Athletes might remember the “Built with Chocolate Milk” campaign in 2012 that showed various professional athletes promoting chocolate milk as a recovery drink. A 2012 review in Medicine and Sport Science showed that the 4-to-1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein in chocolate milk makes it a lower-cost recovery drink to help repair the muscles.
You don’t even need to add chocolate to your milk for it to build muscle. Not only is milk the best way to hydrate, but it also has the muscle-building power that beats out processed recovery drinks, according to a 2018 article in the European Journal of Sport Science.
Milk benefits the young, but it also helps older adults too, says a 2021 article in Foods. Residents of a nursing home who had age-related muscle loss participated in resistance training three days a week. The two groups that drank 200 milliliters (less than a cup) of milk or soy milk in the morning and after their workouts built more muscle and improved strength than the group that didn’t drink either type of milk.
A 2021 meta-analysis in The Journal of Nutrition looked at 27 studies that compared the qualities of protein sources on muscle building after resistance exercise. Higher-quality protein, such as milk, is better for synthesizing muscle after a workout and supporting muscle building during long-term resistance training for young adults under 35 and older adults over 60.