physical · Outcome
How quickly perceived soreness, performance, and autonomic markers (HRV, RHR) return to baseline after a hard session. Slow recovery = overtraining, sleep debt, or undereating.
How to measure: Wearable HRV trend (Whoop/Oura recovery score), resting HR over 3 days, perceived soreness 24-72h post-session.
Three levers, one stack. Each works through a different mechanism. They compound.
18% faster recovery
20-40 g within 2h post-exercise · Post-training, daily
Effect size
Corpus
73 papers
range 7.5–1000 · n=6 quantitative claims
“Post-exercise protein supplementation at 40g (vs 20g) during resistance training significantly increases shoulder press strength by 21.1% in elderly males.”
Why: Most-studied recovery intervention. Effect is real but ceiling-bound, once total daily protein intake exceeds ~1.6 g/kg, additional whey does little. Skip if you already eat 1.6+ g/kg from whole food.
See the studies88% faster recovery
10-15 min at 10-15°C, or 2-3 min cold shower · Within 1h post-session for soreness; AM for non-recovery uses
Effect size
Corpus
25 papers
range 86–89 · n=2 quantitative claims
“Cold-water immersion treatment significantly increases maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVC) recovery compared to control, with MVC increasing by 89.3% on the fourth day post-exercise.”
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Every pick has two signals. They answer different questions and we never bundle them into one number.
Effect size
How big is the change on recovery from exercise, in the units that matter for this outcome.
Confidence
How sure are we the effect is real for recovery from exercise, given the studies we have.
For every pick, the “papers” number is how many studies we've cataloged that test this entity for recovery from exercise. “Favorable” means the study reported the direction you want.
The tier badge (S, A, B…) on the entity itself is its overall research confidence across all outcomes. It's the same letter wherever you see this entity on the site, not specific to recovery from exercise.
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Why: Cold post-training reduces soreness but suppresses the inflammatory signaling that drives muscle growth. Use after endurance work or competition; AVOID right after resistance training if hypertrophy is the goal.