Optimizing Exercise Performance: Pre, Intra, & Post-Workout Nutrition

Brittany Pittman
Feb 19, 2024
6 min read

Ever feel that sudden energy crash halfway through a tough workout?

Like your muscles turn to lead after the first set and you're just going through the motions?

Your problem could stem from how you're fueling your body. Running on fumes can sabotage your workout, leave you exhausted, and stall your progress. The good news is, this isn't inevitable and strategic nutrient timing is something I'm asked about frequently as a nutrition coach. Consuming the right nutrients – before, during, and after your workouts – may be the secret weapon you've been looking for. If your nutrition and workouts are dialed in and better performance, faster recovery, and enhanced results sound enticing, then this is your guide for optimizing your exercise performance!

Pre-Workout: Fueling the Fire

Imagine this; your body is a high-performance sports car getting ready for a race. You wouldn't put low-grade fuel in a high-performance car, would you? Just like that car, proper fueling before a workout ensures your body has the resources it needs to push hard, stay focused, and perform at its peak.

FUEL = ENERGY, but this isn't a magical formula. A strong pre-workout strategy builds upon an already solid daily nutrition plan.

The Power of Macronutrients

Carbohydrates: These are your body's primary energy source. Simple carbs (fruits, honey, sports drinks, rice cakes, etc.) deliver quick energy bursts, while complex carbs (oatmeal, brown rice, whole-grain toast, sweet potato, etc.) offer sustained energy. Choose your pre-workout carb source based on timing:
Workout in 2-3 hours: Prioritize complex carbs.
Workout within an hour: Focus on simple carbs.

Protein: The building blocks for your muscles, protein is known for aiding in muscle growth and repair. Pre-workout protein helps preserve muscle, enhance recovery, and may offer sustained energy due to it slowing digestion. Opt for easily digestible sources of protein (Greek yogurt, protein powder, cottage cheese, or a small serving of chicken) so this doesn’t sit heavy during your workout..

Snack Examples

Morning Workout: Overnight oats with berries and nuts
Long Run: Whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter and a sports drink
Evening Workout: Grilled chicken with whole-wheat pasta and steamed vegetables. (This would be when your workout is about 2-3 hours away)
Last Minute Strength Session: Protein shake with a quick-absorbing isolate protein (Phormula-1) and 2 rice cakes.

Water is also essential for peak performance. Every cell, tissue, and organ needs water to function at its best. Even mild dehydration can decrease energy, focus, and muscle function. Aim for consistent hydration throughout the day, not just a last-minute chug right before your workout.

By understanding the roles of carbs, protein, and hydration, you unlock your body's true potential. Pre-workout nutrition sets the stage for a successful training session, but only when you've already established a strong foundation through a daily nutrition plan. Next up, we will dive into intra-workout carbs, exploring how to sustain your energy levels through the entirety of even the toughest workouts.

Intra-Workout: The Mid-Session Boost

Intra-workout nutrition is another way to give you and your workouts that little extra boost, but works best when you have a solid foundation of your daily habits. Think of it as that extra push during challenging workouts, not a substitute for smart daily food choices. Mid-session fuel matters most during long workouts or high-intensity, explosive training sessions. Energy stores start to run low after roughly 90 minutes and high-intensity sessions can be draining quickly, intra-workout carbs deliver a quick power surge, preventing fatigue and maintaining your output and workout focus.

During these demanding workouts, fast-digesting carbs are your performance saviors. Sports drinks, intrawork drinks, and fruit or fruit gummies provide a nearly instant energy boost. These "quick fuels" work in tandem with electrolytes. Your body loses minerals as you sweat during your workout, replenishing your system by drinking electrolytes prevents cramping, fatigue, and helps you to maximize your output.

Intra-workout Fuel Options

Sports Drinks: These provide both quick-acting carbs and electrolytes for hydration and energy replenishment.
Electrolyte tablets/mixes: Add these to water to replace those minerals lost through sweat, essential for preventing cramps and maintaining hydration.
Fruit gummies: These offer a tasty way to get in some quick carbs during demanding workouts.
1st Phorm ULTRA-FORMANCE: This product combines fast-digesting carbs and electrolytes, creating a powerful formula for fueling intense workouts and replenishing what your body loses.

Intra-workout fueling shouldn’t be overcomplicated; it's about giving your body a mid-session boost when it needs it most. This extra edge can be the difference between pushing through a tough set and having to call it quits early. Just as we strategically fuel ourselves during exercise, the moments following your workout are equally important. Let's dive into post-workout nutrition and explore why the right choices are crucial for recovery and rebuilding for future peak performance.

Post-Workout: Recovery is Key

Alright, the workouts over, but your work isn’t. The period right after your workout is peak time for nourishing your body to promote muscle repair, recovery, and prepare for future training sessions. You may have heard of the term “anabolic window”, the idea that there's a short timeframe for optimal refueling right after exercise. While timely post-workout nutrition is important, stressing over hitting a precise minute-by-minute target does more harm than good. It’s more beneficial to focus on getting high-quality nutrients within an hour or so of your workout, with your overall food choices carrying more weight than the timing.

Carbs & Protein: The Repair Crew

Carbs and proteins work in sync to repair your body when the workout is complete. Hard workouts deplete our muscles’s glycogen stores (their primary energy supplier). Quality simple carbohydrate sources refill these energy stores, kickstarting the recovery process and prepping our body for its next challenge. Meanwhile, protein starts to work on the micro-tears in our muscles caused by intense exercise. Protein provides the amino acids (building blocks) our bodies need to repair and rebuild our tissues, promoting muscle growth and enhancing recovery time.

Post-workout Snack Options

Classic Health Nut: Chicken breast, sweet potato, and a side salad
My Go-To: Whey isolate protein shake, and Ignition (1st Phorm)
Parfait: Greek yogurt, a handful of berries, and granola

Water’s Role

Water is essential for transporting nutrients, regulating body temperature, and removing waste products. Consistent hydration post-workout enhances muscle function and recovery speed. Dehydration, of any caliper, will hinder your bodies recovery efforts.

To Supplement or Nah?

Promises of better workouts and performance are appealing but here’s the deal, supplements are meant to supplement a solid nutrition foundation, not replace it.

However, there are a few common options, let’s break a few down:

Pre-Workouts: Formulated to give an energy and focus boost. Popular brands like 1st Phorm (with Project-1 and Megawatt options) often contain caffeine, beta-alanine, and other ingredients for that extra "kick".
BCAAs (Branched-Chain Amino Acids): These are the building blocks of protein and might offer extra support in muscle recovery and rebuilding. However, getting enough protein from whole foods generally makes standalone BCAAs unnecessary for most people.

Creatine: One of the most well-researched supplements, creatine can increase short-burst power output and potentially boost muscle growth. It's naturally found in some foods, but a supplement may be useful for reaching higher levels within the body.

Focusing on a balanced diet of whole foods should always be your main priority when it comes to nutrition, but there are scenarios where supplements can be used as tools. If you struggle to meet your needs through diet alone or have specific workout goals and nutrition dialed in, a thoughtfully chosen supplement might offer that extra edge.

FUEL YOUR JOURNEY

Every workout is a step toward your goals, and proper nutrition makes those steps more powerful. Don't view pre-, intra, and post-workout fueling as extra tasks - view them as investments in yourself.

Pre-workout fueling ignites your performance
Intra-workout carbs help fight fatigue
Post-workout replenishment kickstarts recovery

Nutrition shouldn’t be an afterthought, by understanding and mastering this fueling approach you are unlocking greater gains, greater recovery, and progressing faster toward your goals.

Knowledge & Consistent Application = GROWTH & PROGRESS