Perfect Pre, Mid, and Post Workout Nutrition

[Joshua Naterman]

Before we get started, I want everyone to read the first two pages of this thread: http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1375

That is a discussion on nutrition that covers a lot regarding different ideas on supplementation, and macronutrient breakdown of meals around a workout. It is quite good

Just about everyone has heard of the "anabolic window" and how important it is to any athlete's performance, from a fitness enthusiast like many of us to an international-level competitor like our own Gregor. Whether you are trying to get big, get strong, or keep workout volume high session after session so that you consistently have quality training and can compete at your highest ability, this is the most important part of your day. It is every bit as important as your training, and in some ways much more important.

Unfortunately, there has been a general lack of easily digestible (no pun intended) information regarding exactly what this "window" is and how to take the FULLEST advantage of it. Basically you've got about 4 hours starting from the moment you started working doing muscle damage to provide your body with as much material as possible to make emergency repairs. After this period of time, you have missed the most critical healing time. Damage that occurs outside that timeframe will not be healed optimally, which means that your gains will be less than what they could have been. What follows is the IDEAL SCENARIO. If you can not follow the IDEAL scenario you should do your best. If you can only eat 4 times instead of 5 or 6 that is fine, but try to get them all.

Note: I am not going to mention supplements here beyond BCAA, creatine, zinc, magnesium, and vitamin C. The food selection and meal timing is going to be the vast majority of what causes you to get the most out of this time frame. These supplements, while they do help, are not the priority. First get used to the foods and timing. THEN worry about extra stuff. If you feel like you can do the supplementing without losing your focus on the foods go right ahead, but the food is the MOST IMPORTANT part of this.

Acronyms you need to know:

GI: Glycemic Index

This is a measurement of how fast foods get digested and enter the bloodstream as compared to pure glucose. Usually this is based on glucose having a value of 100. A GI of 100 would mean that the food enters the blood as fast as pure glucose. Sometimes other foods like white bread are used as the 100 value, in which case glucose is generally valued at 140. This is more confusing but lets you easily figure out whether or not a food impacts blood sugar more or less than white bread. Since we shouldn't eat white bread ANYWAYS this is pretty useless for anyone on a healthy diet. Regardless, we won't deal with numbers in this discussion, but this is something you should know off the top of your head.

II: Insulin Index.This is another one that won't play a huge role in this discussion but is very important in nutrition. Wikipedia actually has good info on this one.

GL: Glycemic Load. This is not an independent measurement. GL is basically GI along with portion size. If you eat four jelly bellies, which have a GI of almost 100 (VERY fast absorption into the blood) the GL is still low, because that's around 4g of sugar. Your body can handle 4 instant grams of sugar quite easily. GL simply tells you what the actual impact of a meal is on your system. This can get confusing. I recommend that you read up on this in Wikipedia or search on google. Both have excellent info that will help you understand this better.

BCAA: Branched Chain Amino Acids. These are amino acids, the building blocks of protein. There are 3 common BCAAs. Simple explanation from WebMD:

Branched-chain amino acids stimulate the building of protein in muscle and possibly reduce muscle breakdown.

These help a LOT. If you don't take these before and after your workout, your first PWO shake will be largely wasted in terms of muscle tissue building. That's ok, there are lots more meals, but if there is one specific supplement you should consider then this is it. I would recommend this over creatine, as good as creatine is, because BCAAs are more integral to actual protein synthesis in the muscles. This could easily be presented the other way, they are both important supplements.

Creatine: This is not an acronym, but I feel like I should explain this briefly. Creatine is an organic acid. It is a 3 amino acid protein, made of arginine, glycine and methionine. The primary benefit of creatine is that it is physically used as the energy base for our most powerful energy system: the Creatine Phosphate system. This produces more ATP per second than any other energy system our body has and directly powers our efforts for the first 10-15s of contraction. Pure strength training is powered primarily by creatine, and supplementation will help you get stronger faster. There are many secondary effects of creatine which you can read about on your own. They are not important for the purposes of this article.

Because our body does not have to MAKE much creatine when we supplement with it, the amino acids that would normally be sacrificed to creatine production can be used for muscle building, new blood cell generation, etc. Why does this matter? Well, our bodies do maintenance all the time, but it isn't magic. If your body is trying to make more muscle, it needs arginine and methionine. Sure, there are other amino acids involved, but guess what: IF YOU DON'T HAVE THEM ALL AT THE SAME TIME YOU AREN'T BUILDING ANY MUSCLE. Creatine supplementation allows us MAXIMIZE the healing process by making the protein you take after your workout directly available for healing instead of healing + creatine regeneration.

