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Pre-workout Nutrition & Supplementation

Nutrient Timing & Performance Enhancing Supplements for Supraphysiological Training

Noah Ryan's avatar
Noah Ryan
Mar 28, 2024
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Gm Gents. Lets talk pre-workout nutrition. What you eat in the hours leading up to your workout can make or break your session.

Luckily, once you understand the fundamentals, pre-workout nutrition is effortless & intuitive.

This guide will cover all the essentials to a well-fueled workout. Hydration, nutrition, supplementation

Do this right and you’ll have better endurance, pumps, strength, and recovery. You will outperform all opponents (and your past self) for pure supraphysiological specimenry.

Bone apple teeth

The 3 Keys to Pre-Workout Nutrition:

1. Electrolyte Balance: 

- Electrolytes (namely potassium and calcium) are crucial for muscle contractions. Not enough K+Ca = muscle weakness and cramps

- Muscle need proper fluid balance to work properly (and get pumped up). Sodium regulates water retention in your cells

- You sweat during exercise. Electrolytes go along with it & need to be replenished

- Electrolytes are essential for coordination & neural communication. Mental acuity is dependent on hydration

- Magnesium is crucial for ATP synthesis & Production

Stay hydrated my friends

2. Anabolic State (via protein)

Dietary protein provides thee amino acid building blocks of muscle tissue. Adequate front loading with protein will counteract the muscle protein breakdown from working out. This is why training fasted is NOT anabolic

Pre-workout protein essentially primes the muscles for rapid repair & growth during & after the workout. It increases muscle protein synthesis rates compared to only eating protein after

Name something more anabolic than beef in a pickup truck. I’ll wait

It also acts as a hedge in the case that you run out of glycogen stores during your workout, offering a secondary fuel source via gluconeogenesis

3. Maxxed out glycogen stores 

Your body stores glucose as glycogen in your muscle & liver. Glycogen is your body's primary fuel source during high-intensity exercise.

Glycogen is the most efficient source of fuel. The more efficiently you can store glycogen, the better & more sustained your workouts will be

If you run out of glycogen, you'll not only feel weak, depleted, or dizzy, your body will start getting fuel from less efficient (and more catabolic sources): breakdown of fatty acids & amino acids.

Anaerobic exercise especially relies on glycogen: heavy lifts, sprints, massive pumps. 

The full glycogen & depleted glycogen version of you are two drastically different athletes

More explosiveness, more endurance, better performance, better recovery, better pumps, fuller muscles. Glycogen is essential

Pre-workout Nutrition:

Your pre-workout meal should be:

- Easily digestible

- High carb

- Mid protein

- Low fat

Fat slows down digestion. Save that for your high fat meal of the day (as far away from your workout as possible). The closer you are to your workout, the more you should prioritize easily digestible carbohydrates. They digest easily

You do NOT want to be still digesting food during your workout. Digestion is a bloodflow heavy process. Blood that would otherwise be going to your muscles will be spent digesting food. You will hinder performance and digestion. 

The further you are away from your workout, the more protein & fat you can have. Ideally aim for a true "meal" 1-1.5 hours before your session. If you need to be particularly light on your feet (MMA or cardio), be extra sure to fully digest.

Everybody digests food differently. Find the meals that work best for you. For me, my staples are:

Protein: 
  • Shrimp, scallops

  • Lean fish (halibut, flounder, tilapia)

  • Lean meat (sirloin, 93/7 ground beef)

  • Egg whites

Carbs:
  • Rice

  • Potatoes

  • Yams

  • Rice noodles

  • Rice cakes

  • Fruit

I'll typically have a true meal 1.5 hours before then top up my glycogen stores with a mix of glucose & fructose 30-15 min before my session

Glucose & fructose have distinct metabolism pathways. Combining the two ensures max glycogen storage.

Glucose: Absorbed directly into bloodstream -> converted into glycogen 

Fructose: Absorbed & transported to the liver -> converted into glucose secondarily

Fructose Metabolism - PhD Muscle

Glucose > Fructose for muscle glycogen

Fructose > Glucose for liver glycogen

Optimize for Digestion:

Don't let your workout be ruined by poor digestion. Find foods that digest most efficiently for YOU.

Utilize tools like Taurine, Vitamin B1, and digestive enzymes to speed up digestion and help replenish glycogen stores.

Go for a post-meal walk & get sunlight to further speed up digestion

Front-Load your Hydration

Water loading before a workout isn't going to do much. You need to be hydrating throughout the day. Electrolyte-rich foods, quality water, trace minerals. Saturate your body with the minerals it needs

 

I typically drink coconut water with some honey if I feel I need the extra hydration. Sometimes I'll make my own electrolyte blend with:

  • Magnesium Chloride

  • Arctic, Colima, or microplastic-free sea salt

  • Potassium Gluconate


I do NOT recommend potassium supplementation. You can seriously hurt yourself. Eat dates, potatoes & coconut water instead (I've recently been using coconut water powder. Mucho fuego)

Fruit an OG pre-workout for its simple sugars & hydration. Namely watermelon for the L-citrulline

Watermelon + salt. Keep your electrolyte powder

Some other foods I like stacking before my workout are:

  • Oysters

  • Blueberries

  • Dates

  • Honey

  • Bee Pollen

  • Cacao

Dates are my go-to preworkout snack. Potassium & Sugar

Sample Meals:

Meal 1:

  • Sweet potatoes with cinnamon & maple syrup

  • Halibut with lemon juice & cajun seasoning

Meal 2:

  • half cup of egg whites with one full egg + plantains & cacao powder, blended and cooked like a pancake

  • Drizzle on honey, top with bee pollen and blueberries

Meal 3:

  • low fat goat yogurt with kefir

  • Rice cake crumbled on top

  • Blueberries, strawberries, bananas

  • Drizzled with honey if extra glucose is needed

Meal 4:

  • Shrimp with cajun seasoning

  • Rice (or rice noodles)

  • Cucumbers, Lime juice, pickled onions, salsa of choice

    Shrimp with rice noodles
    Amberjack and bone broth rice
    Bison and plantains


Pre-Workout Supplements

I don't take any pre-workout blends. Most modern blends are subefficacious and/or powdered crack. Each workout requires a different mental & physical state that is driven by intuition.

Here are some tools I deploy:

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