How To Eat To Maximize Strength

If you’re currently on a workout program designed to help you build up your strength as fast as possible, you need to be getting your nutrition down pat. Nutrition is going to play a key role in success here because the nutrients that you eat are what will provide your body with the fuel you need to not only complete the workout, but also make sure that you recover from it as well.

Lack of fuel will significantly short-circuit any strength gains, so is definitely not what you want.

Here’s some quick tips to follow when on a strength building diet.

Eat Sufficient Carbs

The first thing that you need to make sure you’re doing is eating enough carbohydrates overall. Carbohydrates are what will give the body energy and fuel each muscle contraction taking place, so if you’re not providing this, you won’t be lifting as heavy as you could.

You should aim to have a diet that’s around 30-40% carbohydrates when looking to optimize strength in most cases. Most people eat far too much protein when on a strength based plan, when they really should be adding more carbs and fats.

One gram per pound of body weight of protein will be sufficient in most instances to produce good strength gains. You can go slightly over, but don’t make up too much of your diet with protein or you won’t see good results.

Load Carbs Around The Workout

Second, make sure that you load carbs around the workout as well. You not only want to eat them throughout the day, but eating them right before and after exercise will be especially beneficial because it will give you the strength and power to lift as much weight as possible.

You can place up to 50% of the total carbohydrates you’re eating for the day in this time period.

Don’t Cut Back Too Hard On Non-Training Days

Finally, the last thing to note is that you shouldn’t ever cut back too hard on your calories on your training days. Some people make this mistake because they think they are going to be staying leaner if they don’t eat all that much on non-workout days, but really it just hinders their recovery. Remember that you still must maintain adequate calories for recovery on these days otherwise you won’t be seeing the results that you had hoped for either.

So there you have the main principles to know as far as good nutrition and strength building goes. Get these in place and you will be satisfied with the results that you see.