GGlycogen Flow Restriction Exercise. Many competitive organizations include replennishment judging Wellness [, ] and replenishmnet such that Glycogen replenishment for bodybuilders competition may transpire over the course of an entire day or longer. Dietary Guidelines should reflect new understandings about adult protein needs. ASL Publications; Get outside of your comfort zone and question everyone and everything. First name.

Glycogen replenishment for bodybuilders -

The muscle breaks down the glycogen in the liver and the fatty acids in the adipose tissue. The body, on the other hand, saves its glycogen stock. The glycogen contained in the muscles is converted into glucose. This one transmits you a message to stop your sport activity.

You can no longer continue, because you feel too tired and your motivation disappears. Runners know this feeling well. It is a phenomenon called " marathon wall ". In summary, the depletion of glycogen in the body contributes to a decrease in your ability to provide a physical effort intense.

Be careful not to confuse this fatigue induced by a lack of energy in the form of glycogen with muscle fatigue. The latter can occur when your muscles suffer damage during their contraction, particularly during a very intense weight training session. Your effort can also be stopped, even if your will is still there, simply because your muscle can no longer continue.

Now that you know what glycogen is, let's see how you can use it in your bodybuilding practice to help hypertrophy.

As we have seen, the amount of carbohydrates consumed during an effort depends on both its intensity and duration. The carbohydrate metabolism will be solicited during a very intense physical activity.

On the contrary, during a lower intensity exercise, it is the aerobic process that acts. The latter will primarily use your sugar, fat and protein reserves. To improve your sports performance, it is in your best interest to increase your glycogen stores.

Indeed, they determine the duration during which you can perform an intense effort. To do this, two parameters must be taken into account: diet and training. Before a weight training session or a sporting event, make sure you take care of your diet to fill your body with energy.

energy reserves. Indeed, the initial state of your glycogen stocks is important. Choose foods that will not disturb your digestion. But be careful to the glycemic index of each food! During a training session, energy is mainly provided by glycogen from your daily meals.

This supply provides energy for 60 to 90 minutes depending on your starting stock. Beyond that, your reserve is exhausted and your performance decreases. To compensate for this lack, you will need a energy intake You can also opt for carbohydrate-rich foods such as bananas, dried fruit or fruit compotes.

You can also opt for carbohydrate-rich foods such as bananas, dried fruit or compotes. After the effort, it is also essential to consume carbohydrates, because they are essential nutrients that participate in the resynthesis of glycogen.

Therefore, they promote the development of muscle mass and physical recovery. This post-training period of a few hours during which you must ensure your carbohydrate intake is called the anabolic window. You can also prepare a protein shake with whey protein and maltodextrin, a powder made of carbohydrates from corn, wheat, potato or rice.

More broadly, a balanced diet is a major factor for a good carbohydrate recharge. The more you exercise, the more you improve your insulin sensitivity.

This will allow you to increase your glycogen stores and improve your performances. Emptying glycogen reserves voluntarily is a practice well known to bodybuilders. This is the principle of the carbohydrate rebound.

The presently reviewed study shows that glycogen depletion occurs in a localized, non-uniform manner, with particularly notable depletion occurring in the intramyofibrillar area of type 2 muscle fibers. But to translate that to practical application, we need to know whether or not that intramyofibrillar depletion actually translates to acute fatigue or impaired contractile function of muscle.

As summarized in a recent review paper by Alghannam et al 8 , I think you can make a strong case that we have the evidence to support this translation. In section 2. Over a series of studies, this research group has demonstrated that reduced intramyofibrillar glycogen levels are associated with impaired calcium release from sarcoplasmic reticula, which appears to increase muscle fatigue and alter muscle contractility 6 , 8.

One of the largest sources of ATP consumption during muscle contraction is the sarcoplasmic reticulum-calcium-ATPase enzyme, and the sodium-potassium-ATPase enzyme is another notable ATP consumer. These enzymes depend on locally available glycogen as a major source of energy, which helps elucidate a mechanistic link between intramyofibrillar glycogen depletion, sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium kinetics, and muscle fatigue 6.

While that evidence has largely come from highly mechanistic studies with limited ecological validity, the same research group has translated their line of research to real-world studies in athletic populations. In trained triathletes, this group demonstrated that a large reduction in whole-muscle glycogen content induced by prolonged cycling was associated with a significant reduction in sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium release 9.

