I dunno JRT...I can't imagine any studies supporting the idea eating of right before you train in general, or that eating protein before a workout is beneficial. If you have links to the studies or references though, I'd like to read them and if they make sense, I'll admit to being wrong ok?
Also, I agree with your posts on the Atkins Diet which I've been procrastinating about ripping up for a while now...and I know it's worked for many people over the short term, :rolleyes: but I'm collecting my thoughts still, and it'll expode in a major post any day now. :D Have you noticed it's almost impossible to find all the old complex carb supplements (like Ultra Fuel) now that everybody's so paranoid about "carbs" with this Atkins nonsense? :mad:
My understanding has always been that when you eat shortly before training, one of two things happens, neither of them beneficial: the food pretty much sits in your stomach sloshing around and not getting digested, because adrenaline shuts digestion and nutrient absorption down while blood gets shunted to your muscles...OR...you don't get much of a workout or a pump, because the blood that should be available to your muscles isn't, if you're already digesting food by the time you get to the gym. In my experience, eating before the gym is the best way to make sure I won't get a pump that day. I've done it when I had no choice, and I was always sorry in the gym.
If you can't avoid eating before the gym, purely because of your schedule or whatever, then I agree liquid food is better than solid food, and protein is better than a lot of carbs and fat, but definitely not because the protein gets absorbed or utilized while you're training. It's just that the way protein is digested it interferes with your proper blood chemistry less than a big serving of something else.
Complex carbs definitely don't do a thing for your workout right after you eat them and body builders who swear by having a banana or whatever before working out are just addicted to the routine of it and the placebo effect...and they read in Muscle and Fitness that the freak of the month on the cover has a banana before the gym. (Trust me, it ain't the banana that got him on the cover...not that there's anything wrong with how they do it...just sayin' it ain't the banana or the crap he's holding up in the ads either <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> .)
Anyway, it takes a minimum of 12 or 18 hours to digest complex carbs, convert them into glycogen and store glycogen for fueling muscles. That banana before today's workout is going to be great fuel for your workout...TOMORROW'S workout, that is. When you leave the gym today, whatever carbs you ate on the way to the gym are just a lot slushier than they were when you got there...and they're still in your stomach or small intestines while you're trying to do your situps.
Likewise, although plenty of athletes slug down protein right after the gym because that seems to make sense, your muscle tissue isn't rebuilding yet on your drive home. The muscle tissue you broke down today isn't going to start rebuilding and utilizing digested protein until tomorrow night while you're asleep, and for the next two or three days, although somewhat slower during active wakefullness and less efficiently if you're particularly active during the day.
It's really more important to supply your body with complex carbs after right your workout to "spare" protein, so that by the time your muscle are ready to synthesize proteins, there's already glycogen available for energy. Otherwise, your body will use the protein for energy which is a lot less efficient and wastes protein that you want available for your muscle tissue repair. Finally, on that topic, your muscles are most receptive to storing glycogen
after you train. It's not really carb "loading" since there's no prolonged depletion phase to "prime" the process like when you carb load for real, but it's the same general idea. Nowadays, I try not to be as fanatic and anal about this stuff, so my meals are all pretty similar with a nice lean protein serving and some complex carbs...but if I were going to be particular about it, I'd load up on my complex carbs for my first meal after training and have the protein the next time I got hungry.
I'm not saying to starve yourself before you train either, and I understand that sometimes it's impossible not to eat between work and workout...but ideally, you should try to have your last meal about two hours before you hit the gym (and neither eight hours, nor a half hour before if you can avoid it.) If you're gonna eat, sure, you're better off drinking that meal, and having more protein than anything else...but there's absolutely nothing beneficial about eating shortly before you train in general, or having protein before you train, in particular.
As far as the straps go, I did specifically caution Ron to make sure they're allowed before he trains with them...and I also specifically suggested he practice getting them wrapped in training so it goes smoothly in the contest. It would just be a shame not to use them if they're allowed, and a lot of these types of contests just aren't that tightly regulated that anybody's going to object, necessarily. That's exactly why my bet is that the penalty time for missing the 38" jump isn't precisely calculated to make bypassing it altogether a bad strategy, for the exact same reason. Hey, remember, I'm the one who explained how I don't like the whole idea of "competitions" in the first place, right? But if you're gonna do it, use whatever the rules don't prohibit...and there's a good chance nobody's going to object to regular old cloth lat straps. Either the judges all use them in the gym themselves so it'll seem perfectly natural to them...OR...they don't even train and they won't even know what they are. Obviously, if you don't know the rules for sure, the smartest thing to do is train without them (except to practice HOW to use them) and then break em out for the contest, right?
I meant that about the studies on eating before training too...I'd really like to see them if possible...but if it's anything published by Joe Weider or Twinlab, etc, I don't consider them to be objective "studies".
The car push thing boils down to this: If you're a strength trained athlete you try not to max out too often EVEN in the exact strength sport or movements you're trained in (how often do powerlifters do a max single in training?). A trained lifter or gym rat is obviously more able to lift a frig or push a car than a civilian if he HAS to...but the trained strength athlete is also more likely to sustain an injury using all that gym strength in "novel" ways than a civilian, whose muscles aren't as capable of generating sufficient force to roll up a biceps tendon, tear a quad or pec tendon or pulverize a vertebra by lifting heavy stuff in awkward, unpracticed positions. On the flip side, someone new to training or newly back to training is susceptible to structural injuries for the reasons I outlined in my last post. I'm just sayin there's not too many jobs where sittin' at a desk while you heal is more frustrating a change to your normal routine than goin from patrol to filing paperwork <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> the rest of the summer and next fall, right? It would just be shame to bust something for a recreational competition, especially after finally making the lifestyle change and getting in shape, that's all.
Now on June 17th Ron's gonna get up nice n' early to post how well he did on O.com...and the only two subsequent posts are gonna be:
JRT6
Veteran
Member # 3559
"Congratulations...so they let you use the
straps or what?"
and
ProWritingServices4LEOs
Rookie
Member # 4932
"Yeah, yeah, congratulations...what was the high
jump penalty?"
<small>[ 05-28-2003, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: ProWritingServices4LEOs ]</small>