Incomplete reps, poor energy levels, longer-than-desired workouts, and poor-quality results can make you feel like your time in the gym has been wasted. So that you can optimize your training and give the best of yourself, we give you some tips that will help you improve your performance and devour weights like a real animal.
Take low glycemic index carbohydrates two hours before
Proteins are the bricks that build muscle, but quality carbohydrates are essential to give us all the energy we need when facing irons. Oatmeal is one of the best options out there, but you can also go for fruit, a boiled potato or a couple of slices of whole wheat bread.
Coffee half an hour before training
Since caffeine acts on the feeling of tiredness, it is ideal for improving sports performance, and more so in physical exercises that last for a certain time. Scientific reports positively linking caffeine to physical exercise date back to the mid-20th century. Other studies also link caffeine with an ergogenic effect, that is, with an improvement in muscle strength.
Avoid large amounts of fat before training
Fats in themselves are not bad, quite the opposite. The problem is that they are digested very slowly, so it is not recommended to take them two hours before training if you do not want to have flatulence or gastric problems. At the time of exercise, we want all of our blood available to flow to our muscles, so eating large meals before training is not recommended.
Don’t forget your creatine supplement
The most common way to consume creatine is before exercise, with food or a drink, although when we consume it is not really relevant, since creatine acts when the saturation level is reached in the cells. Therefore, it is not a bad choice to take it after exercise or at any other time of the day. According to a study published in Sports Medicine, the consumption of creatine produces a significant increase in body mass, without reducing the percentage of body fat and does not produce a greater increase in lean mass than that caused by strength training alone. .
Don’t train to failure on every set.
If you train to failure on every set, you’re going to run out of steam before you finish your workout. A meta-analysis published in the journal Sports Medicine last year conducted a systematic review of eight studies that compared training without reaching failure with training in which muscle failure was reached. The conclusions were that there were no significant differences in strength and muscular development between these two types of methods. According to the authors of the research, “it seems unnecessary to perform failure training to maximize muscle strength.”
train with music
A study conducted at the Weider Research Group found that when trained weight lifters performed a shoulder exercise while listening to music, they were able to complete an average of 1-2 more reps. So to add another source of motivation, create a playlist of your favorite songs that get your adrenaline pumping when it comes to training.
Save cardio for after weights
Whether our goal is to gain muscle or lose fat, the choice is clear: using weights we will use all our glycogen and achieve greater strength than if we do it the other way around. That is, if we do cardiovascular exercise before the weights, we will arrive at the machines more tired and with less energy, because we will have wasted a large part of our glycogen in cardio. If we do our weight session earlier, our glycogen will have been emptied to a greater extent, and we will reach cardiovascular exercise in an optimal way to burn fat.