Morning workouts

[williamprowse]

I'm with ed x, the best supplement is fish oil, hands down no comparison to any other. Even for people that don't exercise. As far as the pre and post nutrition, with the amino acids, only if you are trying to compete or similar don't bother, yes it will give you a push, but for most of the people that are here (non-conpeating gymnasts) it is almost a waste. And it does not matter weather or not you work out fasting, in fact it is better for some types of training. Try drinking a nice shake before doing suicides and/or sprints if you are pushing your self hard enough most likely that shake is going to want to come back out. But in gymnastic type training especially like I said the non compeating one my advise is not to spend money on amino acids buy some fish oil and maybe some multy vitamin.

Edit: the most important aspect of ANY training is the overall nutrition. Even most important than the training it self (some experts say) and I kind of agree. Paleo & IF, but then again there are it's exeptions for it, bodybuilding & endurance training are 2 I can name.

oh wow!!!

have you heard what has been found in fish oil other than all the mercury?!?! your crazy!!!

multivitamins are cheap vitamins that are sold for ridiculous prices, if you are serious about any sport and want to be the best you should get your vitamins from where they come from, fruits and vegetables and other plant sources. You cant absorb most vitamins and minerals from meat because theirs no fiber in meat! just think about how cows eat grass all day and grass has barely any calcium, but look at how much calcium there milk has! cows don't drink milk or take supplements, they get there nutrients from grass(thats just a broad example)

a vegan diet is superior to others if taken seriously and used correctly

[Gregor]

No human will get an optimal dose of vitamins and minerals without any adding. And RDA% is the lowest what a human (not sportsman) must ingest to not become sick.

[Edward Smith]

oh wow!!!

have you heard what has been found in fish oil other than all the mercury?!?! your crazy!!!

multivitamins are cheap vitamins that are sold for ridiculous prices, if you are serious about any sport and want to be the best you should get your vitamins from where they come from, fruits and vegetables and other plant sources. You cant absorb most vitamins and minerals from meat because theirs no fiber in meat! just think about how cows eat grass all day and grass has barely any calcium, but look at how much calcium there milk has! cows don't drink milk or take supplements, they get there nutrients from grass(thats just a broad example)

a vegan diet is superior to others if taken seriously and used correctly

As George would say "start rant":

Mercury in fish oil? Yes, that's why you buy Molecularly distilled (preferably pharmaceutical grade).

Poor vitamin absorption from meats? Umm......meats are one of the best sources of B vitamins and iron (I think it's iron, can't remember exactly) is best absorbed from meat not plant foods.

Cows, your comparing us to cows? We, humans, have evolved on meat based diets. We are one of the only mammals to require dietary vitamin C, cats (big/wild and domestic) don't require dietary vitamin C as they evolved on an all-animal diet. We are wired to eat meat.

[Guest StaFo]

I've followed the debate a bit, but as a complete newb I'm unable to translate it into practical advice.

The questions I'd like to ask is:

If I was to have a workout in the morning before work, what would be recommended in the way of:

1) To be eaten before the workout, e.g. breakfast and/or supplements?

2) To be eaten after.

(Did Gregor say to take a protein shake at the same time as stretching cool downs?)

3) Anything further to be done throughout the day, eating or exercising wise?

Also, rather than just refer to a type of food/supplement, could I also be given specific products as an example?

[Gregor]

2.Eat before training

I was talking for post workout nutrition "shake when you are cooling down).

[Guest Kai]

Cow eats 2-2,5% of their bodyweight in drymatter. If a human of 160pound would eat fresh grass that contains 85% water. He would have to consume

160 * 0,025 / 0,15 = 26,6 pound grass.

I'm sure there is no problem of getting enougth micronutrients if you eat ridiculous amount of food, but compairing human to a four stomachs cr*pmachine is a bit off.

