After-Practice Window
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Tomorrow feels better when recovery starts today.
At a Glance
After Practice
What's covered: First Choice, Most Common Miss, If a Meal Is Delayed.
After Practice
First Choice
Within a Couple Hours
Best Window
Carbs + Protein + Fluid
The Pairing
Coach Prompt
Before athletes leave the locker room, ask each one what their recovery snack or meal for tonight is.
Start Here
The couple of hours after practice are the easiest place to improve recovery without overhauling the whole diet.
QUICK START PLAN
First Choice
First Choice
If dinner is close, eat it: a plate with rice or pasta, chicken or beef. A meal covers carbs, protein, and fluid at once
Most Common Miss
Most Common Miss
The later refueling starts Low appetite is a reason to reach for liquids and simplify the snack
If a Meal Is Delayed
If a Meal Is Delayed
A bridge snack buys time until a real meal. Chocolate milk, a PBJ with milk
COACH REFERENCE
Best Window
Within a Couple Hours
The Pairing: Carbs + Protein + Fluid
Use This with Athletes
Real Meal First
Rice or pasta, a protein, and fruit or veg covers everything at once. Get to it within a couple of hours of the last hard rep.
Bridge Snacks
Chocolate milk, PBJ with milk, or yogurt and granola. Pair a carb with a protein, and keep a bottle going alongside.
QUICK RULES
First Choice
A Real Meal Is the Best Recovery There IsIf a Meal Is Delayed
Use a Bridge Snack to Hold the Line Until DinnerMost Common Miss
Do Not Wait Until Bedtime to RefuelBuilt by an RD who coaches · Luke Rodriguez, MS, RDN · Palmer Ridge HS XC
When to use this
The end of a hard practice, when athletes scatter to buses, jobs, and homework before anyone has eaten.
- Late practices where dinner lands well over an hour after the last rep.
- Athletes who train again the next morning and need the tank refilled overnight.
- Building the norm that everyone names a recovery snack before leaving the locker room.
Evidence sources
These references support the handout’s general education. Individual medical, supplement, laboratory, or injury questions should be handled by the appropriate qualified clinician.
- Burke LM, van Loon LJ, Hawley JA. (2017) Postexercise muscle glycogen resynthesis in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, 122(5):1055-1067.
- Alghannam AF, Gonzalez JT, Betts JA.(2018) Restoration of muscle glycogen and functional capacity: Role of post-exercise carbohydrate and protein co-ingestion.
Where to go next
