Is It STUPID To Consume Post-Workout Shakes?
This post is a bit of a mini-rant, but I promise that you’ll learn something anyway…
Proper post-workout nutrition has gotten a lot of press over the past few years. Hell, several supplement companies can thank their lucky stars that many exercise (especially muscle development) gurus came out in support of the idea of having a ‘postworkout shake’. But does the idea have merit? Or is it just a stupid theory that goes against our genetic programming?
WTF?
OK. Lemme explain where all this is coming from…
As you know from my previous posts, I am very supportive of a paleolithic diet approach to eating. In other words, try to eat the way our ancestors did – our genome and therefore our bodies is set up to thrive on it. Of course, since I don’t know everything, I read other blogs and sites on the topic. There is one that I held in particularly high regard. It promotes a lifestyle that sounds like ‘revolutionary fitness’ without the ‘r’.
Well, the owner of that site has a thing against postworkout nutrition. That’s OK. To each his own. I have been trying to see the point of his argument for years now. Recently, he posted a scientific study that ’supports’ his theory.
Well, me being a scientist myself that has a bit of an obsession with these things, I read the article. Found several holes in it, and posted a comment to his post. It took me 30 minutes to write that comment in as diplomatic a style as possible. The aim was to point out the article’s weakness, as well as the weakness of his theory (he is very aggressive with his point of view, but I myself was more than civil). In a nutshell, I said (subtly) that one cannot frame a nutritional philosophy around an ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyle and not believe in consuming nutrients postworkout. Well, he did not approve my comment, since it went against his theory (I commented on another post, agreeing with him, and that was approved). And the man calls himself a scientist…
So, I am no longer a fan, but more importantly I feel that I need to give my readers a different point of view so that they can judge for themselves.
Screw the science for just a sec!
Lets just take a common sense approach to seeing if our ancestors waited for several hours after ‘exercising’.
What would have been the equivalent of ‘intense’ exercise in the old days? The hunt. Without rifles and sophisticated hunting equipment, getting meat was one hell of a task! Several sprints. Wounding the animal enough to be able to wrestle it to the ground. Killing it as quickly as possible. Dragging it to a place where the chances of defending it against predators and scavengers. Can you say ‘ANAEROBIC EXERCISE‘?
Now I just can’t see Joe Paleo waiting for a few hours for his body to ‘burn fat’ from all that activity before he ate. Can you? Makes no sense right?
Our early ancestors shared the earth with super-predators and super-scavengers. We were not top of the food chain yet. It is likely that our ancestors did what even the mighty lion does today to avoid being bullied out of its meal by the ‘lowly’ hyena – they ate as much as they could, as quickly as they could. AFTER THE HUNT. Which for all intents and purposes means POST-WORKOUT.
Hey, it seems to me that most nutrition was post-workout nutrition back then – especially when it came to protein consumption. Our genome remembers that…
Recommendations
I’m not going to write a thesis on post-workout nutrition here. Others have written fantastic pieces on that. I just want to end off with a few points about the post-workout shake:
- do take a protein shake
- if your goal is fat loss, don’t add carbs, but do go for pre-digested whey
- stimulates protein synthesis
- fosters quicker recovery (can thus train more often)
- bumps up basal caloric expenditure – protein synthesis is energetically costly
- if you’re building muscle, also don’t have carbs in your post-workout shake
- but do have them in a PRE-workout shake (I’ll elaborate on this in my newsletter)
- do have a second post-workout shake an hour after the first
- if you need more calories because you’re naturally skinny, then add a tablespoon of flax oil and a tablespoon of olive oil to this shake
- doesn’t taste that good, but the benefits rock!
- then have a solid meal an hour after that
- trust me, if your workout was good, you WILL grow muscle on this strategy
About comments
Listen, no one knows everything there is to know in the strength and fitness game. If you want to disagree with me, then please post a comment. That’s how we progress!
Just keep it clean.
Newsletter
Other than the occasional bit of breaking news or rant, I will not be posing here much. This blog was orinally meant to keep me on track in my effort rid myself of the ‘fat suit’ that I dressed myself in over several years.
I am going to be posting most of my tips in my newsletter. I’m working on a theory (and testing on myself), that will allow anyone to put their body in constant ‘fat burning mode’. Only my subscribers will get tips and updates from that.
