Effective fitness classes consist not only of regular workouts, but also of preparation and recovery after them. The quality of the training process is strongly influenced by your diet and diet. The “Don’t eat one hour before and after class” rule is necessary, but not sufficient. If you work for results, follow our simple recommendations and you won’t have to wait!
Training
With a normal lifestyle, the body consumes 2-3 liters of water per day. With heavy physical exertion, more fluid is needed; lack of proper attention to this feature can lead to dehydration. That is why, before training, it is useful to drink 0.5-0.6 liters of water (without gas) 1-2 hours before training. It is also advisable to bring water to training. Additional fluid allows you to more effectively remove toxins and metabolic products, the production of which, due to the acceleration of metabolism, becomes more intense. Also, it is useful to enrich nutrition on training days with foods containing catechins: berries, fruits, green tea, cocoa beans. Catechins help fight against excess calories by regulating blood sugar, having antioxidant activity and helping to increase energy expenditure and speed up metabolism.
Food for the day of training, if it is planned early in the morning, should be light: it is useful to eat muesli with yogurt or drink tea with honey. During the day, you can eat for 2-3 hours, including legumes or cereals (complex carbohydrate content should be about 50-100 g) and 100-150 g of seafood or lean chicken in your meal. Don’t completely neglect your diet: fasting lowers blood sugar levels and also slows your metabolism, which impairs the effectiveness of training.
During a workout
- Intense exercise is an additional load on the body. Already during warming, it begins to rebuild for vigorous activity, while resource mobilization takes place.
- The source of muscle energy is glycogen. It is consumed intensively during training. In addition, as a result of the activation of metabolic processes, lactic acid accumulates in the muscles, which prevents their contraction and causes pain after exercise. Need: to remove acid from the body
- For energy, the body begins to use carbohydrates first, then fats. It is at this stage of training that the feeling of hunger appears.
- Need to: Abstain from all food for at least one hour after finishing training.
- Actively working muscles need extra oxygen and nutrition.
- It is necessary: to supply the muscles with the substances in the required amount.
- