 You have goals and train for them, so make sure that you have the best pre, post (and perhaps peri) workout nutrition to help you achieve your goals. *All nutritional and fitness info should be discussed with your doctor before any changes to diet or exercise regime are implemented. Pre-Workout Goal: Gain muscle mass If your goal is predominately to gain muscle mass then your workout nutrition is going to focus on both carbs for fuel, and protein to build and repair your muscles. Pre-Workout: Carbs Carbohydrates are the body’s primary source of fuel, and in order to perform an intense training you need to fuel your workout with carbs. When we ingest carbs they get converted to glucose and then stored in our muscles as glycogen (as well as in our liver and adipose tissue); as we train we tap into these glucose (in our bloodstream) and glycogen (in our muscles) stores and then after these are depleted our body will start to breakdown our muscles to use for fuel. If your goal is to gain muscle, using muscle for fuel is detrimental to our goal and must be avoided at all costs! Therefore, focusing on carbs is key. 1-2 hours before your workout consume a complex carbohydrate that will be digested slowly and keep you fueled through your training.
Pre-Workout: Protein Consuming pre-workout protein is also essential in order to keep our muscles in a positive nitrogen balance, ie. with more protein entering our body than leaving it (by way of muscle breakdown). Consuming a complete protein that contains all essential and non-essential amino acids is necessary to ensure protein synthesis and the building up of muscle. Animal protein is complete protein; ie egg whites, lean meats, whey and casein protein powders. Vegetarian choices include quinoa, buckwheat and soy protein powder.
Pre-Workout: Fats Try to avoid consuming fats in your pre-workout meal as they slow down digestion and might cause gastric distress Goal: Fat Loss If your goal is to reduce body fat then you need your body to be able to tap into your fat stores as you are exercising, and it will only do this once glucose and glycogen are no longer available as fuel. Once depleted of glucose and glycogen we start the process of fatty acid oxidation by releasing fatty acids from storage in our adipose tissue (fat cells) and converting it to ATP for energy. This is a highly effective process producing more ATP (energy) than glucose, however it is also longer and therefore only activated once glucose runs out. Pre-Workout: Carbs Consuming carbs pre-workout will delay the process of releasing our fat stores, so try to avoid carbs at least 4hrs before your training session. Training first thing in the morning is ideal as your body is in a carb-depleted state after fasting since your last meal the day before.
Pre-Workout: Protein If your goal is fat loss, there can be some benefits to training fasted, ie. with nothing in your system at all (read more on Fasted Cardio), however this can also lead to some muscle loss. If you have a lot of fat to lose it might be a good idea to perform some sort of fasted cardio, however as increasing muscle mass can also help with fat loss due to an increase in metabolism (read more: Our Metabolism: Can We Change It?) consuming protein pre-workout is usually a better idea. With protein in our system we are ensuring a positive nitrogen balance throughout our training, protecting our muscles from breakdown and aiding with protein synthesis to help build and repair them.
Pre-Workout: Fats Try to avoid consuming fats in your pre-workout meal as they slow down digestion and might cause gastric distress Post Workout No matter your goal, your post workout nutrition should be designed to deliver nutrients to your glycogen depleted muscles as soon as possible. Protein synthesis should be kick started right away by ingesting complete protein, and carbs provide an insulin spike to shuttle the protein into our muscles and stop the process of muscle breakdown (read more: Insulin: Friend or Foe?). While the concept of the Anabolic Window remains much debated, it is generally agreed upon that this nutrition should be consumed no later than 2 hours post training, with many benefits to consuming it 15-30 minutes post training.
Peri Workout As long as you have consumed your pre-workout nutrition then most people do not train long enough, or hard enough to need much peri (intra) workout nutrition, however there are a few guidelines:
*All nutritional and fitness info should be discussed with your doctor before any changes to diet or exercise regime are implemented. Change nothing and nothing will change; without change, there can be no progress! Related Articles: Fasted Cardio: Yes it can help you shed some body fat, but is there a better way? Insulin: Friend or Foe? Nutrition 101: Master the Basics BCAAs: What are they? What can they do for you?  7/2/2019 09:14:35 am
Working out alone is not enough, you need to make proper preparations to help your diet. If you ask me, there are many people who just want to gain muscle without making an effort. Sure, working out is good, but if you do not make a balanced diet for yourself, then all the working out that you are doing is for nothing. I really do hope that we all understand this basic concept. Working out a dieting are both important. Comments are closed.
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