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Why carbs aren’t needed in a postworkout shake? It was necessary for replenishing the glycogeen levels and stopping the catabolic effect of the muscles, right?
Guru
June 4, 2008
Guru,
Yes. That’s the theory. But the true gauge of an anti-catabolic effect is protein synthesis, not glycogen replenishment. Studies have shown that even a tiny amount of rapidly digested protein taken after even very intense exercise (or an amino acid blend) stimulates protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is anabolic, which is the opposite of catabolic right?
Carbs are not needed to get this effect, ESPECIALLY if you added them to your PRE-workout shake. Trust me, the body will take the carbs it needs later. Delaying having carbs ensures that fat cells get starved and tortured a bit
BTW, such a pre-workout shake is probably more important than the postworkout one anyway. Studies have shown that it enables protein synthesis to start *while* you’re still working out! Now THAT is truly anti-catabolic…
jutes
June 4, 2008
Thank you jutes for your reply.
So you recommend protein alone instead of the carbs.
In other words for:
“Building Muscle”
1 hour Preworkout shake = Carbs and Whey
(e.g. 45 min) Workout
(e.g. 30 min later Postworkout shake = Whey only(e.g. 1 hour later) Fll healthy meal
Something like that right?
What about “Fat loss”?
Sorry for being so pushy, thanks for your help
Guru
June 4, 2008
Something like that. Only the timing needs a bit of tweaking:
- preworkout shake, 10 minutes before workout (the simple carbs can cause a blood sugar crash if taken too early)
- postworkout shake, 5-10 minutes after workout
Oh, and go for predigested/hydrolyzed whey around your workout – normal whey gets into the bloodstream too slowly.
For fat loss, everything can be the same. Just time your carb intake during the rest of the day i.e. have some slow carbs at breakfast and then go quite low carb for the rest of the day. You could also:
- only have carbs in your preworkout shake OR
- have carbs only at breakfast and not in the shake.
But those are very drastic measures for quick fat loss though. Most times I prefer something like I outlined in: “Carbs are not the enemy! Just get the timing right (parts 1 and 2)” – have a look in the March 2008 archives – its easy to work the shakes into that too…
Just remember to keep your protein intake quite high when your calories are low.
jutes
June 4, 2008
After the hunt our Paleo ancestors might have dragged the carcase to a safe place, chopped it up into smaller pieces, strapped it to their backs and head back to the village where it could be cooked and shared with the tribe. Lions are lone hunters for the most part, certainly Cheetahs are and prime targets for bullying tactics. I would put my money a determine coordinated team of fierce human predators with razor sharp weapons and projectiles over a dumb pack of Hyenas or even the infrequent but dangerous Saber Tooth Tiger.
Does that make any sense?
P.S. I’m discouraged by the “neo-con-ish” political views on that other fitness site.
Tom
June 5, 2008
Tom,
Good points. Thanks for your comment.
I wasn’t clear in my post though, but I was referring to very early hominids in my post. They were really the ones that faced the ‘fire’ that forged the greater Homo sp. genome, and they were far from being a true predator. Certainly not even close to being a top predator like we are today. Probably easily bullied by the super-carnivores of the time.
Also, carrying large chunks of meat around would have been like strapping a steak around your waist and going to swim with some great whites (I could be very wrong there). Of course, there were times they had to eat and run, and other times when they could transport the meat. Nothing was set in stone.
But you remind me of a point I wanted to make in my post: Every day was different, which is why my earlier posts stressed the need for cycling different *plausible* scenarios that our ancestors may have faced, for example:
- some days they got to eat what they killed (immediately)
- some days they got to eat what they killed (later)
- some days they couldn’t eat what they killed (bullied)
- some days they couldn’t kill anything despite their hard work
- etc
I guess the point I was trying to make in my post is that blanket statements about ‘how it was back in the day’ (I know, I made the same mistake by not being clearer) is just foolish. NOTHING was guaranteed back then. So, post-workout nutrition is ONE way that one can manipulate our genetic memory, if one could call it that. The body knows how to respond to post-exercise nutrition, and we can manipulate it because of that.
