sounding like a broken record here but I just can't drive this point home enough. So that is about it for today. If you like this video, head on over to the EndurElite YouTube channel, subscribe, check out the EndurElite blog at www.endurelite.com, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, get social with us. And one last point, if you want to have your tea and biscuits, you save them before your endurance exercise and not after. All right my endurance friends, until next time, stay fueled, stay focused, and stay fast.