SCT: Short Chain Triglycerides

MCT: Medium Chain Triglycerides

LCT: Long Chain Triglycerides

These are your basic types of fat. These are the ones that matter for this discussion. SCT and MCT do not delay gastric emptying. What that means is that they do not slow down the digestive process and can not lower the GI of a meal to any significant extent. LCT delay gastric emptying and will lower meal GI. It is important to know what these different fats do once you eat them, because this will affect your food choices to some extent and is important for general nutrition as well. If you are trying to slow down digestion with coconut oil, you're not making the wisest choice. It is very healthy, but will not slow down digestion. More on that in a few paragraphs.

Before we get into the plan, here are some basic food guidelines:

You want the MOST natural foods you can find. Meat, vegetables, fruits, berries etc. Organic vegetables, fruits, and berries are to be preferred. They taste better, have better nutrient profiles and have fewer toxic substances in them. Yes, that all matters. The farmer's markets will be your friend when it comes to buying these affordably. If you can't afford organic, that's ok, but you must have the good foods. Breads and pastas, even whole grain varieties, simply do not offer you as many vitamins and minerals, and most grain sources DO make your body work harder to digest them. Grassfed beef is to be preferred over regular beef, but either is ok in a pinch. Your local butcher and local farmers will be able to hook you up with great prices, but you may have to buy bulk so a large freezer is a good idea. Sweet potatoes are good, but don't eat the skin... it has specific chemicals in it that your immune system will have to neutralize, as they are a member of the nightshade family.

Thin skinned fruits have more vitamins than thick skinned, but eat what you like and what you can afford. Plums, apples, peaches, nectarines, mangoes and citrus are all prime choices, but the other fruits are fine too. Berries are best right before and after workouts for the antioxidants. Fresh coconut is great for both before and after the workout, I highly recommend that you buy them white from the farmer's market. For some reason a lot of the brown ones are bad, but the white coconuts seem to always be good. To find a good coconut you need to look at the eyes. There are three dots on one end. If ANY of them looks moldy that is a bad coconut. If the shell is cracked, it's bad. Shake it: It should sound and feel very, very heavy and full for its size. Of course if that's too much work just buy the Grace brand creamed coconut. It has no preservatives and can be mixed into drinks easily or made into a sauce for fruit, which is quite good. Sorry to ramble about coconuts, but good ones are tricky to pick out sometimes.

If you refuse to eat primarily fruits and vegetables for your carbs, know that corn and rice both have no gluten. Unprocessed brown rice is to be preferred, and if you germinate it you will actually turn it into a very good food source. Research that on google. The same can be done with barley. In both cases, the germination process destroys most "harmful" compounds like lectins and also releases quite a bit more amino acids for your absorbion enjoyment! It also makes the grain taste sweet. Fermentation is ok too, but you need to be very selective about the culture you use. That requires a lot of research and experimentation and can be a bit messy at first.

For those of you who are just regular guys/gals and don't care about the utmost in nutrition, do your best. You can make substitutions as long as the basics remain the same, but your best results will be with veggies and fruits, ESPECIALLY during this anabolic window.

It is very important that you drink water with your meals, especially during this time period, as your body actually uses water to break down nutrients into usable forms. Without water you are screwing yourself out of your gains and all this planning will be wasted.

Maximizing your Anabolic Window:

This starts with your pre-workout meal, which is the last whole food meal you have before your workout. This is not your pre-workout shake. That's totally different and also NOT optional for the ideal scenario. This meal should be right around an hour before the workout and should be fairly slow digesting. For carb-adapted individuals you're going to want this meal to be mostly carbs, a little protein, and a little fat. You want most of the fat to be LCT. Fat adapted individuals will want more fats and less carbs. In both cases you want some protein, 15-30g depending on how big you are, but this is not an important time for protein consumption. Do not make it a priority. Your priority in this meal is to eat very slow digesting carbs and fats. If you're eating meat, chances are that unless it is skinless chicken breast you will get the fat in the meat. Avocados are good fat for this meal. Sweet potatoes, brown rice if you must(germinated preferably), germinated bean sprouts work well too, and in a very distant last place whole grain pasta without too much sauce (most sauces have a high GI and the pasta is already not the lowest) should be your carbs. Of course you can make substitutions, but the theme of this meal is slow digesting food. If you have limited access to slow digesting carbs use some fats like heavy cream to slow down the digestion.

