HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GAINS WITH PRE- AND POST-WORKOUT NUTRITION

HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GAINS WITH PRE- AND POST-WORKOUT NUTRITION

Most champions are built by punch-the-clock workouts rather than extraordinary efforts.

— DAN JOHN

As you know, when you eat generally doesn’t matter. So long as you hit your daily numbers, you can lose fat and build muscle with ease.

That said, there are two meals that do matter: pre- and post-workout meals.

THE PRE-WORKOUT MEAL

Like most aspects of bodybuilding, the subject of pre-workout nutrition is riddled with contradictions.

Does pre-workout nutrition even matter? Should you eat protein before you train? Carbohydrates? Fats? If so, what types and amounts of food are best? Or will eating before training have no appreciable effect on your performance or results?

Well, let’s get to the bottom of these questions and come to some definitive, science-based conclusions as to what’s what with pre-workout nutrition.


PRE-WORKOUT PROTEIN

Some people say eating protein before you work out doesn’t matter, and they’ll often cite a study or two to back up their claims.

On the other hand, you can find scientific evidence that pre-workout protein does enhance post-workout muscle growth.

What gives?

Well, a big “invisible” piece of this puzzle has to do with when study subjects had last eaten protein before eating their pre-workout meals.

You see, when you eat food, it takes your body several hours to fully absorb the nutrients contained within.

The larger the meal, the longer it takes (research shows that absorption can take anywhere from 2 to 6 or more hours).

This means that if you had eaten a sizable amount of protein an hour or two prior to working out, your plasma (blood) amino acid levels would be quite high come workout time, and protein synthesis rates would be maximally elevated. In this case, it’s unlikely that more protein before training would make much of a difference in terms of helping you build more muscle because your body is already in an anabolic state.

On the other hand, if it had been several hours since you last ate protein, and especially if the amount you ate was small (less than 20 grams), your plasma amino acid levels would likely be low come workout time, and protein synthesis rates would be lower than they could be.

In this case, research shows that pre-workout protein likely will help you build more muscle because it spikes plasma amino acid levels (and thus protein synthesis rates) before training.

Most people train early in the morning or several hours after lunch (after work or before dinner), and this is why I generally recommend 30 to 40 grams of protein about 30 minutes before training.

If, however, you train within 1 to 2 hours of eating at least that much protein, you can probably skip the pre-workout protein and not miss out on any extra potential muscle growth.

Regarding the best types of pre-workout protein, we know that the faster a protein is digested and the more leucine it has, the more short-term muscle growth it stimulates.

And while any form of pre-workout protein will elevate plasma amino acid levels, you’ll get the quickest and greatest elevation from a faster-digesting form like whey protein, which is also high in leucine.


PRE-WORKOUT CARBOHYDRATE

Fortunately for us, the research on eating carbohydrates before a workout is much more straightforward: it improves performance, period.

Specifically, eating carbohydrates 15 to 30 minutes before exercise will provide your muscles with additional fuel for your workouts, but it will not directly stimulate additional muscle growth.

I say directly stimulate because while eating carbohydrates before a workout doesn’t affect protein synthesis rates, it can help you push more weight and reps in your workouts, thus indirectly helping you build more muscle over time.

So, if eating pre-workout carbs is good, what types are best?

Again, the research is pretty straightforward: low-glycemic carbohydrates are best for prolonged (2 or more hours) endurance exercise, and high-glycemic carbohydrates are best for shorter, more intense workouts.

In terms of what to eat, I don’t like pre-workout carbohydrate supplements. They’re little more than overhyped, overpriced tubs of simple sugars like dextrose and maltodextrin. Don’t buy into the marketing BS. There’s nothing inherently special about these types of molecules other than that they’re easy to digest.

Instead, I much prefer getting my pre-workout carbohydrates from food. My favorite sources are rice milk (tastes great with whey protein!) and bananas, but other popular nutritious choices are instant oatmeal, dates and figs, melon, white potato, white rice, raisins, and sweet potato.

In terms of numbers and timing, I recommend eating 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrates 30 minutes before you train to feel a noticeable improvement in your performance.


PRE-WORKOUT DIETARY FAT

Some people claim that by eating dietary fat before a workout, you can reduce carbohydrate utilization during exercise and thereby improve performance. Research has proven otherwise, however.

A study conducted by researchers at Ball State University demonstrated that increased dietary fat intake 24 hours before exercise (cycling, in this case) reduced time-trial performance compared with a high-carbohydrate diet.

