In adult athletes, what is the effect of consuming carbohydrate on carbohydrate and protein-specific metabolic responses and/or exercise performance during recovery?

 Question that was asked to me: In adult athletes, what is the effect of consuming carbohydrate on carbohydrate and protein-specific metabolic responses and/or exercise performance during recovery?

My Response-

Myself as a former athlete/football player can say first hand that carbohydrates and protein is the absolute best thing for you hands down for recovery as well as energy during and after a workout. Increased dietary carbohydrate intake in the days before competition increases muscle glycogen levels and enhances exercise performance in endurance events lasting up to 90 min or more. This is called carb loading which is something I do very often which I felt helped me maximize my ability on the field and in the weight room. Ingestion of carbohydrates 3 to 4 hours before an exercise or competitive sporting event can increase liver and muscle glycogen and enhance the athletes endurance and exercise performance. There is a crazy amount of evidence which shows that consuming protein pre- and or post-workout can have  a significant rise in muscle protein synthesis or muscle rebuilding. It should be noted however that total daily caloric and protein intake over the long term play the most crucial dietary roles in allowing your body to really adapt to the exercise under these new diet intake. However, once these factors are accounted for, it appears that particularly in the post-training period it can really play a potentially very very useful role in terms of optimizing physical performance and positively influencing the recovery processes for both resistance training and endurance exercise as well as strength training that you would be doing as an athlete in any sport. Factors that affect the utility of pre- or post-workout feeding or carb loading include but are not really limited to the training status of the individual whether they be a beginner, advanced, recreational or competitive athlete, the duration of exercise, the number of training sessions per day, the number of competitive events per day and it goes on and on. From a purely practical standpoint, consuming protein post-workout represents an opportunity to feed the muscles which in turn contributes to one's total daily energy and protein intake. In addition, despite recent suggestions or opinions of others that one does not “need” to consume protein during the immediate 1 hour or less post-training time frame for maximum muscle rebuilding, it should be emphasized big time that consuming nothing offers no advantage and perhaps even a disadvantage to your overall recovery as well as even hurt you in the day to come in the performance of whatever it may be. Therefore what I am trying to say is that it is crucial and definitely very beneficial for your body as well as your overall performance to try and maintain a create carb to protein ratio to get the maximum recover as well as performance in your everyday activity whether that be lifting, a sport, or even just doing an everyday hands on back breaking job so that you can perform at the time very great with the energy you need as well as get the recover post whatever it is to maximize your muscle rebuilding.