Anyway back to vitamins, a important aspect is bioavailability, or how much of the vitamin the body actually absorb from the supplement. Of different kinds of vitamins those in liquid form have better absorb ratio than capsule and pills. But I think most people don't really care about vitamins that much since it doesn't increase performance and you only notice problem when you are lacking some of them. With a normal (Coke and pizza is NOT) healthy diet you can probably get it all covered, and a majority of vitamins can be stored inside your body so you don't have to cover everything on daily basis.

Now I'm not sure if gymnast have to shed weight pre-competition, but if it is anywhere similar to bodybuilders diet then vitamin supplement could prove to be very useful. First of all, reduced calories means reduced amount of food/micronutrients. Second, the amount of training an elite gymnast go through is alot more than average Joe. Higher oxidation level in their body require more antioxidant. Therefore it is better to be on the safe side.

[Coach Sommer]

the most important aspect of ANY training is the overall nutrition. Even most important than the training it self (some experts say) and I kind of agree.

I will completely disagree with this statement. Training is the most important part of any training program. I believe that Jack LaLanne said it best, "Exercise is King and Diet is Queen." There is no question that both are supremely important, however without a quality training program, the very best nutrition in the world will not prevent you from going nowhere quite rapidly.

Also discussing the superiority or not of a vegan diet will need to occur in a separate thread in the Nutrition forum, not in the middle of this one. Let's keep this discussion focused on pre & post workout nutrition.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[triple]

ed x,

Here's a book you might be interested in, it sounds like it could be just what you're looking for:

Nutrient Timing: The Future of Sports Nutrition - by John Ivy and Robert Portman

It is excellent. After studying you will find that the posters to this thread didn't quite get it all right (according to the book's research), but came close.

Good luck!

[George Launchbury]

I have removed a number of posts that continued with the vegan debate despite Coach's request not to do so on this thread. If you wish to discuss the subject further, please start another thread ...and keep the discussion courteous. I mention this as people on both sides often feel pretty strongly about the subject.

Thank you,

George.

[George Launchbury]

triple,

I appreciate that it would be more beneficial to read the book in full ...but is it possible to expand slightly in which ways the author's advice differs from that given?

Regards,

George.

[rambo5501]

Coach Sommer's response:

I will completely disagree with this statement. Training is the most important part of any training program. I believe that Jack LaLanne said it best, "Exercise is King and Diet is Queen." There is no question that both are supremely important, however without a quality training program, the very best nutrition in the world will not prevent you from going nowhere quite rapidly.

Also discussing the superiority or not of a vegan diet will need to occur in a separate thread in the Nutrition forum, not in the middle of this one. Let's keep this discussion focused on pre & post workout nutrition.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer, you even yourself gave the answer in your own response. "Exercise is King and Diet is Queen."

A person with a very good training regimen, that has a mediocre nutrition, compared to a person that has their nutrition set to perfect (considering what is what they want to do or gain from it), with an average training cycle.

Both will probably get the same amount of results or the guy that has his nutrition down to the gram will probably has the edge.

Example: A bodybuilding pro that has won many awards Including the Mr. Olympia (not sure if he did), and he has trained many more bodybuilders said: "85% of bodybuilding is nutrition 15% is the training, I might even go as far as 90%, is that important"

Another example: If you are training for endurance events, if you don't know ANYTHING on how to deal with your nutrition, you can have who ever, You can have Lance's Armstrong training, you will only get so far. To me the scale of nutrition and training is probably about 60% nutrition 40% training. Again it depends what your goals are what you are training on, and which sport. Maybe for gymnastics you can eat anything you want and still get to be very strong/ gain skills. Although I extremely doubt that since almost all of the competitors you see everywhere of gymnastics hoover around a 4% body fat (and for those high level skills I bet each pound makes the exercise 2x harder). And that's nutrition.

[North of 49th]

I believe the statement is true for bodybuilders, but not a gymnist. Bodybuilders are strictly building for mass, then cutting, so obviously nutrition is more important to them.

