Our body has different needs, depending on the physical activity we are about to perform, or we are performing. Food plays a key role in fulfilling those needs but only if we know how to take the best out of it. In general, we know that before a training we shall consume mainly carbohydrates and after, if we performed a strength workout, we might go for more proteins. But that´s not all! There are many more details to consider and we will touch it in this article.
Before any kind of training, aerobic or anaerobic, we shall focus on getting sufficient energy to maintain a good performance, enough strength or endurance. Quantity, as well as quality and timing are key details to be defined and tailored made on each of us.
Let´s start with timing: we should consume a meal between 2 and 4 hours before our training. If we consume it just before the physical activity, probably some of us experienced it already, blood is busy in making sure we are properly digesting food and our stomach is still quite full. Maybe your mind is ready to kick off with a wonderful session but your body simply it isn’t. Therefore, you won´t see any benefits after your training because your muscles are not working properly, and you might risk feeling dizzy during the session. On the other hand, consuming food more than 4 hours before training, can lead to risk of hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, which leads to lower performance, fatigue, potential dizziness, and injuries. I would say that 3 hours before is the ideal timing
As we mentioned at the beginning, the meal before training shall be based on carbohydrates mainly. This is because we need energy to perform our training, as for example a car needs fuel in order to move, and energy or calories are given mainly by carbohydrates and fats. Carbohydrates contains 4 kcal per each gram and fats 9 kcal per each gram. Now, I guess you are thinking “so why fats cannot be used as our fuel instead of carbs since they contain more calories”?
It is possible and it is done but by professional athletes and mainly sportive people training at low intensity and high volume (marathonist, triathletes, cyclists). In those situations, burning fats rather than glycogen (glycogen=the way our body stocks carbs in muscles and liver) allows a better endurance and delays fatigue.
For all amatorial athletes, like most of us, not training specifically for a competition like previously mentioned, carbohydrates will be the perfect source of energy because quickly available.
We still must clarify which type of carbohydrates and how much!
The quantity of carbohydrates to be consumed depends a lot on our body weight and volume of training. We need to make sure we have enough glycogen stocked in our muscles. In general we can say that for athletes training at moderate intensity around one hour a day, we would need from 5 to 7 g each kg of body weight of carbs (for a 60 kg person, 300 – 420 g a day = 1200-1680 kcal a day of only carbs). For lower volume and intensity of training, 3 g each kg of body weight would be sufficient.
In general, it is recommended to consume around 2,5 g of carbs each kg of body weight 3 hours before the training. For the 60 kg person of the example before, it is about 150 g of carbs. The ideal range stays between 1 and 4 gram each kg of body weight depending on the intensity, volume, and type of training.
The most important aspect to consider when talking about performance in sport, it is the carbohydrates absorption speed. The quickest is this speed, the faster is the arrival of carbs at the muscular cells. Here we need to open a bracket and touch the topic of Glycemic Index. The glycemic index is a value between 0 and 100 representing the speed of digestion and conversion of food into glucose: 0 is very slow and 100 is fast. Without entering into details of glycemic index, we can say that overall, it is recommended to consume food with lower glycemic index during the meal before training because we can guarantee to have enough energy during the entire session and to support the recovery after.
Online there are plenty of tables showing glycemic index of several food.
Some example of food with low glycemic index (< 55) are:
- Legumes
- Vegetables including sweet potato and mais
- Cereal like spelt, oat
- Nuts
If before training the target was to increase performance, strength and endurance, during the training, our target will be to maintain constant the level of glycemia (glucose in blood). Overall, for training sessions below one hour, drinking water is the only thing we need to make sure. When we start to intensify and extend to more than one hour, up to 2 hours session, it is recommended to integrate with 30 g of carbohydrates per hour. Reaching 3 hour of training, the quantity suggested increases to 60 g per hour. Some example of drinks and food which can provide 30 g carbohydrates:
· 500 ml of isotonic drink with 6% carbohydrates
· 1 energetic bar or cereal bar
· 40 g raisin or dried fruit
· 1-2 banana
Now that we completed our training, we need to recover as quick as possible. The time needed to recover depends on how much glycogen our muscles have been consuming, how significant is the damage at musculature, how much carbs we have been consuming before training and the timing and finally our level of fitness.
We need to consider that to be fully recovered and to have fully regenerated the glycogen stock in our muscles, we need minimum 20 hours. If we want to train every day, we need to consume enough carbohydrates.
The best time to start reintegrating our stock of energy is right after training: particularly within the speed of generation of glycogen is 150% faster. It slows down a bit in the next 4 hours, but it is still quick fast. Therefore, it is important to consume carbohydrates right after training. The quantity of it to be consumed is around 1 gr per kg of body weight and the optimal type of carbs, always referring to the glycemic index, are the ones with low glycemic index, if you train maximum one time a day. If more, then it would be better to go for higher glycemic index.
It has been shown that a mixture of carbohydrates and proteins can be even more effective that only carbs, to regenerate you after training. This is because, consuming proteins together with carbs stimulate the release of insulin and inhibit the release of cortisol. Cortisol is normally reducing the speed of protein synthesis and stimulate the catabolism of protein while insulin promote the absorption of glucose and ammino acids from blood to muscular cells, promoting protein and glycogen synthesis.
Now you have enough information to start taking care of your nutrition before, during and after sport! If you need a personalized plan or only a consultation, please contact me 😉 valenutricoach@gmail.com
Have a look at my interview on that subject with UnMilk:
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