Here at One Coaching, we don’t only want to help you transform your physique, but we also want to help you utilise other elements, like nutrition, to aid your training. Having a good pre-workout meal can revolutionise your training and getting your post-workout meal right can assist the rebuilding and strengthening of muscle. Here’s the basics that you need to know about pre-workout, post-workout and also intra-workout nutrition.
PRE-WORKOUT NUTRITION
It is mega important that you fuel your body before working out, and that you fuel it correctly. To do this, you have to get all the necessary macros into your pre-workout meal. This means getting a good amount of carbs and fats in to give you energy in order to maximise training performance. You also need a good amount of protein to maximise muscle growth when training.
How much is a good amount? For carbs, we say a minimum of about 1 gram of carbs per 1kg of body weight is sufficient for a pre-workout meal. So, if you weigh 70kg, you should aim for a minimum of 70g of carbs in your pre-workout meal. Obviously, the amount of each macro, especially carbs, you need in your pre-workout meal will vary depending on what phase you’re in (whether you’re bulking, cutting etc), but this is a good average to aim for.
When it comes to fats, we say you should aim to have around 5-15 grams of fats within your pre-workout meal. Fats are good to have before a workout because they slow down the digestion of carbs. A good source of fat would be dark chocolate, which also improves brain functioning, helping your mind focus while training too.
With protein, we say you should have around 0.4 grams of protein per body weight before a workout. Putting that into context, if you weigh 100kg, you’ll need 40 grams of protein pre-workout.
To allow your pre-workout meal to digest well prior to your workout, try to have your meal about 1-2 hours before you train. Obviously, everyone is different, but when you find a good pre-workout meal that works for you, digests well and, ultimately, tastes good, stick to it.
INTRA-WORKOUT NUTRITION
In most cases, you won’t need an intra-workout meal, as a pre-workout meal should be good enough to keep you going throughout the workout. However, there are some situations where an intra-workout meal will be beneficial. For example, if you are training for over 2 hours, an intra-workout shake could be beneficial to keep you going throughout your workout. For more info on this, you can always seek advice from one of our coaches.
POST-WORKOUT NUTRITION
Are you giving your post-workout meal the same attention as your pre-workout meal? Well, you should be. Eating the right meal after a workout is, again, important for muscle growth. As glycogen, a source of energy that is mainly stored in your muscles and liver, is broken down during your workout, it’s necessary to rebuild glycogen stores by having a good post-workout meal. So, get a good amount of carbs and protein in post-workout.
There’s a lot of science behind all of this information, and if you are interested in learning more, you can get in touch with one of our coaches, or make sure that you’re following us on social media. At One Coaching, we place a lot of emphasis on educating our clients and followers. We don’t just want you to do the do, we want to educate you and for you to understand why what we are telling you is beneficial. Our clients have access to unlimited educational resources, such as an education library, where our coaches upload education content to better your understanding of training, nutrition and recovery. If you’re interested in joining, you can get in touch with one of our coaches today.
