Sour Cherry Recovery Shake
Tart cherry, banana, and whey blended thin and cold, made to be drunk in the half hour after a hard session.
Why it works
Two separate jobs after hard training: replacing what you used and calming what you damaged. The carbohydrate from cherry and banana restocks muscle glycogen, and having protein alongside it speeds that up beyond what carbohydrate alone manages. Roughly 25 to 30 g of a fast-digesting protein like whey is where the muscle-building response levels off in most adults. The cherry is not just flavour: tart cherry has repeated small trials showing reduced muscle soreness and faster strength recovery after hard eccentric work, which is thought to come from its anthocyanins damping the inflammatory response. Deliberately blended thin, because after hard exercise you are usually dehydrated and a thick shake is the last thing you want.
Tart cherry for muscle soreness and recovery has several small randomized trials with consistent modest effects. Post-exercise protein and carbohydrate for glycogen resynthesis is well established.
Ingredients
- 240 ml unsweetened tart cherry juice
- 180 ml cold water
- 1 frozen banana (about 110 g)
- 30 g unflavoured or vanilla whey protein powder
- Pinch of sea salt
- 4 to 6 ice cubes
Method
- Pour the liquid into the blender first, then add the soft ingredients, then anything frozen or hard on top. Blending in that order keeps the blades in liquid instead of spinning against a frozen block.
- The salt replaces some of what you sweated out and, oddly, makes the cherry taste more like cherry rather than salty.
- Blend on low until it breaks up, then on high for 45 to 60 seconds, until no flecks remain and the texture is even.
- Taste and adjust: a splash more liquid if it is too thick to pour, a squeeze of citrus if it tastes flat, a few more ice cubes if you want it colder.
- Drink it soon after blending. The texture separates within about ten minutes, and the colour dulls as the cut surfaces oxidise.
