The Reason Your Workouts are Sucking
It’s Monday, You’re hitting new PRs today on your favourite lifts and you’re stoked, or maybe you’re going on a 10km run, or probably excited to hit a 40 min CrossFit Workout… You’ve slept super early the night before in anticipation. You’ve visualized the workout going extremely well. You get to the gym, you set up your equipment, you have a favourite playlist ready to go, and then it all falls apart.
You’ve rushed your breakfast, or skipped it all together.
Maybe you’ve had some eggs, a rice cake or two and felt full. Or maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Now you’re thinking to yourself why am I slow? Why am I feeling weak? Why is this workout harder than I thought it would be? Why is my performance not as I had expected?
You missed your 1RM attempt that seemed so close last week.
You added 5 more minutes to your 10km time.
You gassed out the first 4 minutes on that 40 min CrossFit workout.
Something’s amiss and you don’t know what it is because “ Yes I did have breakfast” you tell your coach before you say “it’s just not my day or maybe I’m not that good/strong/fit/ etc…”
Yes we all have our off days. We feel depleted… but often times it’s just because our nutrition sucks.
Pre-Workout Nutrition and why it’s more important than you think.
This won’t be a science lesson I promise. Actually I’ll keep it as un-science-y as possible.
For those of you who are not Carbophobic, you know that a good amount of carbs pre workout is extremely important. Even a good high carb meal the night before helps you perform better the next day. Your liver and muscles store glycogen which is the by-product of carbohydrates digestion. The reason we’d always want to have a good amount of carbs right before a workout is because it is the main fuel source that we use in training.
Having a rice cake or 2 is not enough if you’re planning on lifting heavy, or having long and challenging training sessions.
And to my surprise, it’s the one macro people CANNOT meet! My athletes often say “I cannot finish my carbs” and that just blows my mind as it’s the macro that is literally so easy to consume.
How so? Simply add a 250ml glass of orange juice with your 2 slices of toast. That’s an additional 25g of carbs right there ready to fuel you within 20-30 minutes. Not into juice? How about a quick apple or a banana? These take a minute or 2 to consume at most. Not so much into fruits? Add a tablespoon of honey to your oatmeal, or a biscuit or 2 with your coffee instead.
Now you’ve had your 4 egg omelette and your 2 tbsp peanut butter sandwich but you’re still feeling sluggish, slow, weak, maybe even lethargic and nauseated. This could be from the high fat content in the eggs and peanut butter.
4 egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter (provided you’ve measured correctly) will carry around 35g of fat, which is way above what we would recommend before a workout.
This is not an anti-fat statement. I love fat! I love it so much in fact I encourage including it in all our other meals (and if you must, keep it to a minimum). Just not the one right before you’re about to elevate your heart rate or lift heavy.
The reason why is simple. Fat slows down the digestion of carbs. Remember carbs are your fuel source! So if you’ve had a nice breakfast with a good amount of carbs but you’ve also consumed 35g of fat to go with it, chances are it’ll slow down the digestion of carbs leading to less available energy, which means slower run times, weaker lifts, and maybe a big old bucket full of your breakfast and stomach acid. Yikes.
So what exactly should you eat before your workout?
Focus on consuming:
- Solid amount of carbs to fuel the workout
- Solid amount of protein to provide an anabolic environment
- Small amount of fat to avoid slow digestion of carbs
I cannot provide you with exact numbers because these numbers depend on lots of various data, like your bodyweight, goal, age, etc…
I could have summed up this entire article by saying: Eat more carbs, less fat. But it’s always important to back up statements like these with actual facts so there you go.
See? I told you it wouldn’t be too science-y.
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Nizar