Pre Workout Nutrition: Sorting Out the Confusion

Hello Internets!

I’ll start by apologizing for the delay in this week’s blog post. A combination of a busy and blog-blocked Byn equals delayed-ness in posting.

However, one of my clients has sparked my writing topic this week by asking a question I have heard a lot over the years, “What should I eat before coming to work out with you, why and when?”



Is it time to eat yet?!

This question is usually spurred after a first session or a wicked hard high intensity workout. Why? Because this is when we notice most how nutrition affects our performance when being active.  If we don’t eat properly for the workload we are about to ask our bodies to handle, we can easily go from a superstar to a wet piece of gym towel in minutes.

This often leaves us feeling out of shape and frustrated, which is less than motivating! So, if this scenario sounds familiar to you, try some of these tips to improve your workouts DESPITE your fitness level.

Tip #1: Do NOT eat within the hour before a workout

This is something I learned from my exercise physiology professor, and it has changed my workouts (specifically when I go climbing).  It can seem counterintuitive at first glance and I often get perplexed looks when I preach this all important concept.

When and What You Eat is Important

It is true that we need fuel to exercise, but eating within the hour before starting to be active is setting your body up for metabolic failure.

What we need during exercise is to have level blood sugar so our cells get what they need. If you eat, say, 30 minutes before working out your body will spike in insulin levels to deal with the blood sugar rise.  This is bad because when you start exercising you are in a hypoglycemic state, as insulin tells all the sugar to go into your cells to be used or stored. This leaves you feeling sluggish, light headed and weak.

Now, the beautiful thing about exercise is that it suppresses insulin release due to two hormones called norepinephrine and epinephrine. So it is ok to eat once you have begun to exercise, as insulin will not be released and you will not become hypoglycemic.

For example, say you have a volleyball game at 6. You ate lunch at 12 and now its 5… and you’re starving. If you wait until you are already playing volleyball to eat that granola bar and banana your blood sugar will stay much more level than if you eat it on your way to the game… causing you to play better.

A note of caution with this…  I would not recommend downing a banana right after the warm up before an intense circuit training class. What you eat is important as well…

Tip #2: Choose Appropriate Food Depending on Your Impending Workout  

As afore mentioned, eating a banana right after a crazy warm up (*cough* Bobby*) and right before an impending ass kicking is probably gonna make you vomit. So –what- you eat is also as important as when you eat it.

I don’t recommend falling into the volleyball scenario mentioned above, but hey life happens. So if you do find yourself staring down an over-enthusiastic trainer holding a sledge hammer with an empty stomach, reach for something that will digest very quickly and is bulk free.

There are several options you can choose from, including glucose gels to energy drinks. These are a quick fix and I do not suggest falling into a habit of using them on a regular basis, but keep some with you incase crap hits the fan and you have a Bootcamp at 5. 

Gels often don’t taste the greatest, but I prefer them to energy drinks as they often contain less sugar, for example try Clif Bar energy shots. Gatorade has come out with a new line of pre- during and post- workout nutrition. I haven’t tried these supplements myself but those are another possibility to avoid puke-age. DO NOT drink energy drinks… they are not the same thing… they are very very bad for you.

The goal, however, is to eat 2 to 3 hours before your workout. What you should eat should depend on what you are about to do. I am a fan of high intensity training, and for this you want to make sure you have a low fat, high carbohydrate meal with some protein.

Some examples could include;

·         Banana and half a class of orange juice with 8 almonds: The banana and orange juice is light, quick digesting and high in potassium which will allow you to avoid cramping and keep you going through those burpies.

·         Small Chicken Salad with Fruit in it: This is a good choice for 3 hours before. Two hours may be pushing it as the roughage may not sit well. It really depends how your body handles food. For me, I have to stay away from too much roughage if I want to avoid heart burn, but some people it doesn’t bother them. Make sure to have fruit (i.e. grapes, blueberries, strawberries) for those quick digesting carbohydrates that will help you last longer.

·         Fat Free Yogurt and Berries: You’re probably getting the idea that fruit is a good thing before a workout. Fat free yogurt is a great paring because you’ll be getting some protein, which is important to maintain your blood sugar and is very very light.

·         1 Piece of 12 grain Toast/ 1 Tbs of Peanut Butter and 1 Banana: This is my favourite pre-workout meal not only because I’m addicted to peanut butter but my body handles it very well.

·         Apple and a Handful of Walnuts

So as you can see, you’re eating light, nutritious foods with something quick digesting.  The most important thing is to listen what your body is telling you. If you eat an apple and walnuts 3 hours before and you feel like you have 0 energy to finish a class, re-evaluate and try something different.

Tip #3: Please Drink Water

This can either be the easiest or hardest thing for people to do in my experience. You either hate drinking water because you were raised on pop and Sunny D or you don’t mind drinking it, well at least that’s what I have found.