Anyways, for an addition to post-workout (which I always make sure I get) is electrolytes (potassium, magnesium, sodium, etc.)

Coconut water is an excellent source of electrolytes (and/or if one has the means, dried goat whey powder)

As for protein (since I don't like taking anything artificial) Now Foods is a good brand to consider for a protein powder without any artificial flavours. And recently another brand that came to market is something called "Vital Whey" ..Whey from Cows that are without hormones, pesticides, etc...naturally flavoured as well..For me, the less ingredients the better.

[Gregor]

Supplements post, pre, peri, doesn't matter they are not for building mass, this is missconception. You use it for regeneration. Better regeneration better workout enviroment. What gives you a muscle mass a caloric suficit and training style and by no means any supplement. With diffrent trainings you train diffrent types of muscle fibers for endurance, strenght and mass. Eather way, no matter what type of training you choose, for better results you need peak regeneration.

[Guest Kai]

I still believe a superior training program will produce better result than a superior diet, especially involving sport where skill is the most important aspect. During my trainings in China I have met many world class athletes that eats quite unhealthy. Then again, it´s hard to define what a superior diet really is. Since they spend 4-5hour on training each day it is better for them to eat highly refined food since it gives more calories that they need. The same goes for Michael Phelps. A 12000kcal diet involving heeps of pizza and energy drink clearly worked for him. The medals are more than enougth to prove that.

[Gregor]

I think you didn't understood my last post. of course you need very good training program and after that diet.

With nutrition you can't be strong, with training you can, but training+nutrition gives you an edge...

About Phelps...That is not realistic. For one day yes, but not evry day life...12-14 thousand calories ingest Jure RobiÄ, 4th time men's solo RAAM winner http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/wordpress/?p=2139, but this is just for this race!!

[Guest Kai]

I was making a comment to rambo5501 post.

And I fully agree with you Gregor that nutrition is very important, just not more important than training itself. Otherwise I wouldn´t bother to study nutritionfysiology.

Phelps article is probably just a media thing to get more attention, but never the less some atlethes do produce excellent result with what most people consider are bad diet.

Now if only they could make EAA taste good.

[matthew.percussion]

Kai. It is a myth that Michael Phelps eats 12000calories a day. It was spread on the media(overexagerated). However, he does eat a lot. I recently read his book No Limits. In the book he states that he never eats over 8000 calories per day. And on a normal day it is closer to 6000.

Still, this is a lot of food, but you also have to take into consideration the kind of work he does. Hours upon hours of cardio work. I can't remember the exact times but it is somewhere around 6-8 hours in the pool per day. Not including dry land work that he does.

[matthew.percussion]

Gregor, what brand do you recommend of EAA? Where would I buy it?

[Gregor]

Gregor, what brand do you recommend of EAA? Where would I buy it?

I now use German PEAK. I don't know if they are in states so I would choose well known brand like EAS or Optimum,...

[Edward Smith]

Which is more important? It is dependent on the situation/goal. For performance based goals (strength, endurance, power, etc) training is more important because let's face it, you can't get strong without lifting heavy. Nutrition in this situation is still extremely important, but it comes second. For fat loss it is the reverse, you can't out-condition the kitchen table. Unless you eat right there is no way your going to have sustainable fat loss. But training will help immensely. Bodybuilding/Mass gain is pretty much a 50/50 split without breaking down the muscles (via training) your body won't will build them back up bigger and without proper nutrition your body can't build up the broken down muscle.

