🏋️Peri workout supplements are everywhere at the moment... But do you need to take them?

I'll save you scrolling to the bottom, the answer is yes & no.

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When we talk about about peri-workout nutrition, we're typically referring to what you consume before, during, & after training🍗 🍚

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🍚Let's start with carbs as they may have the most direct effect on performance:

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During resistance training, muscle glycogen is used to resynthesis ATP (energy) that is used throughout the session. Ensuring muscle glycogen stores are high aids in the prevention of proteins (muscle) being broken down & converted into glucose

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It has been observed that low levels of muscle glycogen going into a session can decrease performance (Leveritt & Abernethy, 1999).

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Despite resistance training not depleting glycogen stores as much as endurance exercise, if our goal is to build muscle, keeping those stores topped up aids in the signalling processes of hypertrophy! (Creer et al., 2005)

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🍗Now for protein, everyone's favourite topic! (Outside of eating carbs):

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Leaving out the technical jargon, protein is made up of small building blocks called amino acids. Some of these can produce ourselves, some we can't. These are responsible proper cell function.

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Consuming protein (around 20-30g with a sufficient leucine content) initiates muscle protein synthesis & blunts muscle protein breakdown (Moore et al., 2009).

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Following training, it is necessary to consume protein in order to begin the repairing & growing processes. Doing so has been linked to an increase in muscle mass across a 5-week time span (Esmarck et al., 2001).

 

After resistance exercise, nutrients consumed hypothetically heightens the effect of fuel replenishment & repairing of damage tissue (Rasmussen et al., 2000).

 

However, whether this leads to greater long term increases in muscle gain is difficult to measure (Timmons, 2011) Of course, being consistent with all of your meals throughout the days/weeks will have a greater impact on performance and muscle growth...

 

But these are the 1-2%'s that if you piece them all together, could make all the difference (if everything else is 100%).

 

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