Drinking plain and simple water before exercise is very important for performance, which a lot of people don’t realize. Most of us think that we just need to drink during a workout, when we are sweating. However, if you go into a workout dehydrated your body will be struggling to keep up with your crazy fitness instructor, personal trainer, workout program, workout partner… you get the idea.

So how much water should you drink? Simply put, you need 2-3 cups 2 hours before a work out and ½ to 1 cup directly before a workout. There’s no playing around with this one… that’s what you need. So drink that water!

I find putting stickers on my water bottle helps…



Mmmmm Water!



That’s it for this week! My regular followers may have noticed a lack of vlog action. I hang my head in shame as this regular vlogging thing seems to be harder than I first anticipated…mainly the editing.

I’m not giving up though! There will be more to come, I promise.

As always, questions, comments and suggestions make me VERY happy!

Stay Strong

Byn

Why Are You Making Me Do This: Anaerobic Training is Awesome!

Hola Interwebs!

Not Fun... But Worth It!

I’m so super excited because for 2 weeks now I have had requests for my blog topics. That means you all are reading and want more. It makes me so happy I could explode!!!! However, this feeling of impending explosion could also be due to too much caffeine consumption this afternoon.

 Today’s topic is all about anaerobic training. That horrible high intensity, chest burning, back sweating, heart rate pumping, “I’m gonna puke” exercise I know you all love.

I’m a huge believer of the benefits of anaerobic training (eliciting fear in all those that train with Byn),

those of which I will discuss in a moment, but first things first….

What the Potatoes is Anaerobic Training?!

In the world of exercise, scientists have come up with two different training terms: Anaerobic and Aerobic Training. Without writing a novel, what these words refer two is the predominant energy supplying metabolic system in dominance during a given physical activity.

Aerobic training occurs when you are doing cardiovascular activity below 80% of your V02max*. This means you are not exerting your maximum effort, but you are still working. I tell my clients when trying to stay in their aerobic zone to work at a level 6 or 7 out of 10, with 10 being all out effort, like sprinting. During aerobic training your body is using metabolic systems that require oxygen to produce energy (Think aer = air!).

 Now, it is important to understand that our metabolic systems work on a scale, not an on-off switch.  This means when you are sprinting, although your anaerobic systems are dominant, your aerobic systems are still making some energy even though they are not dominant at the time.

Aerobic training has been traditionally used as the #1 type of training for improving our cardiovascular (CV) system (e.g. your heart and lungs). However, as you will see later in this post, recent research is challenging our previous conceptions in regards to what is the best type of training for CV health.

Anaerobic Training, which is the topic of this post, occurs when you are exerting all out (or near all out) effort while exercising. I tell my clients to work at a level 8 or higher out of 10, which essentially is at a level that is less than fun! Some common names for anaerobic training in the fitness world include (but are not limited to) Fartlek, Interval, High Intensity Interval and Sprint Training.

Now, at high intensity exercise the dominant energy making systems in our body do not require oxygen to work. However, because this type of training is much more energy demanding we unfortunately do not last as long as we would during aerobic training.

So why train anaerobically if it sucks so much, we can’t do it as long and it….sucks? Good question internets!

*V02max: a measure of how hard your cardiovascular system is working during exercise.  For example, if you are working at 100% of your V02max you are exerting maximal effort.

Why Should I Put Myself Through Anaerobic Training?

Because I said so….

Seriously though, there is a whole bunch of benefits from this training that the wonderful exercise physiologists have been uncovering in the last 10-20 years.

So I don’t ramble on and on I’m going to break the benefits down into the following;

A.      Physiological Benefits

B.      Metabolic Benefits

C.      Performance Benefits

So you think I’m not talking out of my well toned butt, I will be providing the names of the researchers and resources I retrieved this information from. For you phys kids out there, if you want the full articles just let me know.

Part A: Physiological Benefits of Anaerobic Training

When talking physiology, there are many different things researchers look for to see if a type of training is beneficial.  These include important metabolic enzymes, membrane transporters and pH .

Enzymes: 

Without boring you with too much exercise physiology, anaerobic training (e.g. sprint interval training) has been shown to increase the amount of key metabolic enzymes required for energy production (Iaia et al., 2007; MacDougall et al.. 1998).

Now what does this mean? Well, essentially the more enzymes you have the more energy you can make during exercise through important chemical reactions. This means you will be able to work harder, longer and stronger.

The exciting thing is though, anaerobic training does not only increase anaerobic enzymes like PFK, it also increases key enzymes used is AEROBIC exercise, like citrate synthetase. This is important because not only will this help you perform better in short, high intensity exercises, but longer lasting exercises like running or biking…cool huh! I think so.

