Postexercise carbohydrate-protein-antioxidant ingestion decreases plasma creatine kinase and muscle soreness

The authors investigated the effects of postexercise carbohydrate-protein-antioxidant (CHO+P+A) ingestion on plasma creatine kinase (CK), muscle soreness, and subsequent cross-country race performance. Twenty-three runners consumed 10 mL/kg body weight of CHO or CHO+P+A beverage immediately after each training session for 6 d before a cross-country race. After a 21-d washout period, subjects repeated the protocol with the alternate beverage. Postintervention CK (223.21 +/- 160.71 U/L; 307.3 +/- 312.9 U/L) and soreness (medians = 1.0, 2.0) were significantly lower after CHO+P+A intervention than after CHO, despite no differences in baseline measures. There were no overall differences in running performance after CHO and CHO+P+A interventions. There were, however, significant correlations between treatment differences and running mileage, with higher mileage runners having trends toward improved attenuations in CK and race performance after CHO+P+A intervention than lower mileage runners. We conclude that muscle damage incurred during training was attenuated with postexercise CHO+P+A ingestion, which could lead to performance improvements in high-mileage runners.