GRIPAD ® Blog

Caffeine and Your Workout

Workout experts once viewed caffeine with a degree of skepticism, possibly because coffee and soda are known to make some people nervous and jittery, and nervous jitters are not usually associated with calm, focused performance during high-intensity sporting events. Caffeine also seems to speed up the resting heart rate, which doesn’t always benefit athletes during training or on the field. But many of these concerns have been dismissed, both by careful research and by anecdotal evidence of the positive impact of caffeine on athletic performance.

Caffeine and Endurance

It seems that caffeine doesn’t improve oxygen capacity directly, but it does allow athletes to train longer and with greater power output. Caffeine can increase speed, endurance and resistance to fatigue during extended cardio activities like races, and its effects are strongly felt at levels far below accepted standards for permissible ergogenic aids (performance enhancing substances). The benefits of caffeine typically last anywhere from 1 minute to 2 hours.

There also don’t seem to be many negatives associated with caffeine use, though its effects on strength training are less clearly documented and there’s still a lot to be learned about this mysterious substance and its impact on our overall health.

Caffeine, Exercise and Skin Cancer

Most of us have heard that exercise can contribute to disease prevention and may ward off several different types of cancer. But new studies show an interesting twist involving caffeine. It seems that exposure to both caffeine and regular exercise can help prevent harmful melanomas better than either influence can on its own. Mice exposed to both caffeine and exercise seem to fair better and show greater skin cancer resistance then mice exposed only to one or the other. Researchers are still not entirely certain why this connection exists, but in the meantime, it seems like there’s no need to pass up that pre-workout cup of coffee.

Hydration: Comparing Water, Juice and Sports Drinks

When we push ourselves physically, we sweat and respire more vigorously, and the moisture we lose through these outlets must be replaced at a rate that keeps place with our activity level. Thirst is a simple indicator that we need moisture, but thirst doesn’t tell us everything about what we’ve lost, and sometimes thirst doesn’t activate at an intensity level that truly reflects our body’s needs. We’ve all had coaches, trainers, and summer camp counselors remind us that “just because you don’t feel thirsty doesn’t mean you’re hydrated”. By the same token, just because you’re drinking doesn’t mean your body is getting the hydration and replenishment it needs. So how much hydration is enough? And should that hydration come in the form of sports drinks, or is plain water enough?

Water or Sports Drinks?

A sedentary lifestyle requires between 6 and 8 glasses of water per day. This goes up as you begin to exercise and your sweat and respiration become more intense.

During moderate exercise lasting one hour or less, your muscles burn primarily fat as fuel. Fat converts to glucose which allows muscles to stay active. After a while, muscles start drawing glucose from other sources, and fat burning gives way to carbohydrate burning. At this point, your body doesn’t just need moisture to stay active, it also needs to replenish lost carbohydrates and electrolytes (mostly potassium and sodium).

So if your workout lasts for less than an hour, water is a free, clean, healthy, and perfectly adequate form of hydration. It’s unprocessed, it’s safe, and it contains no calories.

If your workout exceeds an hour and is especially intense, your performance will benefit from a few extra carbohydrates to replace the ones you’ve lost. So you’ll want to choose a drink with a little bit of extra sugar and salt. Commercial sports drinks are fine, but check the label, since some of these contain high fructose corn syrup, which is not what you need. You can also add a little splash of lemon juice and a pinch of sugar and salt to pure water to gain all the benefits of most sports drinks.

The Paleo Diet

In 2005, Loren Cordain and Joel Friel published a book called “The Paleo Diet for Athletes”, a sports-specific version of an earlier book by Cordain called “The Paleo Diet”.

These books have generated some buzz in the workout community and gathered a broad following of supporters, critics, and curious athletes willing to investigate any reasonable theory that might help them improve their overall health or their performance on the field.

What is The Paleo Diet?

Cordain and Friel suggest that the human digestive system hasn’t changed or evolved much over the last 2.5 million years, but by comparison, our standard diets have changed considerably. Most of these dietary changes have happened over the past 200 years, and most the “new” foods we now eat have arisen due to convenience and availability, not nutritional value.

During the paleolithic era (the stone age), our bodies evolved to digest unprocessed fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. We weren’t exposed and aren’t adapted to grains like wheat, corn and rice or the foods derived from them like bread and noodles. At this point, we eat so many of these processed grains that they’re edging out the vital phytonutrients that we would otherwise be deriving from vegetables and fruits.

Recommendations of the Paleo Diet

According to Friel and Cordain, we’re better off shifting our eating habits back to fruits, vegetables and lean meats like poultry and fish. Meanwhile, we should steer clear of fatty red meats and anything that we didn’t have access to during paleolithic times, including processed, grain-based carbohydrates and dairy products.

