{"id":260275,"date":"2017-06-12T14:30:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T21:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=260275"},"modified":"2025-10-05T05:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T12:16:18","slug":"chocolate-milk-just-kids-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/chocolate-milk-just-kids-drink\/","title":{"rendered":"Chocolate Milk: It’s More Than Just a Kid’s Drink"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dylan Evangelista, Swimming World College Intern<\/em><\/p>\n

There are specific reasons why competitive swimmers and athletes alike\u00a0incorporate chocolate milk into their daily diet, and it’s not just due to the delicious taste.<\/p>\n

Chocolate milk has become an essential part to swimmer’s success in the pool in the way that it acts as both a performance enhancer, and a recovery aid. The basis in this comes from the idea that chocolate milk has an ideal ratio of carbs to protein, which helps delver protein to damaged muscle tissue.<\/p>\n

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Photo Courtesy: IU Research<\/p>\n

As the athletic world has become more and more competitive, the standards\u00a0of training have risen on a global scale. In today’s world it is fairly common\u00a0for athletes to train twice a day, leaving a very small window for recovery time.<\/p>\n

If you can’t train well, you can’t perform well. The need for an athlete to recover nutritionally has grown immensely with the changes made in training intensity.<\/p>\n

Joel Stager,<\/strong> lead researcher at the School of Public Health at Indiana University has studied nutrition treatments for swimmers while utilizing water, sports drinks, and chocolate milk. Stager explained that,<\/p>\n

“Consistently, the chocolate milk treatments always outperformed the other two treatments. The differences between the treatments for say a 200 yard swim is about two seconds, which is actually pretty large when you’re talking about competitive swimming.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aside from the fact that the carbohydrate to protein ratio is ideal, chocolate milk is also palatable, easy for the body to digest and absorb, and it contains the nutrients the muscles need in order to exercise.<\/p>\n

While recovery is important in all aspects of exercise, it is even more so with a workout like swimming.<\/p>\n

Swimming is an anaerobic activity, meaning that there is a constant absence of oxygen to the muscles. While in the pool, your body is pulling resources from itself in order to perform what you\u2019re asking it to do. Your muscles are doing all kinds of work to propel you through the\u00a0water.<\/p>\n

It’s common knowledge to understand that your body needs recovery help after a workout, especially if you\u2019re going to work out again the same day. Your muscles are worn out from constant activity and a lack of oxygen, and they need protein to rebuild.<\/p>\n

From a more scientific standpoint, the glycogen (energy) in your muscles needs to be filled back up. The sodium, potassium and water you lost while you were sweating during your workout needs to be replenished as well.<\/p>\n

So why chocolate milk?<\/p>\n

The reason chocolate milk has grown to become\u00a0such a popular and powerful recovery drink for elite swimmers and other athletes is that it provides all of the components mentioned above. For example,\u00a08 ounces of Borden’s 1% chocolate milk contains:<\/p>\n