A study conducted by researchers from the Australian Institute of Sport demonstrated that even when your body becomes “fat adapted” and uses carbohydrates more sparingly while exercising, performance doesn’t improve.

Here’s how researchers at Deakin University summarized their 2004 review of pre-workout fat intake literature:


“Thus, it would appear that while such a strategy can have a marked effect on exercise metabolism (i.e. reduced carbohydrate utilization), there is no beneficial effect on exercise performance.”

So, feel free to have dietary fat before you work out, but don’t expect anything special to come out of it.

That’s it for pre-workout nutrition: 30 to 40 grams of protein (and whey is best), and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrate 30 minutes before training is all you need.

THE POST-WORKOUT MEAL

The post-workout meal is part of the “bodybuilding canon,” so to speak.

If you’ve been lifting for any period of time, you’ve heard the story: if you don’t eat protein and/or carbs after training, you’ll either impair muscle growth or miss out on an opportunity to accelerate it.

It’s also often claimed that there is a post-workout “anabolic window” of time in which you must eat your food. If you miss this window, so the story goes, you either lose or miss out on additional gains.

Well, the truth is although these dogmas are overstated, there is some truth to them.

You see, when you work out, you start a process whereby muscle proteins are broken down (technically known as proteolysis). This effect is mild while you’re training, but it rapidly accelerates thereafter.
 If you’re training in a fasted state, proteolysis is even greater, especially at three or more hours after training.

Now, muscle breakdown isn’t inherently bad, but when it exceeds the body’s ability to synthesize new proteins, the net result is muscle loss. Conversely, when the body synthesizes more protein molecules than it loses, the net result is muscle growth.

The goals of post-workout nutrition are minimizing post-workout muscle breakdown and maximizing protein synthesis. And similar to pre-workout nutrition, you achieve these effects by eating protein and carbohydrate after training.


POST-WORKOUT PROTEIN

Eating protein after a workout stimulates protein synthesis, which halts muscle breakdown and initiates muscle growth.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas makes the importance of this clear.

Researchers had subjects perform heavy leg-resistance training followed by the slow (over the course of several hours) ingestion of a placebo, a mixture of essential and nonessential amino acids, or a mixture of just essential amino acids.

The result was the group that drank the placebo showed a negative muscle protein balance several hours after their workouts (that is, they were losing muscle), whereas the groups that ingested the amino acid mixtures showed a positive balance (they were building muscle).

We also know that post-workout protein stimulates more protein synthesis than protein eaten at rest. This was demonstrated by a study conducted by researchers at the Shriners Burns Institute.

They took six normal, untrained men and intravenously infused them with a balanced amino acid mixture both at rest and after a leg workout. The post-workout infusion resulted in 30 to 100 percent more protein synthesis than the at-rest infusion.

While these may seem like minor benefits, they add up over time. The more time your body spends building up proteins instead of breaking them down, the more muscle you gain as a result. Over the course of months or years, small protein synthetic advantages accrued every day can add up to several pounds of additional muscle mass.

That isn’t just theory, either. Clinical research indicates that protein ingested within 1 to 2 hours of finishing a workout can indeed increase overall muscle growth over time.

For example, a study conducted by researchers from Bispebjerg Hospital had 13 untrained elderly men follow a 12-week resistance training program.

One group received an oral protein/carbohydrate supplement immediately post-workout, while the other received the same supplement two hours following the exercise.

The result: the post-workout ingestion group built more muscle than the two-hours-later ingestion group.

A well-designed and well-executed study conducted by scientists at Victoria University is also worth reviewing.

It was conducted with 23 recreational bodybuilders who followed an intense weightlifting program for 10 weeks and were divided into two groups:

1. a group that ate a protein and carbohydrate meal immediately before and after training and


2. a group that ate the same meals in the morning and evening, at least five hours outside the workouts.


After 10 weeks, researchers found that the first group (pre- and post-workout consumption) built significantly more muscle than the second group (morning and evening consumption).

So…if post-workout protein is good, the obvious question is how much should you eat?

Well, earlier in the book, I mentioned a study commonly cited in connection with post-workout protein recommendations that demonstrated that 20 grams of post-workout protein stimulates maximum muscle protein synthesis in young men.

That is, eating more than 20 grams of protein after working out did nothing more in terms of stimulating additional muscle growth.

We can’t assume that this 20-gram number applies to everyone, however, because protein metabolism is affected by several things:

How much muscle you have.

The more you have, the more amino acids your body needs to maintain your musculature, and the more places your body can store surpluses.

How active you are.

The more you move around, the more protein your body needs.

How old you are.

