What to Eat Before A Workout

What you eat before and after a workout will affect your performance and recovery. According to fitness expert JJ Virgin, eating the right balance of nutrients before a workout can provide you with the energy and strength necessary to perform at your best. After exercising, your focus should shift to recovery, which involves repairing muscle tissues, replenishing energy stores, and reducing inflammation. Here are her tips on what you need to know about the food you should eat before working out.

• Eating the right foods before working out boosts your exercise effectiveness. The right pre-workout fuel impacts your performance, how your body builds muscle and burns fat, and your overall health goals.
• Carbohydrates are essential for energy before resistance training. Choose slow-releasing, low-glycemic carbs like berries or sweet potatoes to keep blood-sugar levels steady, ensuring consistent power and performance.
• Research indicates that a mix of carbohydrates and protein better replenishes muscle energy than carbs alone. Carbs fuel your exercise, helping preserve energy (glycogen) stored in muscles, while protein aids in muscle repair and growth by providing essential amino acids for building and repairing muscle fibers.
• Studies show that having optimal protein before exercise aids body recomposition, promoting muscle gain and fat loss and enhancing overall body shape.
• Water is also vital for peak performance and preventing dehydration, which can significantly affect endurance and strength. Drinking 14-20 oz of water two hours before your workout ensures you’re well-hydrated for optimal exercise performance.

Pre-Workout Supplements
In addition to your meals, the right supplements before your workout can help maximize your performance and recovery, support stamina, maintain energy levels throughout your workout, and ensure your body has the correct nutrients to build and maintain muscle.

Essential Amino Acids (EAAs)
Essential amino acids (EAAs) play a key role in several vital functions. They are fundamental for muscle building, maintaining muscle health, and aiding metabolic processes, including how effectively your body burns fat and builds muscle. One of the primary roles of EAAs is in muscle protein synthesis, the process of creating new muscle tissue.

This becomes particularly crucial during exercise, as physical activity causes microtears in muscles that your body must repair. This repair process leads to muscle growth and strengthening, with EAAs serving as the critical building blocks for the repair and construction of muscle tissue.

Leucine, a standout among the EAAs, is especially significant for its role in muscle protein synthesis, notably among older adults. Research indicates that consuming leucine-rich foods or supplements before working out can significantly enhance muscle protein synthesis, promoting muscle growth and facilitating recovery.

The best way to get EAAs is with a free-form supplement, which provides these essential amino acids in their free, unbound form. Unlike complete proteins that your body must break down, EAAs can be absorbed directly into your bloodstream. They can quickly reach your muscles for repair and growth.

Creatine
Creatine is one of the most effective supplements for improving strength and high-intensity exercise performance. It plays a crucial role in energy production within muscle cells, making it a key component for enhancing muscle strength, power, and overall performance.

Creatine can increase muscle protein synthesis, reduce muscle damage to help you recover faster, and minimize muscle damage from intense activity. Creatine achieves these benefits through several mechanisms:

1. Creatine increases the availability of creatine phosphate in the muscle your body uses to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the primary energy carrier in cells. This increased energy availability helps improve performance and endurance during short bursts of high-intensity exercise.
2. By enhancing muscle protein synthesis, creatine supports the repair and growth of muscle fibers, leading to improved muscle recovery and development.
3. Because it reduces muscle damage, creatine may help reduce inflammation and mitigate the stress on muscle tissues following intense workouts.

A micronized creatine supplement can improve your workout performance and accelerate muscle recovery. This allows for more effective training sessions and better overall fitness outcomes.

Taking creatine before or during workouts can help build muscle stores if you’re new to creatine. Over time, once you establish tissue stores of creatine, timing becomes less important. Just take it regularly to get those benefits!  

Electrolytes
Electrolytes are crucial for maintaining optimal hydration, particularly around workouts, where fluid and electrolyte balance significantly affect performance and recovery. 

These essential minerals, which include sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, help regulate fluid balance, support how your nervous system communicates, and aid muscle contractions.  

During exercise, sweating leads to loss of water and electrolytes. Electrolyte formulas aid recovery and set the stage for future training sessions by preventing dehydration and electrolyte imbalances, which could otherwise hinder performance and recovery. They can also help replenish muscle glycogen for recovery and readiness for upcoming training sessions.

Do You Work Out Better Fasted or Fed?
The debate between working out fasted or fed hinges on your preferences and specific fitness goals. Understanding how your body responds to exercise under different nutritional states optimizes your workout performance.

The best approach depends significantly on how your body reacts to exercise when fasted versus when fed. I work out about 30% harder with the correct fuel, including EAAs and electrolytes. If you’re fasting for weight loss, remember that the overall calorie deficit across your diet determines fat loss, not necessarily the state of being fasted or fed during the workout.

You’ll want to base your decision to perform resistance training fasted or fed on your capacity to push harder in either state. If you find that getting fuel before your workout enhances your ability to engage in more intense exercise, plan your pre-workout meal 1-3 hours before training with carbohydrates (to optimize glycogen stores and performance) and protein (to support muscle protein synthesis and repair).

If you choose a fasted workout, organic coffee can enhance focus and energy. Sipping essential amino acids (EAAs) and electrolytes during your workout can support muscle protein synthesis, although it will technically break your fast.

We’ll continue this series next week with an article on what you need to eat after a workout.