When we talk about nutrition before and after exercise, we usually focus on nutrition after exercise. People usually focus on what to eat after exercise, but rarely discuss what to eat before exercise. This makes sense in theory, right? After all, we consume energy when exercising, so we naturally think: "What should we take to have a positive effect?"
Nutrition after exercise is very important for exercise effect and repair adaptation, but nutrition before exercise is actually equally important. What we eat before exercise can help our body achieve a better exercise effect and help repair after exercise.
In this article, we will introduce what pre-workout nutrition is, why it is important, and how to make good use of it to benefit you.
What is pre-workout nutrition?
Pre-exercise nutrition generally refers to all the diets that are consciously ingested into the body before exercise. Generally speaking, this refers to the food, fluids, and sports supplements that we take specifically for optimizing performance and restoring stamina within more than two hours before starting to exercise.
In exercise and other targeted training, pre-workout nutrition usually includes high-quality protein and carbohydrates. They help support performance during exercise.
In fact, all the diets taken before exercise can be regarded as pre-exercise nutrition. However, for the sake of brevity, the scope of this article is limited to eating 2-4 hours before exercise and will focus on protein and carbohydrate sources.
Why is nutrition before exercise important?
We should pay attention to nutrition before exercise. There are countless reasons and benefits involved in this.
Before continuing to read this article, it must be noted that you don't have to be a serious athlete or weightlifter to pay attention to pre-workout nutrition. The results of exercise and changes in body composition are accumulated through various conscious and small actions. Pre-exercise nutrition is one of the actions, which can optimize exercise performance and help improve all aspects of life.
Optimize the repair process
We should pay attention to nutrition before exercise, the first reason is to help the body repair. When we eat throughout the day, the body will continue to digest the food and fluids eaten to provide energy and restore physical strength for the body. Based on many factors, the digestibility of various foods and meals will vary, but if a person is not in a fasting state, there will usually be some degree of digestion.
From the perspective of exercise and muscle growth, the variable that most fitness professionals pay attention to is usually muscle protein synthesis. Muscle protein synthesis requires the use of protein to shape and repair muscles. By eating strategically before and after exercise, we can create an environment conducive to muscle protein synthesis and better support muscle repair and growth.
Optimize exercise effect
The second reason to pay attention to nutrition before exercise is to get a better exercise effect. We all want to pursue the best performance, and we all know how it feels to exercise when the energy level is low. Therefore, by formulating a strategic pre-workout nutrition plan, you can be prepared and avoid poor performance due to insufficient nutrition.
Everyone trains with different intensities and patterns. Therefore, we must consider pre-exercise nutrition on a personal level. This means that the nutritional choices before exercise must make us feel good and perform well, and at the same time can be obtained from foods that we can easily find and love. Basically, the pre-exercise nutrition plan needs to start from the individual and cannot follow the same "beautiful" plan arbitrarily.
‌How to add energy to the body before exercise?
Instead of letting me provide a pre-workout meal and call it "the best", let us discuss this issue systematically. When formulating a nutrition plan before and after exercise, you must remember that nutrition is a very personal choice.
Basically, you can refer to many criteria for choosing a pre-workout meal, including:
- Your type of exercise
- The adaptability you seek
- The type of food you can easily get
- Your preference
- Research-supported efficacy
If our pre-workout nutrition process can cater to our personal lives and goals, then we will be more able to persevere.
When making a pre-workout nutrition plan, the first thing to consider is the type of exercise you plan to do. Do you want to do long-term endurance exercises, short-term strength exercises, or moderate-intensity exercises? All these exercises use different energy systems and store energy at different stages of the exercise. With this in mind, we can choose foods that can better support exercise performance more wisely.
The following examples show how you can arrange meals according to the type of exercise:
- Endurance: low fat, high carbohydrate, medium amount of protein
- Weightlifting + medium intensity: low fat, medium carbohydrates, and protein
Then, we can connect the ongoing activities with the adaptability we hope to achieve. For example, if you are an endurance athlete, then improving your exercise ability is likely to be your special focus. In this case, the ideal choice is carbohydrates that will help you extend your exercise time. For elite endurance athletes, carbohydrates suitable for intake during exercise are also very useful.
If the goal is to increase and grow muscle, then choosing carbohydrates and high-quality protein sources before exercise is particularly conducive to muscle hypertrophy. Remember, there are opinions that carbohydrates and protein help increase muscle protein synthesis after exercise.
Once we have confirmed the type and intensity of exercise and considered our goals, we can start to arrange meals that are particularly suitable for use according to our preferences, availability, and cost.
‌What are some examples of meals before exercise?
To optimize pre-workout and post-workout nutrition, you should keep in mind some basic dietary points, including:
- Choose high-quality protein sources as much as possible.
- Protein powder and nutrient-rich whole food protein are very effective.
- Ingest a source of carbohydrates based on the activity you are doing.
- For endurance exercise, choose a higher amount of carbohydrates.
- For moderate-intensity exercise, choose to consume moderate amounts of carbohydrates.
Let us give some examples to illustrate the pre-workout meal format. Remember, these are just examples, so please choose nutrition according to your dietary preferences!
Example 1: 1 hour before running
- Oatmeal with cinnamon and a whey protein shake
- Reason: Slowly digested carbohydrate source, high-quality protein source with sufficient amino acids.
Example 2: 2 hours before exercise
- Chicken breast/lean ground turkey/lean beef and potatoes with fruit
- Reason: slow and faster digestion of carbohydrate sources, high-quality whole food protein.
Example 3: 30 minutes before exercise (weightlifting + running)
- Two oranges and greek cheese
- Reason: Faster digestion of carbohydrates and low-fat protein sources can limit "satisfaction."
The above examples are all meals that can optimize nutrition before exercise. The focus of these examples is to illustrate that the pre-work meal should be made up of foods that you like and are easily available.
The key points of pre-workout nutrition
- Choose foods that you like and are easily available, but that will not affect your performance. Basically, by arranging your meals and mealtimes, you can get the best performance!
- Choose high-quality proteins because they are richer in amino acids and can play a role in muscle protein synthesis (repair + growth).
- According to your activities, get enough carbohydrate sources every day. Since carbohydrates can help muscle protein synthesis and increase energy levels, you should choose a carbohydrate source that you like and is easily available, such as protein.
By making efforts within our capabilities, we will be able to formulate nutritional programs that suit our long-term growth.
Also see: 9 popular sports supplements-can they help you maximize your performance?
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