Does the Paleo diet have merit? Most of the evidence in either direction seems to be anecdotal, but there have been very few reported health problems or harm associated with these recommendations. So if you’re curious, go ahead and adopt this plan while monitoring your health and performance carefully for results. If the Paleo diet causes problems or interferes with your lifestyle, by all means stop. But in the meantime, feel free to keep an open mind.

Red Meat: Does it Help or Hurt Your Workout Plans?

As reported recently by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and other national news outlets, long term study results are providing new information about what red meat does to our bodies…. And the news isn’t good.

According to data gathered across a broad population and controlled for other lifestyle factors, the consumption of beef and pork appears to provide very few health benefits, and may actually increase our risk of several life threatening diseases. Rates of heart disease and certain types of cancer rise dramatically among those who consume 3 ounces of red meat a day or more, an amount about the size of a deck of cards.

What does this mean for your workout plans? And more important, what does it mean for your overall health? We all know that protein is necessary for complete nutrition and can help support muscle recovery after strenuous weight training. But it may be time to let go of the red and high fat animal protein sources and embrace lean proteins and the amino acid compounds found in plants.

Before your workout, load up on whole grain carbs, which provide a healthy, clean-burning source of energy. After your workout is over, reach for lean protein sources like poultry, fish, nuts and legumes. If you can’t cut beef and pork from your diet completely, try adopting a “meatless Monday” routine once a week. If you start feeling better, continue cutting back on the red meat as often as possible.

Your body will thank you, and the less fat you bring in with your eating habits, the less you’ll need to burn off at the gym. Remember, a healthy diet is built on a foundation of variety. Choose fresh, unprocessed foods, green vegetables, colorful fruits, and whole grain carbs. Limit your intake of fatty meats, corn syrup, and processed snacks.

Reasons to Drink More Fresh, Raw Juice

Most people begin juicing for the health benefits juicing can bring into our lives. But do you really know exactly what benefits you are getting from juicing raw fruits and vegetables?

Have you ever noticed that it takes a whole lot of carrots to make one small glass of carrot juice? The juicer discards the fibrous pulp and extracts the juice, which contains almost all of the nutritious vitamins and minerals found in vegetables or fruits. The only thing that is not extracted is dietary fiber, of which only a small amount makes its way into the juice unless you mix some of the pulp back into the juice.

Because of this process, you may only be drinking a small glass of juice but what’s in that glass is the beta-carotene (and other nutrients) of a whole lot of carrots. Most people find it a lot easier to drink a glass of carrot juice than to eat six whole raw carrots!

One of the top health benefits juicing can offer is that the higher levels of nutrients can have dramatically positive effects on health. Some people are even able to stop vitamin supplements.

Your digestive system has less work to do when you drink your fruits and vegetables as juice, allowing for quick nutrient absorption. Of all the health benefits juicing can bring into your life, the benefit to your digestive tract and to your ability to absorb nutrients is a major one. The digestive tract is so hard working, and is often susceptible to stress or food related illnesses.

By drinking your food in liquid form, you are essentially consuming pre-digested food, thereby giving your gastrointestinal tract a break from the work of digestion. In addition, this allows for very quick absorption of nutrients. Some nutrients may even absorb more easily than when consumed with solid foods.

Adjusting Your Eating Habits to Maximize Your Workout

Getting and staying in shape requires dedication, patience, and a willingness to push the limits of your comfort zone. It also requires a few adjustments to your lifestyle that carry beyond the borders of the gym and the weight room. To get the most out of the time you spend weight training and working on your cardio health, you’ll also need to make sure you’re drinking plenty of water, getting adequate sleep and making wise decisions about healthy, balanced eating.

A healthy diet may represent a change from what you’re used to. But contrary to what fad diet proponents would have you believe, healthy eating isn’t terribly complicated. A few general basic tips can help keep you on track. First, green leafy vegetables are never a bad idea, and there’s no such thing as too many of them. We only have so much room in our stomachs each day, and the more you maximize vegetables as a component of your calorie intake, the healthier you’ll be.

But we can’t quite live on vegetables and fruit alone. We also need carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats. Find the best carbohydrates in whole grain breads and cereals, and get your protein from nuts, beans, eggs, and lean meats like fish and poultry. Try to keep your meat choices as lean as possible, since too much beef and pork can undermine the gains of an otherwise healthy diet. And make an effort to steer clear of sugary soft drinks, corn syrup and other calorie sources that offer energy but no nutritional value.

Balance your eating habits with your workout routine. Don’t skip breakfast, but if your workout goals include weight loss, recognize that you may feel hungry as you burn more calories during the day, and resist the urge to add those calories back into your routine by eating more.

