The Reason Behind the P90X Recovery Drink

There are a lot of questions about the P90X Recovery Drink. People want to know if they really need it. Why is there so much sugar in it? Isn’t all that sugar bad for you? Can’t I just use a protein drink? Etc. These are frankly all good questions, so I put together a discussion of the science behind recovery drinks in general

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic Exercise

I previously discussed this issue when I talked about heart rates. To quickly summarize though, aerobic exercise is when you are exercising below 80% of your maximum heart rate. At this level, you are basically doing what most people consider cardio exercise. You are using oxygen to create energy. You will be able to talk and exercise at the same time.

With aerobic exercise, you are primarily using fat as your energy supply. Think of carbs as the kindling to get the fat, which are the logs, burning.

With anaerobic exercise, your heart rate is above 80%, and you are using carbs as your primary, and possibly only, energy source.

Carbs Are Only Stored In Muscle

The heading isn't totally accurate, but mostly accurate. For the purposes of muscle energy, carbs, specifically glucose and glycogen, are stored in muscle for immediate anaerobic energy needs, as well as the kindling for burning fat. While it is safe to assume that a person has a virtually unlimited supply of fat, they have a very limited supply of carbs.

The amount of carbs stored in the muscle varies by the individual, however the average person should have about an hour’s worth of carbs available for anaerobic exercise.

Carb Crashes

You might have heard of a carb crash, where an athlete collapses during exercise. You might see a marathon runner or triathlete just collapse. Someone lifting weights might just sit down and pass out. This is because they ran out of sugar to power their muscles. Also, the brain runs primarily on carbs, so this is why they are incoherent as well.

This is why they provide Gatorade or similar drinks only during longer runs or competitions. While distance athletes are engaged in aerobic workouts, if they go on long enough without taking in any carbs, they will eventually run out. This is also why someone doing P90X or Insanity may become weak or nauseous during a workout.

P90X and Insanity Deplete Your Carbs

Insanity’s interval training has you workout anaerobically for extended periods of time. P90X is essentially circuit weight training, which means that you are in an anaerobic state for long periods of time as well. All of this means that you are burning up the sugar/carbs in your muscles for an hour or more at a time. This is why Tony Horton and Shaun T sometimes recommend that you have recovery drink during your workout; to replace the burned up carbs. If you have a very hard workout, you might burn up your carbs even before they hour.

This is Why You Need Carbs/Sugar

When you look at the ingredients of the P90X Recovery Formula, you find that it has 39 gms of sugar. The reason for all of the sugar is that simple sugar is quickly absorbed into the blood, and can quickly replenish the burned up sugar in the muscles. If you don’t replace the sugars, you will drag, and also be slightly mentally impaired until your body breaks down stored fat into sugar. Breaking down fat takes a relatively long time.

Protein Drinks are Not Good for Recovery

As you can see, you need carbs for recovery, not protein. Protein is in the P90X Recovery Drink as it is absorbed later and does help with muscle building and repair. However, protein is absorbed in the small intestines, and it takes about 30 minutes before the protein is absorbed into your blood. Either way, it will not replace the carbs in your muscles will not satisfy your immediate energy needs. Protein has its place in muscle repair, but not as a recovery drink itself.

Even more important is that studies indicate that when you have a lot of carbs within 2 hours of working out, it increases your glycogen synthesis and storage. This means that you will be able to workout longer and harder in future workouts.

Recovery Drinks Fill The Purpose

While the P90X Recovery Drink is built into the P90X Nutrition Plan, you don’t necessarily need it after every workout. If the workout is not strenuous, then you can skip the recovery drink. I would say that if you are going to look at alternatives to the P90X drink, you need to make sure you are looking are making the right comparisons. For example, some recovery drinks advertise 30 servings for $30. However, they only have servings of 110 calories, so it is actually $30 for 15 servings since the P90X recovery drink has 220 calorie servings to adhere to the P90X Nutrition Plan.

Your Heart Rate Questions Simplified

Questions about target heart rates are common with P90X and especially Insanity. Shaun T frequently tells people to check their heart rate and to make sure it’s safe, whatever that means. This blog intends to clear up the common questions about heart rates and their effects on exercise.

If you have a short attention span, and don’t care about why, the most important thing to remember is that your body is the best heart rate monitor. Your body will tell you when you need to stop or slow down. That being said, the rest of this article explains this and discusses the broader concepts.

