Eat Almonds Daily for Exercise Recovery
Just two handfuls of almonds can go a long way – eat them daily to help recovery from exercise.
Initial research, funded by Almond Board of California, conducted for 4 weeks among 64 healthy U.S. adults ages 30-65 who are occasional exercisers, found that study participants who ate almonds experienced:
- Reduced fatigue, tension and muscle soreness during muscle recovery
- Increased leg and lower back strength
- Decreased muscle damage during the first day of recovery post-exercise
“What we found tells us definitively that almonds should be added to sports nutrition strategies to help people recover better from exercise,” says David C. Nieman, DrPH, FACSM, Professor and Principal Investigator, Human Performance Laboratory, Appalachian State University. “Almonds are food for fitness. Carbs get most of the attention when it comes to fueling for exercise, but almonds offer a nutrition package, including good unsaturated fats, the antioxidant vitamin E, and proanthocyanidins (a class of polyphenols that are protective compounds in plants) that help explain the beneficial outcomes in our study.” One serving of almonds (28g) has 13 g of good unsaturated fat and only 1 g of saturated fat. More research is needed to determine if the observed findings can be applied to the broader U.S. population.