Four hours after the exercise bout, glycogen levels and calcium release were markedly restored by post-exercise carbohydrate ingestion, but remained suppressed when post-exercise carbohydrate was restricted. They reported similar findings in trained cross-country skiers 10 , but took the study a step further by specifically assessing localized glycogen depots.

However, for the time being, I think these researchers have made a strong case for the idea that intramyofibrillar glycogen is particularly important, and can become depleted to a practically meaningful degree in response to resistance exercise when only modest whole-muscle glycogen depletion is observed.

Back in the s and early s, it seemed like a lot of lifters were pretty fond of micromanaging their carbohydrate timing, and unnecessarily so.

These findings do not suggest that the typical lifter needs to return to those old habits of stressing over rapid post-exercise consumption of a carbohydrate source with the perfect molecular weight, glycemic load, monosaccharide composition, and molecular configuration.

Similarly, these findings do not suggest that all lifters need to adopt a super-high-carb diet. As the presently reviewed results suggest, even modest whole-muscle glycogen depletion from traditional resistance exercise can induce a notable reduction of intramyofibrillar glycogen content in type 2 fibers, which could negatively impact performance in the absence of replenishment.

Earlier this year, Dr. Helms and I published a review paper about bodybuilding nutrition guidelines with Dr. Brandon Roberts and Dr. Peter Fitschen We generally advocated for an approach that most would classify as low-fat, in order to free up calories for the protein-sparing effects of protein and the performance-preserving effects of carbohydrate.

In addition, we have previously discussed some of the underwhelming effects of various ketogenic dieting strategies on strength and hypertrophy when compared to higher-carbohydrate approaches here , here , and here.

When interpreting those findings, I highlighted evidence showing that ketogenic diets can impair high-intensity, glycogen-dependent exercise performance. In light of the presently reviewed findings, it seems defensible to infer that such a large degree of total muscle glycogen depletion is likely to involve notable depletion of the intramyofibrillar glycogen stores which are closely linked to muscle contractile function in people who regularly exercise.

To be extremely clear, I am not suggesting that lifters have no justifiable applications of low-carbohydrate diets. Maintenance of glycolytic exercise performance is just one factor to consider when selecting a diet, along with essential nutrient intake, satiety management, muscle protein accretion, cooking and flavor preferences, and a variety of other considerations.

Nonetheless, modest glycogen reductions that were once assumed to be benign might materially impact performance, so eating sufficient carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores to a maximal or near-maximal level should probably be viewed as a relatively high dietary priority for lifters.

Over the last years, our understanding of glycogen has changed pretty significantly, in large part thanks to the efforts of this research group. In many cases, it can be hard to draw practical conclusions from research that is more focused on biochemical changes or mechanistic observations than applied outcomes.

However, the presently reviewed study leaves us with some pretty noteworthy takeaways that can probably inform how we discuss carbohydrate feeding strategies.

Search Search. Modest Glycogen Depletion May Impact Lifting Performance More Than You Think. by Eric Trexler Articles , Body Composition , Hypertrophy , Nutrition , Programming. New data suggest that small reductions in muscle glycogen might have bigger performance impacts than once thought.

Read on to learn about some very important carbohydrate research. Localized glycogen depletion in the intramyofibrillar storage depots can probably start impairing performance at fairly modest levels of whole-muscle glycogen depletion.

Learn more and try MacroFactor for free here. Eric Trexler. Eric Trexler is a pro natural bodybuilder and a sports nutrition researcher.

It is the total volume of work that will determine the degree of glycogen depletion so rest between sets should be adequate to allow a large volume of work to be performed. Bodybuilders should avoid lifting very heavy as high force eccentric contractions have been shown to interfere with glycogen synthesis 15 probably due to muscle microdamage.

Additionally Doyle et al. Although the bodybuilder might not normally train three days in a row, it is recommended in this case. This prevents the bodybuilder from having to remain on a low carbohydrate diet for more than three days.

Determining the amount of carbohydrates that should be consumed will require some trial and error but the research literature might provide some clues.