Nutrition and Your Workout Goals

No workout plan is complete if it only extends as far as the door of the gym. Your chances of staying motivated, seeing results, and feeling great will increase if you maintain your focus on a healthy lifestyle and carry it with you throughout the day. Sleep, stress management, hydration and nutrition should all play a role in your normal routine from early morning until bedtime. If you maintain healthy habits twenty four hours a day, you’ll see the difference in your strength and endurance as you exercise.

Start with nutrition. If you’re ready to make positive changes to your eating habits, begin by paying attention to what you’re doing now. What exactly are you eating and how often? Now is the time to place limits on unconscious snacking and make sure that your regular meals are planned and balanced.

Raise your intake of leafy green vegetables and fruits. Exchange processed crackers and cookies for whole grain carbohydrates. And switch from beef and pork products to lean proteins like fish, chicken, nuts and legumes. Each of these moves represents a small, easy change that can improve your health and focus and may have a positive impact on your workout goals.

Don’t skip breakfast. If you’re interested in cutting calories, start by exchanging high calorie, low quality foods for healthier options. Then get a handle on snacking and reduce portion sizes during lunch and dinner. But don’t cut corners on breakfast. For a long list of reasons, our bodies need breakfast to trigger our metabolisms out of sleep mode. Studies show that those who eat a complete healthy breakfast actually lose more weight and stay better focused throughout the day than those who don’t.

Maintain consistent, healthy eating habits and when it’s time to grab your Gripads and head for the gym, your body will be properly fueled and ready for your high energy workout.

Weight Training and Your Diet: What to Eat and What to Avoid

Many enthusiastic new weight trainers begin seeing the benefits of weight training workouts quickly, and as with almost any exercise regimen, an upward spiral begins. Positivity breeds positivity, and before long, a healthy weightlifting routine expands into a generally healthy lifestyle. It feels good to work out! And before long, those who discover this begin looking for other ways to feel healthy. They get more sleep. They breathe more deeply and evenly. They stand up straighter and walk with more energy. They drink more water. And their eating habits improve.

But how can you carry the benefits of the workout room over to the dinner table? First, lifting weights can burn calories and place an incremental strain on muscle tissue. The energy and protein required to rebuild, heal, and add new muscle tissue to the body will need to come from food. If you plan to work out vigorously for more than an hour a day or more than two days per week, you’ll need to consume a few more calories to maintain the same body weight. If you intend to lose weight, your calorie count can stay the same. In either case, the calories you take in should be high quality calories, and you’ll want to raise the percentage of your calories that come from lean protein.

Lean protein sources include eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, nuts, beans and legumes. Beef and pork can provide protein, but they also provide fat, so they aren’t the best choice for healthy muscle building. Round out your daily calorie intake with leafy green vegetables, colorful fruits, and whole grain carbohydrates. Steer clear of excess fat, sodium, sweets, and heavily processed foods. As always, drink plenty of water and healthy fluids, and avoid sugary soft drinks.

Proper Pre- and Post- Workout Nutrition

Come to find out some of the most important meals of the day involve what you put into your body before and after your workout…  So for those looking to both power themselves successfully through a workout and build muscle before, during, and after, we have some helpful tips for you…

For the pre-workout portion, look to consume foods that are low in both fat and fiber, but also aren’t incredibly glycemic – The Glycemic Index ranks carbohydrates as they pertain to effects on blood glucose levels.  So, if you’re taking in a high glycemic food source prior to your workout, you may get a jolt of insulin, unfortunately followed by a mood and energy crash as the effects wear off.  A low GI carb – such as breads with whole grains, fruit and vegetables, pasta, oats, barley, and bran – will produce only a small change in blood glucose, but will give you the energy you need to attack those weights.  So, the pre-workout (small) meal should focus squarely on complex carbohydrates and protein intake.  A proper timetable for this would be 60-90 minutes prior to the start of your exercise.  This will give you time to digest the fuel properly and provide that energy boost for your upcoming workout session.  

If the pre-workout is the second most important meal of the day, the post-workout meal is numero uno.  The meal should be eaten as soon as possible after the workout – ideally only 30 minutes after exertion, with 90 minutes being the closing of your window on nutrition that will still help to build muscle.  You will focus on both carbohydrates and protein, while staying away from food containing fat, as it effectively slows down digestion of the aforementioned carbs and protein.   What you want is speed in this process – You want the food digested quickly, thus transporting the necessary nutrients to where they need to go.  Items such as whey protein shakes, as well as high glycemic carbs – they’re okay after the workout, just not before – like potatoes or white rice will fit the bill.  It is important that the body receives these nutrients to their glycogen starved muscles as quickly as possible, which will jumpstart the all-important muscle rebuilding process.  This will allow you to get bigger and stronger, faster.