Juicing For Muscle Recovery

Juicing for muscle recovery is a fairly new gym trend in the natural bodybuilding and healthy slimming world. Post workout, your muscle tissues will be depleted of key nutrients and electrolytes through metabolism and sweating. Especially if you have trained very hard.

After an intense workout at the gym, you will need to supply your body and muscles with the right nutrients for muscle recovery. Theres nothing better than a fresh juice right after you have worked out. If you know the feeling, it is one of refreshment right after you know you’ve hit all those gym targets.

There is something really natural about the feeling and response you get from juicing after the gym or any intense workout. It is all down to your body knowing it is instantly getting the right nutrients and electrolytes it needs.

If you pick the right fresh fruits and vegetables for your juice, you’ll be able to instantly refresh your muscles with the right mixture of antioxidants, vitamins and trace nutrients that they need for recovery. The higher nutrient density the foods have, the healthier the juice will be for you and will also optimise your recovery.

There are more vitamins, minerals and micronutrients in fresh foods compared to cooked ones. Nutrient content degrades throughout a food’s shelf life. Because liquid foods have been mechanically pre-digested, they can in some cases make nutrients more absorbable for your body. This aids healthy muscle recovery.

This is why drinking cold pressed or fresh home-made vegetable or fruit based juices are a superb way to activate your muscle recovery with essential nutrients.

We’ll discuss our favourite juicing recipes for muscle recovery here and how they really help the whole of your body to recuperate.

Juicing For Muscle Recovery: Our Top 3 Juicing Recipes

There are a couple of juicing basics you need to have down before you go to the shops and buy the entire stores worth of fresh vegetables and fruits.

First you need to have a juicer. At present we won’t recommend any, ideally though you want one with a rotational inner blade. We recommend one that is also mains powered. This is because if there is a problem and juice flies around or something you’ll be able to turn the whole thing off immediately.

When the juicer is operating do not stick your fingers in there, as you will have an accident. Make sure the whole system is off first.

Also, there are a lot of fibres in some fruits and vegetables. You’ll need the blender or juicer to have a decent blade in there. The operating speed is also important. The higher the power of the rotational blade the better.

All the top juicers and blenders have high powered motor blades. You’ll also need to clean the juicer afterward. A simple detachable inner blade and juice compartment makes for hand cleaning over the sink.

That’s all the basics covered before we start, lets talk some juicing recipes for muscle recovery.

Intense Antioxidant Burst

Cucumber, Celery, Broccoli, Ginger, Blueberry, Lemon

The core focus on this juice is an ultimate antioxidant juicing drink for muscle recovery, that you can simply assemble from basic supermarket ingredients.

We’ve gone with a lowered sugar juicing drink recipe for those gym and track slimmers. This should encourage healthy cell metabolism and might enhance some of your exercise slimming post workout.  Lower sugar levels and higher blood antioxidant counts are a perfect apoptosis inducing, anticancer cocktail.

Cucumbers and Celery Base

Cucumbers and celery are great way to start a juice. As mentioned above, many nutritionally dense and fresh juices get quite frothy and thick. Especially when there are high amounts of natural plant fibre.

The base of the really good juices should begin with naturally water rich vegetables or fruits. You can also add a small amount of water at the start or end.

If the juicer gets stuck, you’ll have to add some water to assist with the movement of the juicing or blender blade.

You will also need a chopping board and a small kitchen knife for all the juices here.

To start, chop the cucumbers and celery up into fairly small and even slices. Blend these up first to give you and idea of how big the juice will get in the juicer.

Ginger Root

Next you want to add ginger root, you’ll have to cut the outer skin off and cut into finely chopped slices. If you have cut garlic before, it is a very similar process. We would use this sparingly, adding possibly one-half root to begin with.

Ginger root is rich in natural antioxidants, these are going to immediately kick start your whole-body recovery process post work out. Antioxidants will start to neutralize and assist with the metabolic recovery process within your muscle tissues.

Broccoli

Next, you’ll want to add broccoli. Chop three to four florets of broccoli up into smaller chunks and add to the juicer.

We’ve chosen broccoli because it is another low glycemic source of antioxidants. This particular juice is specifically designed for high antioxidant power. A lot of fruits and fruit juices are packed with antioxidants, but also high amounts of fructose sugars. This can lead to a reversal of the weight loss progress and gains you’ve made in the gym.

Broccoli is rich in powerful antioxidants and will stimulate healthy antioxidant powered muscle revitalization and recovery. Top antioxidants within broccoli include vitamin C, α-tocopherol and polyphenols. Broccoli also contains sulforaphane which is a potent antioxidant.

Broccoli also contains natural fibre and this will encourage some probiotic bacterial growth. Healthy gut microbes reduce overall inflammation in the body. These additional prebiotics fibres that you would normally discount provide an added anti-inflammatory boost from nowhere.

