Should you eat before or after strength training?

Should I eat before or after strength training? There is no one-size-fits-all standard answer. The best choice is the one that fully suits your physical condition, training goals and tolerance.

I know Lao Zhou, a classical bodybuilder who has been training for eight years. He always gets up at six o'clock every day to pump iron on an empty stomach. After 45 minutes of strength training, he eats a protein bar with oatmeal. He said that he has become accustomed to it over the years. When he is fasting, his sympathetic nerves are excited, his concentration is particularly concentrated, and he does not feel the discomfort of food hanging in his stomach. This training is more efficient during the fat-cleaning period. But I have also seen Xiaotang, a young girl who has only been exercising for half a year. She used to follow the example of others and do deadlifts on an empty stomach. As soon as she got up in the third group, she fell on the mat with black eyes. It took her half an hour to recover. Now she eats half a corn and a small spoonful of peanut butter 40 minutes before each practice. The weight is very stable and she has never had any problems again.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with either choice in itself. The core thing is that you have to figure out which situation you belong to. If your training that day requires heavy compound movements, such as squats, deadlifts, and bench presses for 1RM, or the training lasts for more than an hour, and you have a hypoglycemic constitution and are still in the muscle-building period and need to ensure sufficient calories, then there is definitely no harm in eating something in advance. Just make sure to eat 30 to 60 minutes in advance, and choose foods with low GI (that is, slow digestion and will not cause blood sugar to rise or fall suddenly), less fat, and a moderate amount of protein, such as half a banana, a small piece of whole wheat bread, or a spoonful of diluted protein powder. Just don't eat too much or too oily food. The stupidest mistake I ever made was when I chewed a big meat bun twenty minutes before training and pulled until the second set. My stomach was churning, and I almost vomited directly in the strength zone. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in.

If your training of the day is moderate intensity within 40 minutes, such as shoulder exercises, sculpting arm lines, movements that are not too heavy, you are already used to the fasting state, and there is no problem of hypoglycemia, or you even want to control the total calories during the fat-burning period, then training on an empty stomach is absolutely fine. Nowadays, many people are clamoring about "losing muscles on an empty stomach", which is actually a bit alarmist - only when your total calorie deficit is extremely large, your protein intake is not enough, and you perform high-intensity training on an empty stomach for more than one and a half hours, muscle decomposition may occur. You don't need to worry about this in normal short-term training.

Let’s talk about the issue of eating after training. The “30-minute golden window period after training” that was widely circulated in the fitness circle in the early years has actually been falsified by recent research. As long as your total calories and protein intake for the day are up to standard, even if you eat two hours after training, it will not affect the muscle-building effect. Of course, if you haven't eaten before training and the training intensity is relatively high, you can quickly replenish some carbohydrates and protein after training, such as drinking a cup of protein powder with a banana, or eating a bowl of rice with fried chicken breast.

I really don’t need to worry about this meal to affect my training mood. I just follow my state now: if I want to train my legs with heavy weight that day, I eat half a bowl of rice and a boiled egg an hour in advance. The lower body is very stable when I squat.； If I only do one back workout at noon, with a small weight, I just do it on an empty stomach, and then take a leisurely lunch after the workout, and I don’t see any loss of muscle or strength.

The purpose of fitness is to make yourself comfortable. If you try it two or three times, the feedback your body will give you will be more reliable than any blogger's strategy.