Making the Most of Your Gains with Pre-Workout Nutrition
Picture this: it’s 6am, you’re at the Power Legion gym as usual, ready to crush a lift before you start your day of work, or school, or whatever other responsibilities you have. Maybe you want to hit some heavy weights this morning-you might even be attempting to hit a PR. The elements are all there for you to do so. Music is blasting, you had a solid 8 hours of sleep, your pre-workout drink is kicking in, the tingles are in full effect and making your face feel numb, and you’re ready to lift- that iron stands absolutely no chance. But, after your stretching and warmup sets, you start to feel a bit tired, and it’s definitely not due to the lack of caffeine pumping through you. You ignore it, instead focusing on the working sets ahead of you. But the first working set feels a lot heavier than it should. Your energy dips, you’re feeling a bit dizzy, and suddenly that PR seems out of reach.
But, everything was so perfect this morning, so what could be missing? Well, you haven’t had any food since dinner the night before. No amount of pre-workout powders and hype music can help you now-what you need most is a hit of energy from, you guessed it, food.
It might feel difficult to make time to eat before training, especially as someone with a busy schedule who may have to train first thing in the morning, or during a free window at some point in the day. However, eating something, even if it’s small, before training is much more likely to give you the results you’re seeking, whether those are performance, strength, or endurance based goals.
You might be wondering what exactly it is that powers you through your workouts when you eat. Well, when you eat, your body converts carbohydrates into glucose, which is then stored as glycogen. This stored form is kept in your liver and skeletal muscles and used as an energy reserve. If, let’s say, you train in the morning without eating beforehand, your body only has the glycogen available that is leftover from the day before. Generally speaking, unless you consume an excess of carbohydrates the day before training, there will be a lot less energy available the next day as glycogen will have depleted through your sleep process and through the activity from the previous day.
CARBS are NOT the Enemy
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CARBS are NOT the Enemy 〰️
So what does this mean for training if those glycogen stores are depleted from the day before and haven’t been replenished with more food? Less energy available for a shorter amount of time. This means your lift might go well at first, but you will fatigue sooner, so your reps and the weight you can push will suffer, ultimately leading to less gains overall, as we know that muscle and strength building rely on progressive overload. And if you can’t progress in your sessions because you have no energy, you’re leaving gains on the table.
A solution for this is to have a snack or a meal beforehand that has an adequate amount of quick digesting carbohydrates, a little bit of protein, and a little bit of fat. The quick digesting carbs (think: rice cakes, cereal, rice krispy squares, bananas, toast, bagels, cream of rice, etc.) will allow your body to use the carbs pretty much straight away as energy, without having a long period of digestion beforehand. This is great if you’re short on time and planning to train soon after eating. Carb sources with more fibre will be slower to digest, so if you do want to eat something like oatmeal before the gym, try to give yourself at least an hour to digest. Additionally, adding in a protein source and a bit of fat will keep you more satiated over the course of your lift, since they allow for a more sustained release of energy.
If you are still set on waking up and immediately hitting the gym without having food beforehand, try having a more carb heavy meal before bed and bringing an intra-carb source, like a liquid carb drink, or something easy to digest, like rice krispies, carbohydrate gels, or even some candy (Nerd’s clusters always do the trick), to consume during your training session. That way, you can at least finish your session strong instead of missing out on reps, having to pull back on weight, and feeling the mid-workout energy crash and dizziness.
Now that you’ve been sold on eating before training, stay tuned for how to refuel properly after you show the iron (or the track or whatever it is you’re training) who’s boss and some inspiration for post-workout nutrition that goes beyond the bro diet of chicken, rice and broccoli.