Blueberries

Now we will add some blueberries. You don’t need to cut these up at all, just throw them in as they are nice and soft for the juicer. We recommend a handful at least or more.

As the juice builds, pay attention to size of the juice. If there is a high volume of juice in the juicer then make sure not to have the juicer overflowing. You’ll need to adjust and moderate the input amounts based on how big your juicer is.

Blueberries will provide a decent amount of fructose sugars to avoid a bitter taste. The healthy sugar quantities within blueberries will also assist with healthy muscle recovery, your body needs sugar to maintain vital processes.

While the amounts of sugars provided by the blueberries in the juice will not undo all that hard work you’ve done in the gym or on the track. Blueberries will also provide a massive kick in antioxidants to our juice.

Lemons

Cut a lemon into slices and then simply squeeze the inner lemon juice into the blender.

If you really want to up the antioxidant intensity, chop a quarter of a lemon into extremely thin slices after washing thoroughly. Then add these whole slices, with the peel on, into the blender. This last process comes with a tangy warning and that process might not be for everyone.

Crazy Protein Powerhouse

Cucumber, Celery, Pineapple, Peanuts, Whey or Vegetable Alternative Protein Powder, Strawberry, Lemon

Cucumbers and Celery Base

Start with our simple cucumber and celery base. Chop up some cucumbers and celery into medium slices, throw into the juice and whizz away.

This gives your juice some natural water for when it thickens out and look it has been filtered naturally through the soil.

Try to ensure as many of your fruits and vegetables are organic with your juices, for higher quality outcomes.

Pineapple

Next you want to try adding some pineapple chunks. Slice open a pineapple and get to work on the juicer. It is slightly more difficult to whizz up pineapple, but it will blend quite easily if you have the correct blender.

Pineapple contains a specific protein digestion enzyme, called bromelain, that is really going to maximise your amino acid absorption from this cocktail. Bromelain will intercept all the proteins in our crazy protein powerhouse drink and encourage increased active absorption of the liquid amino acids from the get-go.

Pineapples also have healthy sugars in, as well as free radical neutralising antioxidants. For people wanting to build a lot more muscles in a healthy way, you will need to ensure your minimum sugar intake has been met. Pineapple is really ideal to add into any juicing recipe geared towards muscle recovery post work out.

If you want to read more about muscle energy and metabolism, then see this article here about lean muscle gains and BCAAs.

Peanuts

Chop and or crush up half a bag of unsalted peanuts and throw them into the juicer. You might need to whizz them in a couple of times but they will slowly blend into the juice mix, especially with a decent water base. This is why it is best to add them in early on.

Peanuts are rich in branched chain amino acids. These have been thoroughly studied to show the aid optimal muscle growth and development, by stimulating the mTOR cell growth signalling pathway. This is the body’s basic growth induction pathway. Peanuts form an essential part of our protein packed juicing recipe for healthy muscle recovery.

If you want to learn more about the effects of BCAAs on lean muscle growth, then check out our article here.

Protein Powder: Whey Protein or Vegetable Alternative

Next add some whey protein or you can add a suitable vegetable alternative protein powder. This is going to supplement the natural branched chain amino acids from the nuts. You won’t need much, probably a scoop or scoop and a half at most.

The active bromelain in the pineapple will get to work on digesting the protein down in the mixture to aid healthy amino acids absorption from the juice. This is essential to this juicing recipe’s muscle recovery potential.

Especially when weightlifting or running long distances, you will use an incredible amount of amino acids and micronutrients that will need to be replenished. Ensuring a good supply of proteins is essential to healthy muscle recovery.

Strawberry

We added natural unflavoured whey or vegetable alternative protein and our juice flavour is coming from strawberries.

The strawberry contains loads of natural fructose. Strawberries also contain some essential antioxidants. They are natural flavour enhancers. Simply cut up half a pack of strawberries and whizz away in the juicer.

Lemon

The lemon in the crazy protein powerhouse recipe is going to buffer the mixture slightly. Once again as with the last recipe, cut a lemon into slices and then simply squeeze the inner lemon juice into the blender.

Electrolyte Fusion Cocktail

Cucumber, Celery, Kale, Spinach, Wheatgrass, Apricots, Almonds, Banana, Spirulina, Lemon

This is our recipe for an electrolyte fusion cocktail, ready to revitalize your whole body with essential nutrients. Again, these are all low glycemic ingredients or fruits with high amounts of natural sugars to allow for natural and healthy muscle recovery.

The focus with this juicing muscle recovery drink is purely on body electrolyte recovery. Some of these foods should buffer the intake of electrolytes from others too, to give as nutrient dense and even spread of nutrients for the body to absorb.

