Convenient carb sources for during training

Lindahl said:

There's NO WAY that you're depleting your glycogen stores unless you're running a marathon. One study measured the effect of intense lifting on glycogen stores. The subjects performed 20 sets of squats to failure. That's 20 sets of one of the most demanding exercises TO FAILURE. And then measured muscle glycogen. They found that it was only depleted by 25%. That is 75% of the muscle glycogen stores were still intact.

There's no need to eat during your workout session. If you're fatigued just take longer rest times.

This is true, but the rate of release of glycogen does slow down as stores get depleted and consuming sugar does help keep energy levels up. I have seen this in every single client I have ever trained, without fail.

I believe that part of what is going on is that liver glycogen is being spared to some extent and that glucose from the ingested sugar is supplanting the glucose being released from the liver, but this is a little fuzzy.

The extra water that comes with this may play some role, but I notice a massive difference between drinking water alone and drinking water + eating jelly beans or having a small amount of protein + reasonable amount of glucose in the same amount of water.

And you can always experiment to figure out what works for you. It's that simple.

gravy said:

And you can always experiment to figure out what works for you. It's that simple.

Very true.

Also keep in mind that it takes ~2 weeks for your body to get used to new eating patterns with exercise, so don't think that because you feel weird on day 1 that you won't be feeling ridiculously incredible on day 14. This is most often the case with working out after larger meals and drinking tons of water while working out or running. At first your body doesn't know what to do, which is why you steadily ease into it instead of going full-bore from the start and puking all over your gym or running path

Joshua Naterman said:

Lindahl said:

There's NO WAY that you're depleting your glycogen stores unless you're running a marathon. One study measured the effect of intense lifting on glycogen stores. The subjects performed 20 sets of squats to failure. That's 20 sets of one of the most demanding exercises TO FAILURE. And then measured muscle glycogen. They found that it was only depleted by 25%. That is 75% of the muscle glycogen stores were still intact.

There's no need to eat during your workout session. If you're fatigued just take longer rest times.

This is true, but the rate of release of glycogen does slow down as stores get depleted and consuming sugar does help keep energy levels up. I have seen this in every single client I have ever trained, without fail.

I believe that part of what is going on is that liver glycogen is being spared to some extent and that glucose from the ingested sugar is supplanting the glucose being released from the liver, but this is a little fuzzy.

The extra water that comes with this may play some role, but I notice a massive difference between drinking water alone and drinking water + eating jelly beans or having a small amount of protein + reasonable amount of glucose in the same amount of water.

I've gone from eating breakfast then working out, to eating breakfast then working out while snacking on grapes during the workout, to working out in a completely fasted state. Not a single difference was noticed. But it's probably very individual, like alot of other things.

I think so, and I also think that the state of your glycogen stores is also a huge factor.

I rarely work out first thing in the morning, so I don't know if having a few meals first makes a difference in this or not... I hadn't thought about that before. Hmm.

For me, I notice that protein + glucose and protein + jelly bellies (specifically) are the two things that work the best for me during a long workout. I don't think it makes much of a difference until 40-50 minutes into the workout but after that it becomes more substantial.

There are definitely a few variables that can affect the effectiveness of this strategy.