Eating a snack or meal with protein and carbohydrates right after a workout will help ensure that you are giving your body the energy to replenish what you have used. It also helps to promote the repair and building of muscle.
Carbohydrates are an essential energy source. Consuming the right amount of carbohydrates before a workout will ensure that the body has enough energy to perform well. This is true for people engaging in cardiovascular and resistance exercises, among other kinds.
After a competition or workout, focus on getting carbs and protein into your body. This gives your muscles the ability to replenish the glycogen they just lost through training and helps your tired muscles rebuild and repair with the available protein and amino acids.
Rule No. 1: “Avoid pure protein right after the workout, because your body will just use it as energy again,” says Collingwood. Also, steer clear of foods that are mostly sugar (cookies, candy and the like) or mostly fat like a handful of nuts (without yogurt or fruit to balance the fat) or fried foods.
The best things to eat 30 minutes before a workout include oats, protein shakes, bananas, whole grains, yogurt, fresh fruit, and more. An ideal pre-workout meal should be low in fat, moderate in protein, and high in complex carbs.
Carbohydrate intake in the days before competition mainly replenishes muscle glyco-gen stores, whereas carbohydrate intake in the hours before competition optimizes liver glycogen stores.
When you eat right before exercising, your body is going to first use the calories you just consumed for fuel. By exercising when it's been about three to four hours since you last ate, your body is more able to burn fat for fuel because other easier methods of fuel aren't available.
Eat after you exercise
To help your muscles recover and to replace their glycogen stores, eat a meal that contains both carbohydrates and protein within two hours of your exercise session if possible. Consider a snack if your meal is more than two hours away. Good post-workout food choices include: Yogurt and fruit.
The most important rule for getting a pump is to stay hydrated. More water equals greater blood volume and blood flow, both of which are key to creating a mind blowing pump.
Superset training intensifies your muscle pump because when you perform exercises back to back with no rest in between, the blood flow to your working muscles has to increase in order to keep your muscles fueled and prevent fatigue.
If you exercise without eating carbs first — and you tend not to have enough of these macronutrients in your diet to have a substantial reserve of glycogen in your muscles —your body breaks down protein in your muscles for fuel instead.
A good rule of thumb, Sklaver says, is to eat 25 percent of your daily carbohydrate allotment 1 to 4 hours before a workout and another 25 percent within 45 minutes of finishing your workout. The remaining 50 percent of your carbohydrates should be evenly distributed throughout the day.
Dehydration is a common bodybuilding tactic to “dry out” the muscles and make them more pronounced. This could be accomplished naturally, but it's often done with drugs known as diuretics, which force the kidneys to flush everything out of the body.
“Blood is rushing into your muscles and that's what we call 'The Pump'. Your muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute, and it's really tight - it's like somebody blowing air into it, into your muscle. It just blows up, and it feels really different. It feel fantastic."
A lot of strength and power is intracellular water retention and sodium will help you retain water better. Get better pumps! The same way that sodium helps you to contract your muscles, it'll also help to flood your muscles with more water, meaning you get much better pumps in the gym.
This surge of fluids causes your muscle cells to swell up, making your muscles look larger than usual. When you get a muscle pump, it might feel like your muscles are "full," in a sense.
Most bodybuilders like myself would agree that workouts that produce maximum pump can provide up to 20-25% of the increase in muscle size. This comes from sarcoplasmic and mitochondrial hypertrophy and increased capillarization.
Your body needs protein to build and repair tissues, so if you aren't eating enough, your muscles won't have the material they need to grow. You could feel “punch drunk” after working out, your arms and other muscles might ache more than usual, and your body may even feel generally weaker.