Still, strategic exercise is what sets it all off…
I have to agree with you about your “neo-con-ish” comment! Some posts there are just one comment short of being a call to mass-culling of large portions of the human race.
jutes
June 5, 2008
Junaid, I completely agree with your thesis! In fact, I myself posted two comments to the author’s site mentioned above, only to have them go “unapproved,” and unanswered. The points I made in my post were much more blunt than yours. I mentioned that we can see “postworkout nutrition” in any modern predators – wolves, cats, etc.
Perhaps you can enlighten me regarding the second question I had for that author, and his method. He recommends supersets of increasing weight and decreasing repetition. To my knowledge, his model says – “do a set of 15, then a set of 8, then a set of 4, in rapid succession.” He says that it pre-exhausts the ST fibers. However, since there’s no discrimination between fiber activity if contractions are at 100% intensity (speed/force), wouldn’t you want to do the opposite, in order to completely exhaust the muscle? Fast twitch fibers exhaust quickly, and don’t replenish as quickly as slow twitch. So wouldn’t you do 4 reps, 8 reps, then 15 reps, to take advantage of the faster rate of recovery of ST fibers?
Thanks!
Josh
Josh Leeger
July 22, 2008
Josh,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree with your analysis to flip things around.
In fact, I have used such a method when I was still into ‘bodybuilding’ many years ago. It has made my body unwilling to let go of muscle, even during long (years – hangs head in shame) of inactivity. My body now also responds to any kind of resistance training very quickly.
But let me give credit where it’s due and tell you where I learned it from. You may remember a pro bodybuilder from the 90’s, Phil Hernon. That guy *really* knew muscle building. Although there were steroids involved, when it came to pure mass, he blew away many other pros who were taking as much and possibly even more steroids. I saw completely natural pictures of him a few years ago (at the time he was being randomly tested for steroids by correctional authorities) and the guy was still massive.
Here’s the *simple* method I learned from one of his articles in the 90s:
- split the body in 2
- pick 1 multijoint exercise for each bodypart in one half of the body
- warmup
- do sets of 5, 10, 15 in fairly rapid succession
- do the same for the other half of the body the next day
- do the first half again the day after that
- repeat to infinity – no rest day needed, but you can take one if you feel you have to
I’m not sure what it is, but there is something about that simple plan that changes the way your body responds to exercise – like it becomes ‘rewired’ for that new function. And it’s not only good for ’size’, the strength gains I got were incredible.
jutes
July 22, 2008
Hi Jutes,
Not to beat a dead horse, or drag the conversation on too long. First, thanks for the confirmation, and the enlightening info about Phil Hernon. He is MASSIVE!
I just wanted to add a comment. Thinking about this in more depth, I suddenly remembered a film we were forced to watch in high school. It followed the !Kung bushmen and showed their living habits. In particular (mostly because of its greusomeness) I remember them hunting down and killing a giraffe. Immediately after the kill, they turned the ribcage of the giraffe into a giant bowl and had a little ceremony in which they drank the blood.
So, regardless of whether you eat immediately after the kill (postworkout) or immediately after dragging the carcass back to camp (still postworkout), even our recent ancestors would seem to have enjoyed in “postworkout nutrition.”
jleeger
July 30, 2008
Sorry Jutes…I’m not off this yet. Check out this note:
The ultimate anti-catabolic
It has been known for some time that insulin is one of the most anabolic substances in our bodies. Insulin is responsible for pushing or accelerating the absorption and utilisation of amino acids and carbohydrates. It has recently been discovered that it also plays a role in the regulation of post workout protein breakdown. In other words it not only helps build muscle, it also reduces muscle tissue breakdown. (4)
One of the best things about insulin is that it’s free! It is secreted naturally when there are fluctuations in our blood sugar levels. By providing your body with carbohydrates in high amounts directly after training, insulin is naturally released to help push glucose and amino acids into muscle to begin the recovery process including protein synthesis and glycogen accumulation.
From: http://www.transfermymembership.com/links_article_trainingsupplements2.php
Basically nullifying the claims of all the insulin-spike scaredy cats out there…
That’s my last, promise!
Josh
jleeger
July 31, 2008
Hehe. Keep them coming Josh
That’s the thing. Muscle tissue is MUCH more sensitive to insulin than adipose after an intense workout. As long as one doesn’t go overboard with quantity, there is just no carbohydrates left for the fat cells. That’s because the muscle cells are actively taking them up much faster than the fat cells can – BECAUSE of insulin.
jutes
July 31, 2008