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Reading time: 6 min The case of the professional or amateur athlete who goes to practice his sporting activity but is disabled, either cognitively or physically, is well known. Its symptoms are constant and exponential; his body is now a brake and his capacities do not find the ways to express themselves. We have all seen ourselves in this situation at some point and have suffered its consequences: Lethargy, blurred vision, slight loss of consciousness that leaves vision black, inability to use motor coordination correctly, stumbling, extreme difficulty achieving muscle congestion, inability to lift a weight consistently, sensation of exhaustive effort... These suppose a barrier and a big stone in the road that undermines us psychologically.
Think about it, the disposition is full, it is your favorite sport, you had been waiting all day for your training to arrive (even during your working hours you could not get it out of your mind), it is your passion and you do not understand why after the good feelings of the day you are not able to develop your sports discipline correctly... A frustrating situation.
In this article I am going to explain how to design a pre-workout intake that, if you have managed to balance other plans such as sports periodization, rest or daily comprehensive nutrition, will help you boost your intra-workout performance remarkably. and end the symptoms of poor food planning.
1. The context of the pre-workout meal
If the goal is to achieve the best possible performance of our psychophysical abilities during training, we must begin to conceive of the body as our ally and not a hostage that must suffer punishment. We have to adjust and plan peri-training nutrition in a good way, that is, what we eat in the hours close to training, so that food becomes our fuel and that lethargy or fatigue do not pose a limit to development of our capabilities. It is important to understand the key aspects that will make the pre-workout intake an effective meal, so we are going to draw general lines and establish some good axioms; which are self-evident truths that we can quickly verify in the first person.2. Digestion and its importance
First of all, to make the pre-workout intake optimal, it is important to know that there is limited blood volume in the body and that the ability to perform to the maximum certain tasks depends on how you weight yourself. This means that we cannot eat and automatically start training, because digestion will be doing its job; it will require energy and nutrients that will be derived from that function to the detriment of physical 'performance'.
Therefore, our main goal is that the blood tends to accumulate in the peripheral musculature; providing oxygenation, heat, nutrients, minerals... and that there is no other type of blood-demanding organic activity running that we can deliberately avoid, such as food digestion.
2.1. types of digestion
There are two types of digestion:- Mechanics: consists of the entire process of chewing, displacement, mixing and kneading of the food bolus through the digestive tract with the help of voluntary, semi-voluntary and involuntary peristaltic movements.
- Chemistry: it conceives the whole process of degradation of the food bolus into smaller molecules so that they can permeate the different tissues of the digestive system and finally be transported to the bloodstream in a bioavailable molecular form.
3. Characteristics of the pre-workout meal
Considering the individual context of each one and understanding that a large amount of food is not the same for an athlete who weighs 50 kg as for one weighing 100 kg, a counterproductive meal in peri-training will be the one that meets the following conditions:- large volume of food
- elevated fat
- High amount of carbohydrates
- High amount of fiber
- high amount of vegetables
- Low protein
- Very close in time to training
- Whole, unprocessed food
3.1. Nutrient-dense diet
So, the goal is to get nutrient-dense nutrition to perform at your best but also that doesn't delay digestion over time, so it doesn't negatively interfere with training performance. Therefore, this food will have the following characteristics:- mechanically processed foods
- chemically processed foods
- Sufficient protein amount depending on the physical discipline
- Sufficient amount of carbohydrate
- Medium-Low fat
- High mineral content, especially sodium
3.2. Effects of a nutrient-dense diet
The effects we seek with this type of intake are very defined:- rapid gastric emptying
- Low energy consumption during digestion
- Abundant bioavailability of nutrients
- Controlled glycemic response
- Digestion process completed immediately before starting training
4. Types of pre-workout meals
There is no optimal food par excellence and you always have to attend to the individual context of each one. Your resources, your requirements, your time, your internal logistics; work and transportation schedules, etc. So we are going to define some types and examples that can be adjusted to the reality of each one.4.1. solid food
It is one that, due to the nature of the intake, will require us to chew and wait longer than usual to be able to train. I recommend you choose foods that have the greatest possible mechanical processing and are low in fiber , so that mechanical digestion falls very lightly and requires little effort on the part of the body to carry out gastric emptying. An example could be:
As you can see, both the protein and the vegetables are already crushed; so they will fall lightly in the stomach and will not be difficult to digest.
This meal will require around 2 - 2:30 hours from the time we finish eating until we start training, it is ideal for people who telework, are in the office or have a table, microwave and fridge during their normal day.
4.2. liquid food
Perhaps it is the most recurrent due to its ease and practicality to prepare, since it does not require cooking or chewing. It is the fastest digested mechanically and chemically. It can be made in the form of porridge or smoothie. An example could be:
The hydrolyzed choices have an enzymatic processing, colloquially called "pre-digestion", which allows the stomach less involvement and effort to digest and absorb the nutrients from the food bolus.
The inclusion of MCT instead of another oil is given because it is a fat that does not require the formation of micelles to be absorbed. Or what is the same, a common fat needs emulsion by means of peristaltic movements in our stomach, so that the oil becomes small droplets like the ones we can see on the surface of a broth, while MCT will not need such a procedure to be absorbed. Dispensing with this demand for mechanical 'stomach movement' is very positive for training as explained above.
Vegan Keto Powder
The greens supplement is a food supplement made up of a wide variety of micronized and dehydrated fruits and vegetables. This will provide us with a quantity of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, contained in its very large food matrix. This way we will be provided with micronutrients to face the extreme wear and tear of high intensity training. The only negative point is that we should find a supplement with little Vit C and antioxidants that do not interfere with the oxidative processes of training. To facilitate the hydration, permeability and osmosis of the muscle cell with electrolytes, we must provide a high dietary amount; especially sodium . With hypertonic seawater we achieve this effect.