Training is the essence of our lives. We love testing our body’s limitations and pushing the boundaries of our genetic potential. If training were the only thing we had to do to grow, we would all be larger than life.
Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case, and our daily efforts in the gym simply become the catalyst for growth while many other facets of this lifestyle need to be in place for real success to be achieved.
Let’s focus on what you needed nutritionally immediately after training, otherwise known as the post-workout, to ensure the stress you inflicted upon yourself in the gym will be worthwhile.
Strategy #1: Timing Fast-Acting Carbohydrates and Protein
Immediately after training, your body is in desperate need of nutrition. Even though your nutrition up to the workout was on point, you end up depleting those energy stores during your intense Max-OT session.
Now it’s prime time! Think of your muscles as sponges, ready to soak up all the nutrients that they can to ignite the recovery process and subsequent hypertrophy that you’re after.
To fuel this anabolic environment, you need two things: fast-acting carbohydrates and the highest biological value protein you can get. Your best option here is a post-workout shake consisting of DGC and VP2 Whey Isolate. The quality of these two products coupled with their impressive rate of digestion will rapidly replace muscle glycogen, shuttle the all-important amino acids into damaged muscle cells, and immediately start the muscle growth process.
Strategy #2: Spiking and Optimising Insulin
The most effective way to deliver nutrients into the muscle at this critical time is by naturally spiking insulin.
Insulin is an anabolic hormone and works by shuttling nutrients into cells, as long as you make the proper nutrients available.
I like to say our insulin is like a train, ready to take on passengers and go somewhere. To get the train to pull into the station, it needs fuel, that fuel is carbohydrates (DGC in our case), and a serving of Stabilized Na-R-ALA 200 wouldn’t hurt either.
Once the train pulls into the station, the doors open and it’s ready to accept passengers. Those passengers would be the amino acids derived from the protein (VP2 Whey Isolate) that you consumed as a part of your shake. Once those passengers board the train, then it’s off to Gainsville; that is as long as you do not consume any sources of fat. If you do, that fat will act as an obstruction on the train track, slow the train down, and significantly delay your arrival to Gainsville. Make sense? I hope so.
Strategy #3: Have Your Next Meal Ready to Go
The final piece of the puzzle in the post-workout is to make sure that you have a whole food meal ready to consume within about an hour after you’ve consumed your shake.
Because your muscles were like sponges after the workout, the shake you consumed was immediately used for refueling and initiating protein synthesis, leaving your body ready for more good food to continue the recovery process.
It’s important to minimize the amount of fat you consume with this meal and stick with foods that are processed quickly by the body. Rice or potatoes would be a great choice for your carbohydrates, lean chicken or fish would be optimal protein choices, and then add some greens to help support protein synthesis and keep things moving along. By doing this, you’re good for food for a couple to three hours before you have to eat again.
When you do things right, great things happen. Paying attention to the hours after your workout is of paramount importance. Always ensure you have everything you need at your disposal so you too can arrive quickly to Gainsville.