People seem to have this thing with segregation and separation of things. Gregor's recommendations have been just that recommendations on how to optimize training via nutrition. I understand the discussion as to what is the optimal nutritional/supplementational path to take (up to a point), and I understand the comments of don't over-analyze it. But there is a total difference between reminding people not to over-analyze and saying there is no point/merit in supplementing. Of course you need to get your diet in check before seriously supplementing, but once you do it is one step further. Here's an analogy, you perform tricep extensions (bad diet), then you add in Ido's mechanical advantage sets (supplement), strength wise you get crap results or you perform straddle planche push ups (good diet), then you add in mechanical advantage sets (supplement), good results! Like I said people seem to have this thing with segergation, as well as not putting things in perspective, read into thngs and use some of your own knowledge, or at least common sense, to apply it!

[Alexander Kornishev]

Since everyone made their opinion sound, here is mine for what it is worth :

To get optimal athletics performance everything should be in balance: training, food (including nutrition) and rest.

If one of them is compromised performance in total will suffer. Is it right to say that that much % of success is nutrition...? Only to show how much stress should be put to make it perfect but not how much it can be ignored. There is a lot of information available with regards to nutrition and there many different ways to make it optimal. Sadly most of it targeted at the most popular kind of activity these days: Bodybuilding. And so is the availability in the store. There is a lot of supplements which can be used to enhance athletic performance but it should be very carefully separated from BB oriented stuff. I do not think anyone would agree that consuming 100g of sugar at a time is a good thing, and yet post-workout drinks stuffed with highest possible GI (all kinds of corn sugar) are readily available in health stores and are popular among "health/fitess" oriented mindless crowd. It is helping to pour amino-acids into muscles and at the same time killing insulin sensitivity, moving the person very quickly towards diabetes. Everyone should do their homework and make an educated choice. Be aware of what is in that big bucket of whey protein powder. Creatine, loads of sugar and all kinds of digestion enhance additives can be very damaging for an athlete other than bodybuilder who is weight minded and is not interested in sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and putting on 20-30 lb of useless mass. Be sure to inquire what is hiding behind "proprietery blend".

First whole diet should be in accordance with athlete's goals and then supplements should be considered as although whole food is a preferable source of nutrients it is hard to make it well balanced for good performance completely avoiding supplements.

Gregor is absolutely right, vitamins and minerals are most important supplements. Human body is very adaptive and can handle a huge range of changes in diet, but the fastest and most serious health complications would result from minerals and vitamins deficiency let alone optimal athletic performance. Fish oil is great, but people can handle much easier and for much longer time bad omega 3 vs. omega 6 ratio, try to reduce vitamin C and whole immunity system is down.

What should be number two for a hard working athlete probably depends on the age. For someone like me (38 y.o.) or older antioxidants should be number two. Free radical damage is a real and is affecting more and more our bodies with age. So for me ALA (Alpha-Lipoic-Acid) and herb concentrates are indispensable and should be taken regularly. If it is really hard workout, then maybe even NEC.

BCAA and other amino-acid and protein supplements should be sharing number two or be a bit lower in importance (just my personal opinion). Depends on the intensity of training and goals.

Everything else should be number four including fish oil. Actually fish oil would not be needed at all if one can figure out the way to balance all fat consumption. Taking fish oil just compensates for lack of omega 3 in our diet, but is not indispensable or life important. Having said that I am taking it daily and believe it is helpful.

Just my $0.02.

[rambo5501]

Since everyone made their opinion sound, here is mine for what it is worth :

To get optimal athletics performance everything should be in balance: training, food (including nutrition) and rest.

If one of them is compromised performance in total will suffer. Is it right to say that that much % of success is nutrition...? Only to show how much stress should be put to make it perfect but not how much it can be ignored. There is a lot of information available with regards to nutrition and there many different ways to make it optimal. Sadly most of it targeted at the most popular kind of activity these days: Bodybuilding. And so is the availability in the store. There is a lot of supplements which can be used to enhance athletic performance but it should be very carefully separated from BB oriented stuff. I do not think anyone would agree that consuming 100g of sugar at a time is a good thing, and yet post-workout drinks stuffed with highest possible GI (all kinds of corn sugar) are readily available in health stores and are popular among "health/fitess" oriented mindless crowd. It is helping to pour amino-acids into muscles and at the same time killing insulin sensitivity, moving the person very quickly towards diabetes. Everyone should do their homework and make an educated choice. Be aware of what is in that big bucket of whey protein powder. Creatine, loads of sugar and all kinds of digestion enhance additives can be very damaging for an athlete other than bodybuilder who is weight minded and is not interested in sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and putting on 20-30 lb of useless mass. Be sure to inquire what is hiding behind "proprietery blend".

