Are you not seeing the gains you expected despite being consistent with your training and workouts?
While it’s good for your health to be physically active, poor nutritional choices may often cause more harm than good.
More specifically, the food that you eat before and after your workouts can affect your progress in the gym.
In this article, I’m going to simplify pre and post-workout nutrition. We’ll discuss concepts like nutrient timings and protein synthesis. More importantly, I’ll explain the biological pathways and processes that go into feeding your muscle growth.
With this knowledge, you can make the right dietary choices and achieve your fitness goals.
Let’s get cracking!
Nutrient Timings: Why Pre and Post-Workout Nutrition Is Important
Whether your goal is to build muscle, improve your strength or achieve a successful body recomposition, it’s crucial that you pay close attention to when you eat.
People typically focus on what and how much they eat, which is reasonable. After all, nutrient timing is a concept that is traditionally applied within the field of athletic performance. Not to mention, it just sounds like a chore for the average person.
However, the average person who works out regularly will on average start to prime their body for muscle gain or loss during specific times of the day.
If you eat the wrong stuff at the right time, you won’t make nearly as much progress as you could have.
Furthermore, the average lifter may follow general oversimplified nutritional rules like “limit your carbs” or “sugar is bad”, which don’t always apply at different times of the day.
Pre-Workout
To understand why you need to eat before a workout, it helps to learn what actually happens to your muscles and body during a workout.
During weight training, your body consumes glycogen from your muscles for energy. Glycogen is a byproduct of glucose from the carbohydrates you eat, and it’s stored inside your muscles.
Through a process known as glycolysis, your body processes the glucose into energy-carrying molecules called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to fuel your body and muscles during the workout.
Drinking a protein-carbohydrate supplement before a workout can increase the levels of glucose and amino acids in your body.
This places your muscles in a positive protein balance, which also helps reduce glycogen depletion.
You’ll frequently see lifters in the gym ingesting pre-workout solutions. This is often an easily digestible liquid mix of whey protein/hydrolyzed whey protein and carbohydrates. It not only replenishes their water stores but feeds their body with glycogen for the workout.
Protein synthesis
Muscle damage occurs during a heavy workout. Afterward, your body begins removing and repairing the damaged muscle tissue – a process called protein synthesis.
Having some protein in your system before a workout can help optimize protein synthesis.
Here, a post-workout drink can help to sustain the protein synthesis process.
Now would also be a good time to consume complex carbohydrates to replace your glycogen reserves.
Complex carbohydrates or carbohydrates that are lower on the glycemic scale, such as fruits, vegetables, and grains like quinoa are good.
Combine them with slow digesting proteins like meats, cheese or yoghurt and you have the makings of a good post-workout meal.
Insulin sensitivity
You might be wondering, “Why complex carbohydrates?”
Earlier, I mentioned how your body starts to repair the damaged muscle tissue. For that to occur, there are several biological processes taking place at once.
Most importantly, consuming a post-workout meal introduces proteins and carbohydrates into your bloodstream while simultaneously triggering insulin from your body.
Think of insulin as little dump trucks that carry proteins and carbohydrates to your muscle cells.
Unlike simple carbs, ingesting complex carbs can lead to lower insulin spikes that won’t negatively impact the protein synthesis process.
Having higher insulin sensitivity allows your body cells to use blood glucose more efficiently. This refuels your muscles, which helps you recover faster from heavy training and optimizes your performance during a workout.
Simple Rules
Pre and post-workout nutrition should be simple, not complicated.
There are no strict rules on what you must or must not eat. It all depends on your lifestyle, fitness goals and pre-existing medical condition.
What are your food tolerances?
Some people work well on a high-carb diet, others can benefit from a heavier protein-fat ratio in their meals.
Find what works for you and plan your daily meals around them.
Maintaining good daily nutritional intake is far more important than trying to nail your pre and post-workout meals.
You shouldn’t overly obsess or optimize too much.
For example, research has revealed that the window for taking a post-workout meal is actually 24 hours.
That means you don’t have to worry about strictly consuming your shake within half an hour after your training session.
It’s still ideal to ingest protein and carbohydrates after your workout. Just don’t stress if you can’t grab a post-workout meal right after.