The older you get, the more protein your body needs to maintain its muscle.

Your hormones.

Elevated levels of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) stimulate muscle synthesis.
If your body has high levels of these anabolic hormones, it will use protein better than someone who has low levels.

On the other hand, elevated levels of cortisol reduce protein synthesis and accelerate the process whereby the body breaks down amino acids into glucose (gluconeogenesis), thereby reducing the amount available for tissue generation and repair. Some people have chronically elevated cortisol levels, and this impairs protein metabolism.

So, while 20 grams of protein might be enough to stimulate maximal muscle growth in certain people under certain conditions, it won’t be enough for everyone. Some people will need more to reach the same level of synthesis, and others will be able to benefit from more protein (it will result in more protein synthesis).

And this is why I recommend that you eat the familiar number of 30 to 40 grams of protein in your post-workout meal. The protein I use, which you can find in the bonus report, also contains additional leucine, which has been shown to further increase muscle protein synthesis over just whey protein alone.


POST-WORKOUT CARBOHYDRATE

The most common reason we’re told to eat carbs after training is to spike insulin levels, which is supposed to kick muscle growth into overdrive. This isn’t entirely accurate because, as you now know, insulin doesn’t tell your muscles to grow—it only has anti-catabolic properties.

What is true, however, is that a post-workout insulin spike decreases the rate of protein breakdown that occurs after exercise.

And as muscle growth is nothing more than protein synthesis rates exceeding protein breakdown rates, anything that increases the former and decreases the latter improves this “equation” in our favor.

A good example of this at work is a study conducted by researchers from McMaster University that compared the effects of high- and low-carbohydrate dieting with subjects engaging in regular exercise.

Researchers found that subjects following the low-carb diet had increased protein breakdown rates and reduced protein synthesis rates, resulting in less overall muscle growth.

These insulin-dependent benefits level off around 15 to 30 microns per liter, or about three to four times the normal fasting insulin levels.

“Spiking” insulin levels higher than this doesn’t deliver more “protein sparing” effects.

And it turns out that you don’t even need to eat carbs to reach such a level: you can do it with protein alone. One study showed that the insulin response to the ingestion of 45 grams of whey protein peaked at about 40 minutes, and these levels were sustained for about 2 hours.

If you include carbs with your post-workout meal, however, insulin levels will rise faster and remain elevated longer. One study showed that the ingestion of a mixed meal containing 75 grams carbs, 37 grams protein, and 17 grams fat resulted in an elevation of insulin levels for more than five hours.

(At the five-hour mark, when researchers stopped testing, insulin levels were still double the fasting level.)

So, two reasons to include carbs in your post-workout meal are to quickly raise insulin levels and keep them elevated for longer periods of time.

Another reason relates to glycogen. If you’re weightlifting regularly, keeping your muscles as full of glycogen as you can is important. It improves performance, and research has shown that when muscle glycogen levels are low, exercise-induced muscle breakdown is accelerated.

Anaerobic exercise like weightlifting and high-intensity interval cardio cause marked reductions in muscle glycogen stores, and when your body is in this post-workout glycogen-depleted state, its ability to use carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores is greatly increased.

In this state, your muscles can “supercompensate” with glycogen, meaning they can store more than they had before the depletion.

This “supercompensation” likely won’t affect your workout performance unless you engage in multiple bouts of intense exercise in the same day. So long as you eat enough carbs throughout the day, your body will eventually fill its glycogen stores back up.

That said, the post-workout depleted state does create a nice “carb sink,” which you can use to enjoy a large number of carbs with little to no fat storage (as the body will not store carbohydrates as fat until glycogen stores are replenished).

In terms of how much carbohydrate to eat in your post-workout meal, a good rule of thumb is about 1 gram per kilogram of body weight.

And in terms of when to eat the carbs, the general recommendation is “immediately after exercise.” Research also shows that eating about half of the 1 gram per kilogram amount 2 hours later can help further replenish glycogen stores, but this is optional as the effects aren’t nearly as pronounced as the initial post-workout meal.

I recommend that you include this second post-workout meal if it fits your meal planning needs but don’t if it doesn’t.

WHAT ABOUT CARDIO WORKOUTS?

All the above advice is for weightlifting workouts. As far as cardio workouts go, it’s smart to have some protein before to counteract any potential muscle loss, but otherwise, you don’t need to do anything special.

If you need to perform well (sports, for instance), then including carbs in your pre-workout meal is a good idea as well.

Post-workout protein or carbs would only be needed if the cardio were particularly long and intense (longer than 1 hour, with a fair amount of sprinting).