To get an insight into the process of recovery it is necessary to shed some light on the physiology of muscle adaptation as a reaction to regular patterns of training stimuli. You won’t imagine how we saw the muscle tissue a few centuries ago when we were not having microscopes that enable us today to have a much closer look at the micro-texture of this marvelous tissue. As muscle adaptation is a fairly slowly process our ancestors thought that muscle cells cannot replicate, adapt an recover. You know from your training how wrong this was, but you also know how hard you have to work for achieving the goal of perfect muscle adaption to the training efforts. A delicate equilibrium between training load and recovery is necessary to reach this goal without harming yourself. By the way, until very recent we had a similar idea about neurons, either proved to be wrong!
Why did scientists not realize that muscles change? Because scientists looked at dead bodies first.
As a matter of fact muscle cells differentiates and proliferates relatively slowly compared to other tissues such as the skin tissue, hair or mucosal linings. It took quite some experience for the young natural science to find out what to focus on. Experimenting with healthy bodies was not how it all began. It all started out with anatomy, and that means with dead bodies. And they, they definitely lack any kind of movement.
Today we are well aware of the muscle structures, we know that a muscle is build out of bundles of fibers with different sizes whereas on the tiniest level of the filaments the processes of contraction are initiated. The contraction is a perfectly orchestrated course of events where biochemical actions are transferred into biomechanical movements. As a result myosin and actin filaments shrink against each other, a complex sophisticated process that needs a defined environment and an extra- vs intracellular gradient of ions like calcium, sodium and potassium across the cellular membranes to keep up an electrical potential, the tricky part where biochemistry meets biomechanics.
What happens within the muscle tissue during training?
If one wants to achieve muscle growth correlating with adequate adaptation the muscle cells need to receive stimuli. This is what training aims at. These stimuli have to be so strong enough that small lesions or disruptions occur throughout the muscle. These muscle lesions are a precondition for muscle adaptation, so is the healing process thereafter during the period of rest.
Healing can only, and only take place during recovery. This is exactly the period of time when the muscle cells multiply and get stronger.
A fact we cannot ignore is that healing is based and propagated by inflammatory processes which are caused by the muscle lesions occurring during workouts. As a matter of fact, inflammation is the very foundation of all training effects. This may sound strange to you, but I think it is very essential for athletes to know that, because it makes one understand why recovery is so essential for increasing the performance level.
Over the edge of balance – delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS)
In this case inflammations outweigh healing, this imbalance can indeed be detrimental and can lead to a breakdown of performance that may take incalculable time of recovery. Delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) is a typical symptom caused by an uncontrolled spread of multiple inflammatory processes within the muscle and an exhausted healing power of the immune system in favor of the inflammation. It has absolutely nothing to do with lactate (but this is another story for another time). DOMS is appearing 48 to 72 hours after hard training sessions, and needs round about one week to disappear (healing processes in general need one week up to 10 days in average).
Now, what is the role of Biestmilch in this sophisticated game?
Inflammation and healing are complex and perfectly synchronized processes. If you are healthy and don’t overdo it during training there is a balance between the both located on the same trajectory or loop. The main players in our body which take care of this balance of processes are the immune system and the autonomous nervous system. Biestmilch with its diversity of bodily molecules interacts with both of them and contributes to reinstate a new equilibrium. Biestmilch contains myriads of tiny protein molecules (peptides) that are essential for inflammatory and healing processes respectively.
This may be different, if you overreach or overtrain. Then healing may turn into a never ending frustrating story of exhaustion, sicknesses and injuries. Due to its fabric of bioactive molecules that is interacting with the above mentioned processes Biestmilch has got the amazing ability to support recovery by balancing inflammatory conditions. But Biestmilch has to be taken on a regular basis, small amounts every day are the stimuli your body needs. Very similar to training your body becomes more and more stable in many aspects week after week, month after month.