Right before your workout, like 20 minutes before or less, take your BCAA and creatine along with a multivitamin or some green leafy veggies that are NOT steamed and some berries. Blanched is ok but you need the vitamin C, and phytonutrients and full steaming will destroy a lot of them. 15-25g protein is also a good idea right now. The only solid food should be those veggies, berries, and a good multivitamin is an acceptable (barely) substitute if you absolutely have to, as is a "green" drink.

During the workout: EAT. Seriously. Grapes are your friend here. They are nature's jelly beans. Jelly beans are also excellent, and popping 2-3 after each set or exercise in the WOD will keep your catabolic hormones (specifically cortisol) in check and help spare some glycogen. Make sure you drink water between rounds or sets. Don't make yourself sick, but you shouldn't have trouble putting at least 16-32oz down during a WOD. That's like 1-2 oz per exercise. Do not let this be an excuse to rest.

Immediately after your workout: BCAA, multivitamin/green drink/veggies +berries, grapes, creatine, 1 scoop (20-25g) protein, lots of water. The MOST ideal thing to do is to have the BCAA, berries, grapes, and creatine all at once. Wait 15 minutes, then have the protein and some more grapes or some other sugary fruit. We want fast absorption here.

After this I find it is easiest to just eat every 30 minutes. You can do this with liquid or solid meals, and you can AND SHOULD manipulate the amount of carbs to reflect what you need to replace. You will get the hang of this as time goes on, and finding a glycogen calculator online will help.

Unless you are completely fat adapted you'll want a 2:1 carbs to protein ratio, at least, for your first two meals. Don't have more than 60g carbs, it's unnecessary. If you are fat adapted, your first meals should have lots of SCT and MCT. That means coconut! If you are unsure what the fatty acid profile of something else is, like almonds or avocado, you should search google for "fatty acid profile of (insert food here)" and you will get results. You should make a list of all the SCT and MCT if you're trying to eat the fats and don't know what to eat, and use that to figure out how much you're getting. You will probably be looking at close to a 1:1 or slightly higher ratio of fat grams to protein grams for at least your first two meals. You MUST have some carbs in the form of the fruits or veggies, if you don't your body will regenerate glycogen from the protein and you will get less than optimal results.

You should be able to see that these are fairly small meals, I mean 20g of protein is a small chicken thigh. This isn't a massive amount of food per meal, but over the course of these meals you will eat a ton. Because of the hormonal activity and non-hormonal adaptive pathways that are stimulated during this time, and because none of these meals is big enough to shut down the anabolic phase due to hormone level alterations, you will not be storing any of this as fat. You will probably get leaner. I personally am seeing small but visible results from one day to the next. This works. Not only do I see results, but I am always ready to go, even with all the extra training I do.

I highly suggest that you take digestive enzymes with each of these meals. The enzymes make a noticeable difference in how much I feel my body absorb, and they will probably do the same for you. This is probably the most important thing I have learned from Poliquin thus far. Part of the reason fruits and vegetables are so important is that they have lots of vitamins, enzymes, water, and other metabolic co-factors that you just aren't getting without them, and this does impact your recovery. The higher your performance goals the closer you should try and stick to this.

If nothing else, take this away: The more you eat, and the more evenly it is spread, during this post workout period the better your progress will be, whether it is size, strength or work capacity that you are after. For those worried about getting TOO big, just adjust the levels of nutrients to your body size. I'm 220+lbs, these are for MY size.

My personal schedule:

30 minutes: 50-60g sugary fruits, fresh coconut, protein drink 1 scoop (20-25g)

1 hr: faster carbs (veggies and more grapes), meat(20-30g protein, usually chicken leg quarter + skin)

1.5 hr: slower carbs (banana, grapes or other noncitrus fruit), liquid protein 20-25g.

2 hr: solid or liquid, mix of faster and slower carbs, protein, some berries if I still have some, coconut if I didn't eat it all.

2.5 hr:solid or liquid, mix of faster and slower carbs, protein, some berries if I still have some. if the previous meal was liquid I will eat solid, and visa versa.

3 HR: 100% solid foods, slower carbs, coconut. I can't get enough fresh coconut!

You can get more detailed with supplementation and a bunch of other stuff but that is not necessary for anyone here besides Gregor and perhaps a few of the professional hand balancers or others who are actively pursuing a professional athletic career. Until you have your food right those supplements aren't going to help you at all.

You will notice that you simply do not need very much food the rest of the day (compared to if you only have 1 or 2 PWO meals), either before OR after this anabolic window. This is because your body has done most of what it needed to do, and now it is back to maintenance mode. If you don't fulfill your nutritional requirements you be hungry all the time, but your body will not be primed to absorb all the food and a lot of damaged muscle will have been cannibalized in an attempt to heal the damage done during the workout, so not only will you be eating more and having a tougher time getting really lean, you will also be unable to make the best gains because you will literally be missing the most important part of your recovery.

