Everything You Need To Know About Pre-Workout Nutrition

Is it training, nutrition or supplementation?

If you said nutrition, you’re spot on. 

Nutrition is considered the most important factor in getting results in and out of the gym. After all, food is the fuel that powers you through your workout. It can also be used as a tool to enhance your gym performance.

Today, we’re going to focus on pre-workout nutrition. We’ll discover how important eating is prior to heading to the gym, understanding what you should be eating, and when you should be eating it. We’ll also find out whether you really need to be taking pre-workout supplements. 

As with most things in life, there is a middle ground when it comes to pre-workout nutrition. It is not as vitally important as many supplement manufacturers would have you believe, but neither is it totally without benefit. 

Let’s talk firstly about protein. Protein is the building block of the body and as such, is what muscle is made of. The human body is constantly breaking down old proteins and rebuilding new proteins.

When we exercise, however, the body’s rate of protein creation, or synthesis, goes down. After exercise both synthesis and breakdown rates increase. As a result, we say that exercise is a catabolic activity – meaning it breaks down muscle tissue. 

A key goal of pre-workout nutrition is to prevent catabolism from occurring. We do this by eating protein before our workout. But we don’t need to do so immediately prior to going to the gym. As long as you have consumed between 30 and 40 grams of protein within 3 hours of hitting the gym, you will ensure that your body remains in a state of protein synthesis. This is the state where muscle breakdown does not exceed muscle rebuilding.  

You should, in fact, be getting lean protein every 3 hours throughout the day, whether you are going to the gym or not. The only difference is that three hours before going to the gym, you will take a little more protein than normal. So, if you would normally consume 25 grams with every meal, you would eat 35 grams in your pre-workout meal. Chicken breast, eggs, turkey and fatty fish are all good choices when it comes to pre-workout protein.

Ok, let’s now turn our attention to pre-workout carbohydrates. Are they important for performance? The research tells us that they most certainly are. Studies show that consuming carbohydrates between 15 and 45 minutes prior to exercising will provide the energy you need to train harder for longer. That’s because the carbs will become glucose or blood sugar in your bloodstream. The more glucose that is available for the muscles to use, the better those muscles will perform. In addition, when you ramp up your blood sugar levels, you will be able to keep the glycogen levels in your muscle cells topped up. Glycogen is the main type of fuel that the body uses when you exercise. Keeping glycogen levels high will prevent your energy levels from dipping. 

Research has shown that consuming between 30 and 40 grams of carbs about thirty minutes before you head to the gym is ideal. 

So, what sort of carbs should you be taking before your workout? The best carbs to eat pre-workout are nutrient dense foods that will digest easily in your body. They should also be low glycemic foods. Low glycemic foods do not spike your blood glucose levels. When your blood glucose is spiked, it causes insulin levels also to be spiked. Insulin transports glucose into the muscle cell and depletes the levels of glucose in the blood. This leads to a lack of energy, which is the opposite to what you’re after. 

Some good choices are oatmeal, bananas, white or sweet potatoes, raisins and fruit. Fruit is an especially good choice because its energy is in the form of fructose. The fructose is made available for immediate energy rather than being stored as muscle glycogen.

So, what about fat, the third and final macronutrient? Is it important as a pre-workout food? The answer is NO. Taking fats will not improve your exercise performance. It may, actually, slow you down through the process of digestion - as fat takes longer to digest than proteins or carbs. 

Let’s now turn our attention to pre-workout supplements. Do you really need them? No, you do not. But they can be a nice addition, if you can afford them. Many pre-workout supplements consist of proprietary bends of underdosed ingredients that do not supply you with enough to provide benefits, even if that ingredient has some scientific backing. Others contain ingredients that have no scientific backing whatsoever. Many pre-workout energy boosters also contain stimulants, such as caffeine, in high dosages. This will produce a wired, off the wall feeling – and then lead to a dramatic energy crash which can wipe you out. 

If you do decide to spend money on a pre-workout supplement, you should focus on the following scientifically backed ingredients:

• Caffeine (but no more than 300mg per serving)
• Beta-alanine
• Citrulline malate
• Betaine
• Ornithine
• Theanine
  

If you wish, you can get the stimulant benefits of caffeine simply by drinking a cup of coffee about 20 minutes before your workout. A strong cup of coffee will give you about 180mg of caffeine, which is about what you want. 

Another supplement that is worth taking is creatine. Creatine supplementation will boost energy production in muscle cells to improve performance. In one meta study, creatine supplementation led to an 8 percent increase in one rep maximum and a 14 percent increase in reps at a percentage of one rep max. 5 grams of creatine taken daily seems to be the ideal dosage. You don’t have to worry about when you take creatine as it has a cumulative build up effect in the body. So, you can take it either before or after your workout and you should also take it on your non training days. 

Well, that’s the story on pre-workout nutrition. As we’ve seen it’s not nearly as complicated as people would like to make out. Simply be sure to eat 30-40 grams of quality lean protein within three hours of your workout. About thirty minutes before heading to the gym, have the same amount of dense, low glycemic carbs. You can also have a coffee for its caffeine content to get you focused and to give you that extra edge.