First whole diet should be in accordance with athlete's goals and then supplements should be considered as although whole food is a preferable source of nutrients it is hard to make it well balanced for good performance completely avoiding supplements.

Gregor is absolutely right, vitamins and minerals are most important supplements. Human body is very adaptive and can handle a huge range of changes in diet, but the fastest and most serious health complications would result from minerals and vitamins deficiency let alone optimal athletic performance. Fish oil is great, but people can handle much easier and for much longer time bad omega 3 vs. omega 6 ratio, try to reduce vitamin C and whole immunity system is down.

What should be number two for a hard working athlete probably depends on the age. For someone like me (38 y.o.) or older antioxidants should be number two. Free radical damage is a real and is affecting more and more our bodies with age. So for me ALA (Alpha-Lipoic-Acid) and herb concentrates are indispensable and should be taken regularly. If it is really hard workout, then maybe even NEC.

BCAA and other amino-acid and protein supplements should be sharing number two or be a bit lower in importance (just my personal opinion). Depends on the intensity of training and goals.

Everything else should be number four including fish oil. Actually fish oil would not be needed at all if one can figure out the way to balance all fat consumption. Taking fish oil just compensates for lack of omega 3 in our diet, but is not indispensable or life important. Having said that I am taking it daily and believe it is helpful.

Just my $0.02.

Fish Oil is just MUCH more than just healthy fats.

Fish Oil has anti inflammatory, I guess you can say "features" I suppose, My own mother, she has had a pain in her leg for a long time, a group of different kinds of drugs did not work for her, and if one was effective it made her sleepy, etc. I told her to try fish oil. after a week or two. I'm not lying, I swear it for my life. About 80% or so of her pain was gone. Besides this, it also can aid in losing weight, and way more.

At first if one does not do research in one thing it might seem like one thing, but it is much more when looked on closely.

Of course I'm talking about quality fish oil. Researching/learning is your friend .

[Alexander Kornishev]

Of course fish oil helps, I just stated it's importance as I see it for athletic performance.I read quite a bit on this topic and although I am convinced that fish oil is useful in achieving overall health it's place is justified? The OmegaRx Zone by Dr. Sears has some very good info on fish oil and other "good fats" related issue. There is no magic behind it except that it balances out our poor diet habits. There is no better source for EPA/DHA than high quality fish oil today, so yeah, if person's health is in poor condition and fish oil helps by all means he/she should keep using it. So probably should be doing hardworking strength athlete, red cells will easier pass through even tiniest blood vessels , etc...

[JL]

I'm glad I reciewved an email about this thread. I have mixed feelings about the role of extra amino acids, or the timing of there consumption. I think I have the research, I'll check later, but it is about the absorption of amino acids, or localization to the stressed muscle after strength training. There was an increase in the concentration of Leucine, I believe, within a few hours. I remember supplementation actually increased the concentration of amino acids localized after exercise vs. the control group. The bad news, no greater increase in strength or muscle mass was noticed vs. the control. Apparently, the study represented a limit to how much could be utilized. I recall reading that much of the results are all over the place concerning the effectiveness of amino acid/protein supplementation. Maybe, the amount of protein worth consuming depends on the individual's natural biochemistry. So, one person might swear by it, and the other rolls his eyes and thinks people are high on the plabeo effect. Anyways, I'll get back to ya'll.

[Gregor]

Look at nutrition threads where I posted some studys...