If you follow this you will feel completely recovered about halfway through the meals. Don't stop eating, you are only halfway there. I never fail to be hungry when it is time to eat. You will also find that you have a lot of energy for your workouts and that this will pretty much ALWAYS be the case as long as you stay on your eating plan.

For those few of you who have very long training sessions, if you can set up protein, carb, and fat shakes with the correct amount of macronutrients (or small meals if you want to or can) to take at 30-45 minute intervals throughout your workout you will notice massive improvements in both work quality and recovery, especially if you follow the plan after you are done as well. Obviously you will want to scale your food intake at each sitting to what is appropriate for your body.

Following this approach to workout nutrition can produce results that are good enough to raise eyebrows and possibly raise questions as to whether you are on "the juice."

[Guest]

Epic post. Thanks a lot!

[Rafael David]

Slizz if I could I'd give you a hug!

ps: Feel embraced hahaha

[Cole Dano]

Slizz great post! Thanks for taking the time to put it together in a clear and concise format.

Funny i just ordered these two books as i realized i needed to begin to educate myself on just this topic.

Nutrient Timing (Paperback)

By (author) Robert Portman, By (author) John Ivy

http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9781591201410/

Nutrient Timing for Peak Performance: The Right Food, the Right Time, the Right Results (Paperback)

By (author) Heidi Skolnik, By (author) Andrea Chernus

http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780736087643/

These may be helpful reference for anyone interested in further treatment of the subject, and the weren't very expensive.

I imagine it will take a little while to put it together, but the random fasting and eating habits of a yoga teacher have to come to an end its just not working anymore!

[Tarun Suri]

Sticky just because it's so well written.

[Ryan Libke]

Would the pre-workout nutrition be timed according to the beginning of the warm-up or the beginning of the working sets? I have a decently long warm-up/mobility session, lasting 15-20 minutes, or more, before getting down to it (as it were).

Thank you for the post and sharing this information.

[Joshua Naterman]

You're welcome!

Wolf, that's a really good question. I think the most honest answer I can give is to experiment and see which feels best, but I have a feeling that timing it according to the warm up is going to give the best results, especially if you're taking in some protein and especially some carbs/MCT in the middle of your workout. Carbs are going to give the best effect since they are the most quickly metabolized, but keep in mind we're talking about 2-4g per set, it's not a huge amount of carbs at any one time. I prefer grapes and jelly bellies, but the grapes are probably the best since they give water as well.

[Razz]

Very interesting, never knew that SCT didn't slow digestion. More coconut milk for me around workouts. Just a little note is that the advantage of BCAA over whey is not THAT big so unless you really 100% want want want the best results possible you might wanna consider saving the money and buying whey. And this whole BCAA/whey thing of course comes AFTER you've got your entire diet throughout the day meticulously organized. Great post slizzardman!

[Joshua Naterman]

Oh, absolutely. The protein supplement really shouldn't be considered a supplement per se, as it is quite literally a food product. As you say, BCAAs and creatine are far less important than having your food and PWO meals in place.

In regards to protein powders, Whey is going to be your best protein source for your PWO meals within the discussed timeframe. The last liquid meal can also be a milk protein powder, but at the very least have a mix of fast and slow proteins. If all you are taking is casein or something the results will be less than ideal. Your body needs the "instant" absorption of whey during these times.

For non PWO liquid meals or snacks, a slow protein is best.

[Rafael David]

Slizz, what do you think of guarana powder before training? I drink coffee, but I want to replace because guarana lasts longer ..

[Rafael David]

one more question: what are the ingredients you use in your green drink? I searched on google, but it has so many results that do not know which one is best, is as a supplement, which has so many do not know which one to buy! :?

[Nicholas Sortino]

I like http://www.amazinggrass.com/green-superfood.html for green powders. No soy, wheat or any of that other junk, and full of different veggies. Flavors are ok but you can definitely taste the grassiness. Still, it's a lot better than the crappy GNC ones.

[Joshua Naterman]

Slizz, what do you think of guarana powder before training? I drink coffee, but I want to replace because guarana lasts longer ..

guarana is just another source of caffeine, I do not know of any significant difference between coffee and guarana powder, but having 50-100mg of caffeine before a workout helps. It helps to preserve the calcium channel or something like that, basically it allows you to work hard for longer. That's why it is a banned substance for Olympic athletes.