Membrane Transporters:

I tried to draw a diagram in paint to help me explain this, but it was horrible so no drawing for you! Imagine a muscle, to help you with this get a steak from your freezer and put it in front of you. Now, on the surface of each muscle fiber (which are the little lines you can see in the steak) are cells.

If we get even smaller (use your right brain here people), on the surface of each sack like muscle cell are membranes and on the membranes are transporters, which are like doors that let things in and out of the cells.

Every cell in our body has a variety of different membrane transporters, and for myocytes (or muscle cells) a really important transporter is the sodium-potassium transporter (Na⁺-K⁺ Transporters).

These doors help our muscles contract, which help us move and physiologists think one of the major reasons we fatigue (or get tired) during exercise is because these transporters can’t keep up with the contraction demand we are putting on our muscles.

Well, anaerobic training increases the number of these Na⁺-K⁺ Transporters (Iaia et al., 2007; MacDougall et al.. 1998), which allows muscle cells to keep up with the demand being placed on them during exercise. This helps you last longer, work harder, faster and stronger!

pH

pH refers to the amount of hydrogen ions in a given system, like our body. Most people know (if you didn’t don’t worry now you do), that exercise causes our bodies to become more acidic (i.e greater concentration of hydrogen ions)

Some trainers will refer to this as lactic acid build up, this is a misconception as it’s not lactic acid itself that is causing the body to be acidic, but hydrogen ions (H⁺), which is one of the byproducts of metabolism.

The problem with too much hydrogen in your system is that is causes everything to mess up from your enzymes, to your transporters and proteins. So, theoretically when we get acidic, like during high intensity exercise, we get tired because our bodies aren’t working efficiently.

Those that have completed an anaerobic training protocol have been found to have a better post exercise pH than control groups AND aerobic training groups after exercise (MacDougall, 1998). Physiologists aren’t 100% why this is happening (it’s not because of buffering apparently phys kids).

So, anaerobic training allows your body to have less hydrogen ions post exercise, which means your body is coping with the stress of exercise more effectively.

Part B: Metabolic Benefits

The metabolic benefits of anaerobic training are highly correlated to the benefits discussed in Part A. Anaerobic training causes your body to work more efficiently metabolically during and post exercise, which as aforementioned, allows you to work harder.

Now the ability to work harder lets you burn more calories while you’re working out. This will ultimately lead to an increase in fat loss if your diet is sound, because the higher the caloric deficit your body is in, the more fat you metabolize.

Don’t get me wrong, aerobic training will also burn calories. However, anaerobic training has been shown to burn up to twice the amount of calories in much less time then aerobic training (ACSM). For example, if you go for a 45 minute run at the same pace you would burn the same, if not less calories than 25 minutes of high intensity interval training. If you’re like me, time is an issue when working out. So I would much rather burn a whole bunch of calories in 25 minutes than 45 minutes

Part C: Performance

Anaerobic training has been shown to have a direct correlation to increases in performance in a variety of activities from running to biking to swimming. There are many reasons for this (a lot of them are mentioned above), but I think not only does anaerobic training help people physiologically but also psychologically.

Train hard for mind and body!

From personal experience, the more high intensity training I do, the better I can cope with high stress situations during performance. I attribute this to being “used” to being uncomfortable during my training which translates over to other activities.

For example, I rock climb, and rock climbing requires a huge amount of relaxation when your body is under a lot of physical stress. I find my high intensity training on the treadmill or bike is a perfect and controlled environment to practice relaxing my mind when I am really uncomfortable so that I can do it when it counts.

I may be biased, as I always think “mind over matter”, but I think this is one of the key benefits anaerobic training has in regard to performance… it makes you mentally tough.

Examples of Anaerobic Training

There are lots of ways you can anaerobically train, all you need is the basic format and a little imagination. Generally, interval training consists of;

●      High intensity intervals over 80% of you maximum effort.

●      Intervals lasting 30seconds-2minutes

●      Rest periods the same amount of time as the intervals or longer.

●      Repeated intervals for no longer than 25 minutes.

●      A very good dynamic warm up focusing on major muscle groups and a long (10minute plus) cool down.

●      Lots of water.

Preparation is as important as the training itself

●      A well fueled body: Do not eat within 1.5 hours of doing this training, but make sure to have a meal consisting of a quick digesting carbohydrate (banana) and some protein (nuts).

●      Your game face and a very motivating friend, trainer, music… ect.

My 3 personal favourite ways to anaerobically train are on the treadmill, the spin bike or tabatas using free body weight exercises like burpies!

On Wednesday, I will be demonstrating these three different examples (god help me) in my video blog. So stay tuned for that! I promise I’ll actually do my vlog this week. Last week was kinda of crazy with my new job.

Any questions, comments, suggestions are ALWAYS welcomed!

Stay Strong!

Byn