Cucumbers and Celery Base

Start with our simple cucumber and celery base. Chop up some cucumbers and celery into medium slices, throw into the juice and whizz away.

This should give the juice some natural water for when it thickens out.

Again, try to ensure as many of your fruits and vegetables are organic if you can.

Kale

Wash a small handful of kale and add to the juicer. Kale tastes very bland but contains many important nutrients and is hailed as a nutritional superfood.

Kale contains high levels of calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus and potassium offering a nutrient rich source of body electrolytes.

A little bit of kale to our juicing recipe should help with muscle and body electrolyte recovery.

Spinach

Spinach goes nicely into any juice. Whizz up a handful of washed baby spinach leaves into the juice mix.

Spinach is very rich in iron. The mineral contents of spinach, including iron, will help with improving total red blood cell count and red blood cell formation. Iron will help to supply the muscles with the nutritional reserves they need post workout through improved circulation.

Using spinach in our juicing mixture is therefore going to help with optimum muscle recovery. Spinach also supplies some key electrolytes including calcium, phosphorus and potassium to restore normal body electrolytic balance.

Spinach also has one of the highest oxygen radical absorbances of any vegetable, meaning it has loads of strong antioxidants. This should also support healthy muscle recovery in our juicing recipe.

Wheatgrass

One small spoonful of wheatgrass should be plenty to add to our juicing mix.

This is a particularly nutrient dense food but can be left out if the juice mixture looks a bit bulky. It is also not the easy to find and can be expensive. However, wheatgrass offers excellent nutritional value.

Wheatgrass is rich in iron, calcium and magnesium which will help to restore electrolytes lost and used up during muscle metabolism.

Apricots

Next, we will throw in a handful of dried apricots.

These fruits are rich in antioxidants, natural sugars and basic electrolytes found in the body. They are an excellent post exercise recovery food to add to a juice mix. Apricots are an excellent source of phosphorus, selenium, calcium and potassium.

Phosphorus, calcium and potassium are all major electrolytes. Apricots will help the body replenish the electrolyte reserves that have been exhausted through exercise.

Almonds

Almonds can also be blended if you carefully crush them first. We would add about a handful of crushed almonds to the juicing blender.

Almonds are very rich in some key nutrients including magnesium, healthy fats, proline and vitamin E.

Vitamin E and proline both contribute to elastic and nice-looking skin. Proline improves skin protein synthesis and vitamin E acts as an essential antioxidant in the body.

Magnesium is a key electrolyte in the body, being needed for optimal muscle movements and signalling. Almonds will help to restore electrolytes lost by the body through exercising.

Banana

Potassium is an essential electrolyte important for day-to-day cell functioning. Most people are deficient in potassium too. We will add one banana to the juice mixture. Simple peal a banana and add to this juice for an extra dose of potassium.

Bananas are also rich in sodium and healthy fructose sugars. Sodium is also a key electrolyte for the body that needs to be restored after exercise. Bananas contain magnesium, manganese and phosphorus too. These will also encourage healthy muscle recovery with juicing.

Spirulina

Spirulina can be a bit trickier to find compared to the other fruits and vegetables in our nutrient rich juices here for healthy muscle recovery. Simply whizz up a spoonful into our juice mixture.

You might need to go to a health foods or specialist store to obtain spirulina. Spirulina powder comes as a green coloured powder and is an ancient cyanobacterium.

Spirulina is one of our favourite nutritionally dense foods, packed with minerals and vitamins. There is also a healthy level of iodine in spirulina, contributing to overall body electrolyte balance post exercise.

Spirulina will replenish many body electrolytes and nutrients used up in the muscle during your workout, without adding unhealthy sugars. Some of these include iron, manganese and copper.

Lemon

A dash of lemon is going to be our buffer for this juice mix. Once again as with the last recipe, cut your lemon into slices and simply squeeze the lemon juice into the blender with the other ingredients.

As mentioned previously, you can also cut a bit of the lemon from the peel and whizz this in as well.

Conclusion

Juicing is an innovative and healthy way to promote muscle recovery post workout.

When you workout you use up key nutrients and resources that need to be efficiently replaced, ideally with nutrient rich or dense foods for muscle recovery.

Fresh fruits and vegetables contain high levels of antioxidants and electrolytes that will help the healthy recovery of muscles post workout. They contain essential macro and micronutrients that can easily revitalize the body’s reserves in a nutrient dense fresh juice.

Juicing can optimise and provide many of the essential nutrients needed for optimal muscle recovery.

Secondary plant compounds within fresh juices will also promote other whole body health benefits too. For example, bromelain in pineapples will optimise amino acid digestion and absorption. These compounds can also help with muscle recovery.

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