Pre & Post Workout Supplementation Made Easy by Lance Jensen
This is the Feb 2009 diet and nutrition article written by Lance Jensen. It explains the importance of pre and post workout nutrition in gaining strength and muscle. This is a really important area, it doesn’t matter if you have the world’s best home gym filled with mickey mouse gym equipment, if you are not getting the right nutrition you will simply not get the results.
Your diet&nutrition is critical to achieving goals from your training. It does not matter how hard you workout, if you are not supplying your body with the correct fuel you will never get close to achieving optimalresults.
Training stresses your body; every workout breaks down muscle fibres in an effort to move the resistance. Nutrition is the key to allowing your body to recover optimally from a workout. Without the right foods and supplements you could be wasting large amounts of time and money in the gym. The human body responds extremely quickly to training and adapts to the training that you do. By ensuring that you are taking the right nutrients and following that up with variation in your weight training you will achieve your goals.
The body goes through a stage called neural adaptation. Effectively the body’s nervous system prepares itself for the onslaught of a workout. The nervous system actually gets accustomed to your method of training and therefore does not fire nerve impulses to as many muscle fibres. This is why it is imperative that you change your training routines and feed your body appropriately.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, we know that nutrition and supplementation is massive in assisting with performance. In a world that is fixated on bigger, stronger and faster, serious money goes into research and development.
Pre Workout
Pre workout supplementation has been around for a long time. The first effective pre workout supplement was creatine back in the 1990’s. Since then things have evolved dramatically. However, not all pre workout supplements are based on sound evidence to assist with increasing endurance and strength through the workout.
A lot of pre workout mixes include large amounts of caffeine in an attempt to get you hyped up and ready for a workout. This may work for a short period of time however invariably the big high is followed by a big low.
Essentially there are a lot of things to consider, however the most important ingredients are as follows:
Arginine- This increases bloodflow to the muscle. More bloodflow means there is more oxygen and nutrients available for the muscle. More oxygen also means that lacticacid, the byproduct of energy production is eliminated at a quicker rate. This means that you can recover quicker between sets and push harder.
Beta Alanine – Intensive exercise causes the muscle’s pH levels to drop (become more acidic). This affects their ability to contract resulting in a drop in performance. Beta Alanine assists by maintaining PH levels therefore increasing endurance through your workout. Beta Alanine also assists with recovery due to PH levels remaining fairly constant.
Micronised Creatine – This increases glycogen uptake in the muscle. Glycogen is used by the muscle to create energy. Because glycogen takes water into the cell as well, you end up with a much fuller looking muscle. Generally people will put on around 2 to 3 kilograms in the first couple of weeks using this product.
Multidextrose and Dextrose – Simple sugars in the blood cause an insulin spike to transport creatine into the muscle cells. Insulin is released due to sugars in the blood. Insulin is responsible for opening the doors to the muscle cells to allow blood sugars and creatine to be absorbed.
In summary, the pre workout formula will basically provide you with the ideal internal environment to workout extremely hard for extended periods of time. The pre workout formula (Xtreme Pump) will also assist dramatically with recovery due to the correct (backed up by research) amount of beta alanine. All going well this will translate to more strength.
Another advantage of muscles working more efficiently is “The Pump”. This is when your muscles are flooded with blood and feel twice the size as normal. “The Pump” can lead to addiction to weight training! This is the good stage when you can’t wait to get to the gym to get the blood pumping.
Post Workout
There have been numerous studies conducted on the post workout response. It is apparent that post workout there is what is known as the anabolic window. This is a period of time when the body’s metabolism is 6 to 8 times faster than what it normally is.
During this anabolic window, which is just an hour post training, we can actually digest and absorb up to 33% of our total caloric intake for the day. This is huge and represents a great time for us to replenish glycogen stores and assist the muscle to rejuvenate and grow.
We have just depleted all of our glycogen stores in the muscle due to the workout. If we do not replace this glycogen quickly we will fall into a catabolic state very quickly. Catabolism is a term used for muscle wasting. Therefore replenishing glycogen stores immediately is essential and probably the most important part of the workout. Without replenishing glycogen stores you are better off not working out, that is how important the post workout mix is.
However, the critical element to the post workout anabolic window is the nutrients ingested. Your body can not digest and absorb rice, pasta and bread in one hour, it would take around 2 to 3 hours minimum. We miss the window if we take them in this form. You must take in nutrients in the forms of liquid.
Carbohydrate replenishes your glycogen stores in the muscle therefore creating the ideal anabolic (growth) state for your muscles in conjunction with the whey protein concentrate or isolate consumed. The ideal amount of carbohydrate required post workout is around 100 grams. You can get this by consuming 140 grams of Giant Mass along with 15 grams of Significant Hydrolised Whey Protein Isolate, or 15 grams of Dominance Whey Protein Concentrate.
Does this sound like a lot to you? Yes you are right it is a lot and you will be full for a good 2 hours after finishing this drink. But guess what you will grow and you will maintain good condition if you follow this regime.
I have been competing as a natural bodybuilder for 14 years and am offering this advice to assist you achieve your natural goals. Good nutrition and supplementation is the key to putting on good quality muscle forever. Training 50% diet&nutrition 50%, there is no getting away from this fact if you want to build a great lean physique. So all the best and workout hard!
Tags: Supplements, whey protein
Subscribe RSS