Chris Magryta

By Dr. CHRIS MAGRYTA

I remember lecturing to my fellow residents back in 1997 about the timing of post-exercise nutrition and the need for sports drinks. In those days we knew little about optimal nutrition, but we knew that sports beverages were not necessary for most athletes.

High-endurance athletes – marathoners, triathletes and cyclists – can make a case for needing some electrolytes during intense training (greater than 3 hours). Johnny in Little League or Susie in gymnastics have no case for a sugar-laden beverage and should avoid them.

What we did know in 1997 is that hydration is an all-important key to life. Water is the source of all life and always will be. The easiest way to underperform as an athlete is to be dehydrated. The old adage that when you are thirsty you are already dehydrated is true. Keep yourself and your children/athletes ahead of the curve by carrying a jug of water around during the day and drinking frequently. Athletes should drink water every 15-20 minutes during practice and games.

CARBOHYDRATES: When, how much and why?

When we exercise our muscles need to burn sugar to work effectively. Our muscles store sugar in the form of muscle glycogen. The concentration of glycogen in the muscle pre exercise will dictate how much energy can be released during a workout. This storage form of sugar is depleted in long and intense workouts. Unfortunately, we cannot transport this sugar from one muscle to another. So when you cycle, you can only get sugar from the muscles of the legs or the liver. Therefore, maximizing the muscles’ glycogen is a key to peak performance.

Your liver also stores sugar as glycogen and can transfer this sugar anywhere, but it cannot store as much as a muscle can. When an athlete says that he hit the “wall,” he is telling you that he ran out of muscle glycogen as an energy source and started to burn lean tissue to produce sugar, which is very inefficient.

Carbohydrate loading before, during and after exercise is key.

Studies show that athletes can enhance the storage of sugar in muscles (glycogen) by carb/sugar loading. Here’s how it works: Two days before an event like a marathon, soccer game, long swim, etc., an athlete works out very hard, to depletes the muscles’ sugar stores. At the same time, he or she withholds sugar from the diet – flour- or sugar-based foods.

This improves the muscles’ ability to store sugar. Therefore, 2 days later during an event the athlete has maximal muscle glycogen stores to compete with.

Before the event, you can eat nuts, seeds, vegetables, and proteins like soy or meat. Then post-workout eat whole-grain pasta, brown rice, and other rapidly digestible carbohydrates. The key is to get the meal within the first 2 hours post-workout.

Having a health bar immediately after the workout makes good sense to get the process started before a big meal. The data shows that supplements like Recoverite or other post-workout drinks are as effective as a home-cooked meal. I tend to think that a natural food meal is still preferable to a processed snack.

If you do not get the meal in the first one to two hours after exercise, you have lost the ability to fill your muscles up with optimal sugar stores. After 3 hours of soccer games on Sunday nights, I eat a quick bar and then eat a huge meal with pasta or rice and beans. Even at 41, I can still run with the young lads and plan to forever, God willing!

Pre-race or pre-workout meals need to fit certain ideals: 1) provide sustained immediate energy for the workout, 2) avoid hypoglycemic events (low sugar feelings), 3) be anti-inflammatory.

How do you achieve these goals? First off, we need to understand the different types of carbohydrates. There are fast digesting carbs and slow digesting carbs, otherwise known as, high and low glycemic foods. Pre-workout time is when we want to trend toward slowly digesting foods that release a sustained amount of sugar to our body. We want to avoid an insulin response and thereby avoiding periods of low blood sugar. Peak performance is hard to achieve if you have a glucose spike followed by an insulin surge and then a period of low sugar.

For example, a slice of white bread or a candy bar (high glycemic index/load) will give you an immediate sugar spike and insulin release followed by a low sugar trough. You will feel sluggish and have decreased performance. A serving of whole grain oats or fruit and carrots (low GI/GL) will provide a slow release of sugar with no subsequent sugar trough and thereby increasing muscle glycogen and available sugar for your workout.

The anti-inflammatory nature of certain foods will reduce the post-workout inflammatory stress and aid the healing process. You want to avoid processed foods with high volumes of omega 6 oils (soy/corn/vegetable oils) and pro-oxidant chemicals. Stick with natural foods and see the anti inflammatory link for guidance.

PROTEIN IS KEY TO MUSCLE BUILDING

A study by Greg Haffe in 2000 showed that with weight lifting or resistance training, the carbohydrate that you ingest prior to and during the event has a beneficial effect on muscle glycogen storage but no effect on muscle work output. In other words it has a good effect on recovery but no effect on the current muscle building. Protein will the key to muscle building.

There is evidence that if you eat carbohydrates within one hour of weight lifting you break down less protein for energy and thereby increase muscle production and mass. This is a good thing for a trained athlete. Increased muscle mass is useful for strength during sport activity. Remember to look at the glycemic index and load for what types of food to eat.

Carbohydrates are the key for an endurance athlete. Making sure that our young kids are eating complex carbohydrates during the school day and before workouts will be key. For example, whole grain granola with some fruit for snacks during the day and then a full lunch.

Dr. Chris Magryta is an integrative physician at Salisbury Pediatric Associates and Touchstone Health Associates. He lives in Cornelius. This column is adapted with permission from his weekly Health & Wellness newsletter. He can be reached at newsletter@salisburypediatrics.com