A study by Pascoe et al. If you know the molecular weight of glucose and can convert mmol to grams and if we assume that each gram of glycogen is stored with 3 grams of water this would give us a value of approximately. If we match carbohydrate intake to the glycogen synthesis rate this would equal 43 grams per hour for a pound bodybuilder kg and a total of approximately g Calories from carbohydrates in a 24 hour period.

Glycogen replenishment is very rapid for six hours after high intensity exercise 11 and glycogen concentrations can return to baseline levels within this six hour period if adequate carbohydrates are consumed supercompensation occurs in the days that follow.

Therefore providing a bolus as Ivy suggested might speed up the process relative to consuming a predetermined number of grams every 3 hours. On day 1 most of the carbohydrates should be in the form of simple sugars to enhance glycogen uptake. The degree of glycogen supercompensation can be estimated by the amount of weight gain.

Recall that each gram of glycogen is stored with 3 grams of water. If a bodybuilder gained grams 3. In summary, glycogen supercompensation can be a valuable performance-enhancing tool for bodybuilders and endurance athletes. However, there is no convincing evidence to recommend its use to power athletes.

Powers, S, Howley, E , Exercise physiology: Theory and application for fitness and performance , Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. Brown Inc.

Conlee S, Muscle glycogen and exercise endurance - a twenty year perspective. Exercise and sports science reviews Heigenhauser G, Sutton J, Jones N. Effect of glycogen depletion on the ventilatory response to exercise. Ahlborg G, Bergstrom J, Edelund G, Hultman E. Muscle glycogen and muscle electrolytes during prolonged physical exercise.

Acta Physiol. Goforth, Arnall D, Bennett B, Law P. Persistence of supercompensated muscle glycogen in trained subjects after carbohydrate loading.

J Appl Physiol 82 1 Hultman E Nilsson H. Liver glycogen in man. Effect of different diets and muscular exercise.

In: Muscle Metabolism during Exercise. New York: Plenum, Costill D, Sherman W, Gind C, Maresh C, Witten M, Miller J. The role of dietary carbohydrate in muscle glycogen resynthesis after strenuous exercise.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Blom P, Hostmark A, Baage O, Kardel K, Machlum S. Effect of different post-exercise sugar diets on the rate of muscle glycogen synthesis. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise Keizer H, Kuipers H, Van Kranenburg G, Geurten P.

Influence of liquid and solid meals on muscle glycogen resynthesis, plasma fuel hormone response and maximal physical working capacity. International Journal of Sports Medicine 8: Roberts A, Noble D, Hayden D, Talyor A.

Simple and complex carbohydrate-rich diets and muscle glycogen content of marathon runners. European Journal of Applied Physiology Ivy J. Glycogen resynthesis after exercise: effect of carbohydrate intake. Bergstrom J, Hermansen E, Hultman E, Saltin B. Diet, muscle glycogen and physical performance.

Brooks G, Fahey T. Exercise Physiology. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Jacobs I. Influence of carbohydrate stores on maximal human power output. In: Exercise Benefits, Limits and Adaptations. Widrick J, Costill D, McConell G, Anderson D, Pearson D, Zachwieja J.

Time course of glycogen accumulation after eccentric exercise. J Appl Physiol 72 5 Doyle J, Sherman W, Strauss R Effects of eccentric and concentric exercise on muscle glycogen replenishment.

Pascoe D, Costill D, Fink W, Robergs R, and Zachaweija J.

Replenishmenr Wellness and glycogen are intimately linked. Indeed, the practice rplenishment bodybuilding replenisument to Wellness Circadian rhythm productivity efforts. To achieve this, your body and muscles need energy. This is the case, for example, when you do a series of squats or bench presses. But do you know how your body stores this energy? JavaScript Wellness to be Glycogen replenishment for bodybuilders in replenoshment browser. Bodybuildefs Glycogen replenishment for bodybuilders best bodjbuilders on our site, be bodybuilrers to turn on Bodybuildeds in your browser. Wellness is a Vegan smoothie recipes ongoing debate in bodybuilding as to whether Glycogen replenishment for bodybuilders is good for carb-loading or not. I have been dealing with this debate from the very first days of my loading protocol Skiploading that is used both for peaking for a show and for weekly carb-refeeds during a dieting phase. I wish I had explained this in depth in my TRTbodybuilding Online DVD. I covered so much information that I somehow forgot to discuss it, so I am going to detail it here.