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I know its important to have fuel in the tank but how long before a workout shoulkd I be eating ?
How important to eat before workout?
- Thread starter platinumtrees
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One thing people do a lot is take an idea in isolation. Now unless you eat once a day you'll almost certainly have some food in your system before you hit the gym.
It also depends on the time of day you train. The busiest times of day for 99% of gyms is around 5-8pm. So those people will have eaten lunch (12-2pm) and will have, at worst, been 3-5 hours without a meal. Back when I trained at that time I'd eat a large flapjack about 90-minutes before hitting the gym and that was more than enough to get me through a training session.
Connor_Z57
New member
It depends on your goals. If performance is the goal, very important! There’s food and supplements you could take before a workout to promote just that. Specially if you’re doing some type of HIIT (lifting weights till failure with very short rest periods between sets or none at all it’s also HIIT). An example of food you could take to promote performance is a fruit like apple [emoji519] or orange [emoji521]. Since they have mainly slow digesting carbs, they provide you with a slow and steady supply of energy that lasts. If your goal is to lose body fat, depending on where you are in your diet, and your experience. If you still eat carbs at other times of the day other than pre and post workout, I would slowly cancel those out FIRST, and as soon as you stop losing fat, you could cancel the pre workout carbs. Another food/supplement you could take before a hard workout would be a good protein shake. Research shows that taking certain amino acids before workouts promote energy and performance. Whey Isolate and/or a separate BCAAs supplement would do a good job at that since they’re very fast digesting and those aminos would be ready for use very soon in your workout.
Hope that helps!
Hope that helps!
A weights workout rarely use much more than 400 kcals.
you shouldn't view it as I need "x calories" cause I will burn "X calories"
it is about do i have fuel to burn through to get me through a workout and the answer is yes for weight training and no to doing a half marathon. they have cookies, sports drinks and fruit along the way for a reason during those so you can 'fuel up' along the way.
weightlifters though simply do not need any of those. they confuse flat muscles with them 'needing fuel' and that is cause they read those stupid magazines or listen to some idiot on social media talk about how they have sugar backstage before a contest to get rid of the flat muscles. that doesn't apply to a gym rat whatsoever
Connor_Z57
New member
You are right, Steve! We don’t need to eat before a weightlifting workout to get through it. Specially if doing your classic 10-reps every set, never going to complete failure with 2-3 minutes of rest between sets like 90% of people on a typical day at the gym do. But if we’re talking about MAXIMIZING your performance, then the story changes. Specially if your workout is really intense and specially if you’re doing a full-body workout. As an example, one of my favorite ways to workout is what I like to jokingly call “High intensity interval weight training” Redundant name isn’t it? An example of this would be 4 different compound movements with weights in a row to total failure each time, non-stop for 3 sets. Something like:
1. Incline Dumbbell bench press
2. Cable Lat Pulldowns
3. Flat Dumbbell bench press
4. hex-bar row
Short rest
1, 2, 3 and 4 again and so on.
they’re 3 sets but 4 exercises, its really 4x3=12 sets to failure in a row. Doing that a couple of times will break your energy levels real fast, and you’d be thankful if you took a nice apple and whey shake before your workout. I’ve done it without them, and I’ve gone through it. I didn’t need the fruit or whey shake before the workout to complete it, further proving that you’re right. Now, is not as fun, it feels very different, you don’t do it with as much intensity and sometimes you’re fighting to finish those last sets. What’s the sense of it if it’s not fun and you feel like crap because of low energy? This it’s easily mitigated with a good fruit, a whey shake 1 hour before the workout and for those that have the money and are even more serious, a separated BCAAs supplement, creatine, beta-alanine, Betaine, caffeine, l-tyrosine, alpha-gpc. No, I don’t NEED them to go through my workout, research and real life shows us that they will, absolutely improve and maximize your performance if taken before workouts. It will always come back to your style of training and if you’re interested in maximizing your performance.
Greetings!
It depends on your goals and honestly just how you feel.