As far as green drinks go, unless you're going to blend up a ton of green veggies every day do what Nick suggests and buy a good one if you like. Before you worry about any of that make sure you have a ton of veggies in your diet.

[Nicholas Sortino]

Slizz, what do you think of guarana powder before training? I drink coffee, but I want to replace because guarana lasts longer ..

guarana is just another source of caffeine, I do not know of any significant difference between coffee and guarana powder, but having 50-100mg of caffeine before a workout helps. It helps to preserve the calcium channel or something like that, basically it allows you to work hard for longer. That's why it is a banned substance for Olympic athletes.

As far as green drinks go, unless you're going to blend up a ton of green veggies every day do what Nick suggests and buy a good one if you like. Before you worry about any of that make sure you have a ton of veggies in your diet.

WHAT? I did not know this. That is crazy. I don't know if I could even workout without my 5hr energy. I am quite literally addicted to these things.

[Joshua Naterman]

The Olympics has a pretty comprehensive list of substances that are banned lol! I'm sure they can train with caffeine, but if it shows up in their systems they can be disqualified from competition after events. It's happened before.

[Joshua Naterman]

Update: The Olympic Committee dropped caffeine from the banned substance list due to high variability of caffeine metabolism from one individual to another. Apparently this made it hard to regulate, or something like that. Anyhow, they recognize that caffeine is a performance enhancing stimulant. So, as of right now, as far as I know caffeine is currently not banned by the IOC.

[Razz]

It's quite a while since caffeine was made legal

[Mikkel H.L.]

Great article! What results have you got since you switched to all these meals around the workout slizz? I tried it today and i already feel pretty recovered (5 hours later) so right now i'm quite excited:) You talked about eating jelly beans while working out, i did raisins today they will work as well right?

[Rafael David]

Great article! What results have you got since you switched to all these meals around the workout slizz? I tried it today and i already feel pretty recovered (5 hours later) so right now i'm quite excited:) You talked about eating jelly beans while working out, i did raisins today they will work as well right?

hey! me too! I ate raisins in the last training because I did not have grapes, but now I eat grapes and see what the outcome!

[Joshua Naterman]

I don't see why raisins wouldn't be ideal. Just make sure you sip some water with them!

[Joshua Naterman]

Great article! What results have you got since you switched to all these meals around the workout slizz? I tried it today and i already feel pretty recovered (5 hours later) so right now i'm quite excited:) You talked about eating jelly beans while working out, i did raisins today they will work as well right?

I see increased strength and muscle definition from week to week! I've only really gotten back on track with this for about two weeks now, and it really does make a difference. I sleep better because my body isn't trying desperately to find food for healing, so I don't wake up hungry at odd hours. I notice a more consistently high level of motivation towards the workouts too. One of the great things about the fruits and vegetables is that you get a lot of enzymes from them, and that helps with digestion. This also allows me to eat smaller meals for most of the day, just because I get most of my nutrition around the workout.

One thing to look out for is the protein farts though, if you forget to take digestive enzymes with each liquid meal you will probably be dealing with that to some extent, and even with them it may happen a little. Higher quality proteins will cause less of this, but I don't know that it's 100% avoidable. At the expense of some recovery, you could have more solid food meals and less liquid meals to alleviate that issue. Starting liquid and then solid, and alternating or even just having 2 liquid and 4 solid meals. I do think that the liquid protein is especially important in that first hour. I suppose you could also have a mix of some solid protein and some liquid so that you never have all that much at any one time. The whey really does do better for recovery during this window, but don't let that wreck your personal life! Just getting the meals will make a huge difference, regardless of whether they are solid or liquid.

[Mikkel H.L.]

Sounds cool It makes a lot of sense to just eat when you need the food - around the workout. I'll see about the protein farts, i've experienced it before so will definitely fix the liquid food if it comes.

I'm going to give this a try, i especially like eating some sugars while training (raisins). Thanks for taking the time to help us all

[AlexX]

Very good article, well written.

[Blairbob]

I think the difference is guarana is not water soluble compared to caffeine, right?

I have definitely noticed the difference between caffeine pre workout and not. I think whenever I do CF like metcons, it does tend to get me much closer to pukey because I can push harder than I otherwise would possibly. For that reason, whenever I had CF metcon days, I tried to stay away from anything with stimulants. Great on the days of strength training but I generally don't go to the gym prepared with extra clothes in case I puke nor do I feel like making and cleaning the mess.

[Rafael David]

I think the difference is guarana is not water soluble compared to caffeine, right?

yes, is not so soluble as coffee, but I noticed that the guarana in comparison is much more powerful, do not know the reason stated scientifically, but I feel better with guarana. :?