London ? At the end of nearly every training session, Matt Whitmore downs a pint of milk straight from the bottle.

“I do it pretty religiously,” said Whitmore, 25, a gym trainer in London. He first started drinking milk after exercise about 10 years ago when he couldn’t afford expensive supplements or protein shakes. “Milk helps me recover faster and I feel great afterward,” he said. “And now, I hate to train without it.”

Researchers are giving scientific support to a view that Whitmore vouches for from experience: that milk may be just as good or even better than sports drinks for serious athletes recovering from exercise. The health benefits of milk — which has carbohydrates, electrolytes, calcium and vitamin D — have long been established. But for athletes, milk also contains the two proteins best for rebuilding muscles: casein and whey.

Muscles get damaged after an intense bout of aerobic exercise like running or cycling. The casein and whey proteins in milk are precisely what the body needs to regenerate muscles fast.

Glenys Jones, a nutritionist at Britain’s Medical Research Council, said milk’s protein makes it an ideal post-exercise drink. “Milk provides the building blocks for what you need to build new muscles,” said Jones, who has no ties to the dairy industry.

In a study published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism in June, researchers found people who drank milk after training were able to exercise longer in their next session than people who had sports drinks or water.