Should we get carbs right after training, and how will this affect our bodies?
This is one of the questions many athletes and especially bodybuilders care about because they worry that giving us a lot of carbohydrates right after we do it will push too hard fat accumulation and ruin their weight loss plan.
So how does this happen, and how do our bodies react to carbs after exercise.
For many people, post-workout recovery is crucial to getting you ready for your next training session and helping to boost muscle building.
We'll explore the benefits of post-workout carbohydrates to understand why carbs are so important!
In this article, we all refer to one of the longtime bodybuilding experts from Bodybuilding, one of the famous bodybuilding brands interested in many people.
The author of this article is Jim Stoppani, a leading nutritionist in the world in the bodybuilding industry, who said: “I like to eat candy after training!
If you've ever followed one of my diets, you know I am the one who promotes the addition of fast-digesting, high-GI carbs immediately after training. ”
Unplug the benefits of carbohydrates after exercise
In addition to the low-carb phases, most of the bodybuilding nutrition programs I write include post-workout carbs, along with products like protein, creatine, beta-alanine, carnitine, and betaine.
I like to use dextrose as a source of carbs after training and is often found in some products like Post JYM …
I often get questions about the importance of carbs after training.
Some people are confused about how carbs play a role in muscle recovery and development, while others worry that carbs will promote fat gain.
If you are really concerned about the strength of carbs after exercise, this article will help you understand where carbs are on the muscle recovery path.
Read more: What to Eat When Working Out to Build Muscle?
Rapidly restores glycogen
The main reason to get carbs post-workout is to restore the muscle glycogen you've destroyed during your workout.
When exercising, your main source of energy is muscle glycogen. Glycogen is the storage form of glucose. It usually contains many long chains of glucose molecules, with many branches.
The separation of glucose from the glycogen chain is essential to ATP production, which helps circulate biochemical energy and is extremely important for muscle contraction processes.
Numerous studies have shown that the best way to regenerate muscle glycogen stores after exercise is to eat various high GI (fast digesting) starches as soon as possible.
Some experts have argued that you don't burn enough glycogen to be too eager to make up for it during weightlifting sessions.
However, according to Jim, when you burn off any amount of muscle glycogen, you should worry about finding an alternative to it, especially if your muscle growth goal is what you aim for.
If a PT says that people don't need to worry about replenishing their lost glycogen, chances are their training schedule is either too low or they know nothing.
Studies on how to use glycogen during training sessions have shown that training sessions with 6-20 sets and last about 15-30 minutes usually reduce glycogen levels in muscles by 30-40%.
Since workouts last around 60-90 minutes, you must move quickly through exercises and use high-intensity training techniques, like cardio or Tabata, which will often burn muscle glycogen. About 60-75%.
View more: Best Exercise Machine to Lose Belly Fat
Add carbs to the body and restore muscle glycogen stores. Otherwise, your muscles will be deceived and effectively recovered, regardless of your protein intake.
Some experts argue that these do not affect gym-goers because there is too little convincing evidence that whether you consume carbs immediately after training or after 2 hours, the glycogen content is still restored to the status quo within 24 hours.
Again, the evidence for this is inconclusive. We can be sure that the fastest way to restore muscle glycogen stores is to get the high GI carbs immediately after training.
Restoring muscle glycogen stores as quickly as possible after exercise is extremely important for muscle growth. Glycogen stored in muscle cells pulls water into these cells. This helps increase the size of muscle cell tissues and helps the muscle bundles become more evenly large.
Another benefit of getting carbs after exercise, especially high GI carbs, is that you will look younger. Carbs can help keep you awake and refreshed after a frenetic, tiring workout.
Besides, eating high GI carbs after exercise will satisfy hunger, cravings for sugar, or high-starch carbs without negatively affecting the diet progress.
Read more: Top 10 Beginner Bodybuilding Mistakes – You Should Avoid To Gain Muscle Effect.
Debate about insulin
Another benefit of high GI carbs is the rapid spike in insulin in the body. Insulin is an anabolic hormone, and its role in muscle growth is still under debate.
While many believe it to be an important factor in promoting protein synthesis and reducing muscle tissue destruction, there is some evidence that insulin is not so important for muscle growth.
Instead, they believe it is more important to add sufficient amino acids to muscle cell tissues.
A recent study compared protein-only absorption with the absorption of protein and carbs after exercise. This study has shown that adding carbs to protein does not promote protein synthesis or reduce muscle destruction other than just consuming protein.
However, insulin is still important, right after training. Insulin binds to several receptors (organs/cells responsible for reacting to light, heat …) on muscle cells.
When this happens, glucose and amino acids and creatine and carnitine are absorbed into muscle tissue.
Indeed, studies have shown that both creatine and carnitine depend heavily on insulin to enter muscle tissue and exert their effects.
If you take 2 supplements right after training, you will want to maximize insulin levels if building muscle is your main goal right now.
Dextrose is the best source of post-workout carbs.
Having a pure glucose source – called dextrose – after exercise means the body doesn't need to digest it. Because post-exercise glucose can be absorbed directly into the bloodstream as soon as it is digested, it gives your muscles enough energy right away.
Thereby, it will help to speed up the recovery of muscle glycogen content. This also helps the muscles to store up enough glycogen content during the next training session and pull water into the muscle tissue, optimizing muscle size.
Fructose is not fast enough.
Fructose, which makes up 50% of the sugar in most fruits, honey, and sucrose, is low GI carbs.
Fructose is a form of sugar that the body cannot use effectively. Because of its structure, it cannot be converted directly into muscle glycogen like normal glucose.
When fructose is loaded, it cannot be loaded directly into the bloodstream like glucose or dextrose. Instead, most of this sugar travels to the liver and is converted to glucose.
It is then stored in glycogen, which is released into glucose when the liver notices it is needed to maintain blood glucose levels.
Since it cannot optimize muscle glycogen regeneration, fructose is not the perfect choice for a post-workout supplement. That's one reason Jim recommends using the bear truffles instead of any other fruit or candy.
Most candies use high-fructose sugar as the main sweetener. Meanwhile, genuine bear truffles all use dextrose.
Many carbs disorders
Many people worry that fast-absorbed carbs after exercise can cause them to store excess fat. However, the post-workout period is the time of day when you can almost guarantee that these carbs won't be converted into body fat.
If you don't completely cut carbs out of your diet, never forget to add carbs after working out.
Read more: What is Good Food for Athletes?
The advice of Jim
To optimize muscle recovery and growth, you should add fast-absorbing protein carbs right after your workout. Surely no one would object to this. Not taking carbs after training to prevent hormone loss or don't want to increase protein synthesis is silly.
After your workout is an ideal time to maximize your intake of these carbs, it will help speed up the absorption of other supplements.
There is only one reason for you not to add carbs immediately after training, is when you cut all carbs out of your diet for the day, except for a small amount in green vegetables and protein powders.
The good news is that even without carbs, muscle protein synthesis is normal. Insulin levels are even higher as long as you absorb the protein powder. Taking BCAA supplements also helps.
Use the following guidelines to speed up muscle recovery after workouts:
- After training, immediately add about 40g protein from a mixture of Whey and Casein to optimize protein synthesis for muscles. The priority remains to choose Syntha-6 and ON Gold Standard Casein milk.
- Consider taking 5-10g of BCAA supplementation after exercise to ensure optimal protein synthesis and boost insulin. This is extremely important if you are on a carb-free diet. The best choice is the BPI Best BCAA.
References
That's all you need to know about the benefits of carbohydrates after exercise. Add carbs, no matter how much!
View more:
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