Depending on what you eat and how fast your food is digested, your pre-workout meal should be consumed around an hour before your strength training workout. What type of food and nutrients you consume directly affects your ability to push yourself to your maximum potential during your time in the gym. You may be able to push yourself a little harder by getting an extra couple of reps or increase the weight you lift if you eat a proper pre-workout meal. Remember, your body’s main source of energy comes from glycogen, which is stored in the muscle cells and is easily converted to glucose. It’s very important that our energy/metabolism system works efficiently. We convert glucose into energy after we consume food because there is a rise in blood-glucose levels and the pancreas releases insulin, which then travels through the bloodstream and helps to regulate body mechanisms. I will try to put this in simple terms and tell you that you need to eat carbohydrates to provide your body with the proper amount of energy before you workout.
The best form of carbohydrates to eat pre-workout are a low GI (Glycemic carbohydrates). Thus you will not have a spike in your insulin levels and be able to sustain a substantial amount of energy through the workout. In other words high GI carbohydrates may cause one to have a lot of energy at the beginning of the workout, however it will then quickly taper off. I do think that it’s somewhat dependent on the person and the type of workout they are doing as well. Remember, right now we are discussing weight training.
There are many benefits to eating a low GI diet — not just pre-workout.
Energy levels stay balanced which means you will feel fuller for longer between meals
Low GI diets help people lose and control weight
Low GI diets increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin
Low GI carbs improve diabetes control
Low GI carbs reduce the risk of heart disease
Low GI carbs reduce blood cholesterol levels
Low GI carbs can help you manage the symptoms of PCOS
Low GI carbs reduce hunger and keep you fuller for longer
Low GI carbs prolong physical endurance
High GI carbs help re-fuel carbohydrate stores after exercise
If you are not aware of what a Low GI carbohydrate is, you can find many examples of the GI index online.
Now that we are all eating our carbs in our pre workout meal, we cannot forget to include a protein source. Protein is the building block for our muscles and it is very important to consume prior to working out. Protein shakes can be a great source because they are absorbed faster. Axis makes a very delicious whey protein that includes whey isolate, micro ultra filtered whey concentrate, and whey peptides with 22 grams of protein and all the essential amino acids needed to build muscle. I would recommend mixing a shake and hitting the weights. If you prefer to eat your food before you workout, then a simple plate of chicken and rice can be a great pre-workout option. Some people have a hard time eating close to the time of training, so a shake that consists of a carbohydrate source and a whey can be quick, easy, and convenient. It is also important to make sure it is low in fat. Fat actually slows the digestion of our food and is not necessary in our pre- or post-workout meals. Once we have a pre-workout meal down, we are halfway there and can expect to have a better workout, and in return get the results that we are striving for.
Next we will discuss post-workout meals — a meal that is just as important!
Now that we have discussed some of the basics of weight training and the positive impact it can have on your health - both physically and mentally - it is time to discuss another aspect that, in my opinion, plays the number one role in changing your physique. I always tell my clients that you can bust your ass in the gym training with weights and doing cardio, but if you are not eating the proper diet to go along with your workout program, then you will never get the results you are looking for. Of course, you are building strength and getting a cardiovascular workout, but by following the proper nutrition program to go along with your training you can really see some results at a faster rate. I would say the proper nutrition program amounts to 75 percent of your progress.Here are few important things to remember:
If you are trying to lose weight and get leaner, you need to burn more calories than you are consuming. If you are trying to gain weight or put on muscle, you need to eat more calories than are being burned. Of course, what you are eating and when you eat plays a huge role as well. On that note, let’s discuss the three most important meals of the day.
I am sure that most people know that one of your most important meals of the day is breakfast, which I do believe is partially true. In my professional opinion, there are two other meals that are just as important, especially when it comes to maximizing your results in the gym. The key to getting those optimal results from your training is the need to provide your body with the proper fuel - which comes from food. A car is going to run much more efficiently if it has a full tank of gas, clean oil, and other essential elements. After you drive the car for a while, there is a dire need to refuel. It is so essential for growth and recovery to eat the proper pre and post-workout meals - for better performance while training and proper recovery after the workout. If you are not already aware of what these meals should consist of and what a big role they play, then let me break it down for you.
Another popular kind of workout are circuits. Circuit training is a very efficient way to train with weights. If you don’t care too much about putting on muscle mass, you want to make the most of your time, and you’d like to get in and out of the gym in a relatively short timespan, I highly recommend this type of training. It is a very good way to keep your body moving and elevate that heart rate. During a circuit, you can perform a variety of exercises and train multiple muscle groups.
If you are switching muscle groups and not giving the body time to rest between sets, then you can consider this a cardiovascular workout as well. Unless you are one of those people who really needs to get on the treadmill and sweat it out for 45 minutes in addition to your weight training program, circuit training is perfect. You can really consider this workout killing two birds with one stone. If you just did your weights and cardio in under a hour then time can no longer be an excuse for not getting, and staying, in shape.
You can also superset different muscle groups. For example, if you are training arms, you can make your workout more efficient by performing a superset for biceps and triceps. This way you are giving the bicep time to rest and hitting the triceps. Your heart rate tends to elevate when you don’t rest in between sets. I would not consider this a cardiovascular workout but it is a great way to burn extra calories. The harder you train, the more calories your body is going to burn. It wouldn’t hurt any of us to put some extra intensity into our workout.
There are many different ways to perform a superset. The purpose of this exercise is to fatigue the muscle. By switching exercises or changing the weight you will be able to do more repetitions therefor the muscle will will get broken down more.
Weight training is a broad term that can refer to a variety of exercise types. Of course one would not say they are going to be weight training if they are talking about sweating their ass off doing a bikrim yoga class, a “Buns of Steel” workout or some good ol’ step aerobics. Those types of workouts can be categorized as a form of strength training, but when I speak about weight training I am referencing pumping iron and really getting after it in the gym. Your exercise selection and variations are limitless.
We briefly discussed the importance of creating a specific routine that is geared towards ones fitness goals, and now I would like to elaborate on what kind of routines you can incorporate. It is important that you are not going into the gym and following the same exact workout day after day. Variety is good so one doesn’t get bored, and it also keeps the body guessing. As long as we continue to change up our workout routine, our bodies won’t become stubborn and hit what is often called a plateau. Remember, the goal is to continue to make progress and get the result we want because that’s what is going to keep most people on course.
There are two keys terms that are often used when we talk about weight training, sets and reps. A repetition is just a repetitive movement that is performed more than once. We do our repetitions in sets, which in the gym can typically be anywhere from one to five on average. If you lost me already, then allow me to use an example. If one was to perform an exercise such as a bicep curl, then you would do a certain number of curls (repetitions) and you would repeat this exercise for a certain amount of times (sets) depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Regardless of what your specific goals are, I think it is fair to say that we are all going for one thing - muscular fatigue - the decline in muscular tension capacity with repeated stimulation. Let us get away from just going through the motions of working out and really breakdown that muscle. In order to stimulate some kind of change we need to put some work into it, because after all, it is called “working out”.
There are so many different ways to perform your sets and breakdown the muscle. What better way to teach this than to watch a demonstration. The first technique I’ll be showing you will be the very simple super-set.