Max Heart Rate

In theory, your body has a maximum heart rate, which is the fastest that heart can theoretically beat. The common estimate for max heart rate is 220-your age. So if you are 20 years old, your max heart rate is 220-20 or 200 beats per minute. If you are 30 years old, your max heart rate is 190. If you are 40, your max heart rate is 180 and so on. This again is just the widely accepted estimate formula of max heart rate. To actually get your maximum heart rate, you have to go to a lab and have your max VO2 measured, where they put a hose in your mouth to measure what's in your breath, and you run on a treadmill to see at what heart rate you stop burning fat.

Biology 101-Your Body Stores Fat, But Not a Lot of Carbs

Before I go on, I should cover a basic, seemingly unrelated, issue. As people know well, your body stores energy as excess fat. Your body does not store any extra protein, and stores a limited supply of carbs, as simple sugar and glycogen, for immediate muscle and brain needs. The average person has about an hour’s worth of carbs stored in their muscles for very hard exercise. If you eat a lot of sugar, insulin converts it to fat as quickly as it can for storage for future needs. If you eat a lot of protein, it too is inevitably converted fat for storage. You will see why this fact is important shortly.

Target Exercise and Heart Rate Zones

Really the discussion about heart rates is irrelevant except as it impacts your exercise. Specifically, there is Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise zones. Aerobic exercise is when your body uses fat as your primary energy source, and Anaerobic exercise where sugar is your primary energy source. Heart rate is what drives your body from Aerobic to Anaerobic exercise zones. Briefly, when your heart beats faster, you move from Aerobic to Anaerobic exercise zones.

Aerobic Exercise

The aerobic exercise range is generally considered when your heart is beating from 60-80% of your max heart rate. So if you are 20 years old, and your max heart rate is 200, your aerobic range is 120-160 beats per minute. This is the range where your body is theoretically burning primarily fat for energy.

You still need carbs to get the process going, but during aerobic exercise, you burn about 80% fat and 20% carbs. Think of carbs as the kindling wood to get a fire going. Given that you have a virtually unlimited fat supply, and are burning carbs slowly, you can exercise for a long period of time.

You can use a heart rate monitor, but the best test is seeing if you can talk while you exercise. If you are exercising aerobically, you should be able to talk while exercising.

Anaerobic Exercise

If you are exercising above 80% of your max heart rate, you are theoretically in your anaerobic range. This means that your body is using sugar, aka carbs, as your primary energy source. When you are in the anaerobic range, you will be breathing heavily and you won’t be able to talk while you exercise. You may be gasping for breath.

The place where you potentially run into a problem with anaerobic exercise, is that as your body has a limited supply of carbs, you can run out of carbs. If you exercise anaerobically for an extended period of time, you can run out of carbs and experience a carb crash. However as was stated, you have about an hour’s worth of carbs in your body, and if you are doing Insanity or P90X, you should be ok.

It is Still Better to Exercise Anaerobically

While most people naturally assume that it is better to burn fat instead of carbs, you still burn more calories in the anaerobic range. The faster your heart rate, the more calories you burn. It is that simple. If you want to burn calories, and push your body to its limits, anaerobic exercise is more effective even though you are not burning as much fat. Your body will begin to convert fat to carbs for energy.

What This Means for Insanity

While it may be controversial, I recommend that people skip the heart rate monitor, and let their body be their monitor. If you are “Digging Deeper!” you will be in the anaerobic range for most of the program. If you try to stay in the aerobic range, you will likely stop every 20 seconds and have to wait for another 20 seconds and barely get a workout in. Insanity wants you to go all out and do it perfectly and stop when you lose your form. That means you need to ignore your heart rate and listen to your body. Of course this assumes that you have a healthy heart, but you shouldn’t be doing Insanity if you don’t.

What This Means for P90X

P90X is very similar to Insanity in most ways. P90X is essentially circuit weight training, which will keep your heart rate in the anaerobic range for much of the workout. There is however more rest during the workouts than with Insanity, so you can sustain the workouts for longer periods of time. You won’t have to worry about your heart rate with Yoga, and you will likely be in the aerobic range for Kenpo X and Cardio X. During Plyo X, you will likely be in anaerobic range for a good portion of the time.

Just in Case

If you do find that you begin to feel lightheaded, develop a halo vision, or become weak during an anaerobic workout, you may be suffering from a carb crash. If that happens, you should take a break and have some recovery drink. This again assumes that you are otherwise healthy and well hydrated. Again, as the workouts always say, you should see a doctor if you have any problems.

Don’t Worry About It

The human race was exercising long before the advent of heart rate monitors, and we seemed to do fine before that. I just don’t want P90X and Insanity to start looking like a 1990s aerobics class, where everyone stops every 5 minutes to check their heart rate and wait until their heart rate goes down. Their hour workouts ended up being 30 minutes, and results went down. Unless you have your Max VO2 measured, you are really just guessing anyway. Just learn to trust your body and you will be fine.