An overview of nutritional strategies for recovery process in sports-related muscle injuries

Abstract

IntroductionMuscle injuries are common among elite athletes and compromise competitions and training schedules. Within the interventions to treat a sports injury, the nutritional approach is key to improve the physiological response and maintain the body composition to promote a quick and safe return to the play.ObjectivePresent an overview of the nutritional strategies and recommendations after a muscular sports injury, emphasizing the use of main nutrients and elements for the muscle recovery, such as proteins, antioxidants, omega 3 fatty acids, and probiotics.MethodologyThe search of information was made in the PubMed, Science Direct, Scielo, Embase, and Google Scholar databases under specific DeCS and MeSh terms. The selected articles included literature reviews and clinical trials related to muscle injury in high-performance athletes, in any sports discipline or in immobilized patient (healthy men or women).ResultsThe stages of a muscle injury are classified as destruction-inflammation, repair, and remodeling phase. In all stages, energy recommendations should follow the estimated energy requirement plus the injury/stress percentage of increase (10–15%). During the repair phase, the optimal protein consumption (1.6–2.5 g/kg/day divided in several meals with 20–35 g of protein per meal) is crucial for muscle mass maintenance and to reduce the anabolic resistance of skeletal muscle in case of injury. Antioxidants intake from food sources may control the oxidative stress, which occurs during the inflammatory phase, as well as omega 3 fatty acids through stimulation of anti-inflammatory pathway. Moreover, probiotic consumption has been investigated in sports field with the goal of improving muscle repair by enhancing protein absorption capacity and immune cells function at the intestine.ConclusionAccording to the literature, it is necessary to carry out clinical studies with injured athletes and determine how the consumption of nutrients and elements such as probiotics can influence the recovery processes of injured athletes. Also, there are little research in this area of sports nutrition.