Calling all athletes to the dairy aisle

The next time a workout buff asks for recommendations for a sports drink in your store, direct them to the dairy aisle.

A nugget of nutrition knowledge long circulated among health fanatics has now been confirmed by researchers at the University of Maryland.

Their experiments show that drinking a particular chocolate milk gave men doing leg extension workouts a large boost in muscle endurance. Researchers gave 13 non-athletic men one of four recovery beverages to drink after their workout. After four hours, the men repeated their workout. While the participants all recovered the same degree of strength the second time around, those that had drank milk had better muscle endurance.

Compared to commercial sports drinks, a drink made from Jersey and Guernsey cow milk outperformed the former by 13 per cent to 17 per cent. These cows are known to yield milk that has more protein than milk from Holstein cows.

The chocolate milk given to the study participants was high in protein, calcium, vitamin D and electrolytes; it's called Fifth Quarter Fresh.

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