Is milk useful for triathletes?

Ahh! Humble milk! You may heard about athletes drinking milk after a hard session, maybe paired with a banana for a classic post-exercise combo.

But is it beneficial for triathletes and should it form part of their diet? In this article we’ll run through whether milk is useful for triathletes and in what scenarios.

Milk is full of the big 3 - carbohydrates, protein and fat. Although depending on what variant of milk you buy there will be more or less of each of those. But it’s also got some calcium in it, some sodium and Vitamin B12.

That’s a pretty ace combo and puts milk in quite a unique spot as a natural product.

Milk for recovery from endurance exercise

So first of all let’s talk about recovery from exercise as this is the area of milk that has the most sports nutrition research.

In terms of recovery from endurance training, milk’s combination of nutrients makes it a good go to. The carbohydrates in it help you to replenish your muscle glycogen stores, which is your body’s carb stores in your muscle, which helps you to refuel for future training.

The protein in it helps to promote regeneration and repair of your muscle tissue, which we’ll talk a little bit more about later. 

The sodium in milk helps with rehydration after a workout which is also pretty cool.

A meta-analysis investigated chocolate milk as recovery from exercise and found that chocolate milk was as good as other recovery drinks on the market, and better than a placebo. They did say that they wanted more, high quality research in the future to make certain of their findings (which is a pretty common suggestion by the way), but I think the results so far and nutrient profile of milk make it a pretty good recovery drink from endurance exercise.

The meta-analysis investigated at chocolate milk because the chocolate component added more carbohydrates, so it was a better mix of carbohydrate and protein. And added chocolate? Well okay!

Milk for recovery from resistance training

In order for your muscles to repair, grow stronger and better, we have to provide them with nutrients to do this - we want something called muscle protein synthesis to occur. Protein, and amino acids which make up the proteins, is the backbone of that, and milk certainly has plenty of them.

Cow’s milk contains whey protein, and we know that whey protein is great at stimulating muscle growth as this has been shown plenty of times over, and milk as a vessel for the whey protein seems to work equally as well.

So milk after a weight training session is also not a bad idea for triathletes as it contains enough protein to stimulate muscle growth, so whether it’s recovery after endurance exercise or looking for them muscle gains, it seems a pretty good choice.

Milk during exercise

In terms of milk as a ‘during exercise’ supplement for longer endurance training, personally I wouldn’t really recommend it. There are other, better options which focus just on carbohydrates, which is what you need. I have done a video on YouTube which covers how to fuel multiple workouts in one day if you’re interested.

Milk for extra calories

If you’re struggling with calories in a day as an athlete, milk could be a great option for you too. You can create milkshakes or smoothies, or just drink it on it’s own, and it’s a cheap and easy way to get in some calories.

The final say:

As we’ve gone through in this article, milk is actually a great tool for athletes.

The studies that investigated milk mostly used a 500ml serving and I would say that’s a good amount so that you get enough calories and enough carbs and protein from it.

Semi-skimmed or skimmed milk is the way forward as although fat is good for us in the right amounts it’s not really our goal macronutrient here. Chocolate milk is likely better than non chocolate milk if your aim is recovery from hard or extended workouts because it has more carbohydrates in it, which helps to replace your body’s carbohydrate stores.

And in terms of the when to have milk - go for immediately after exercise.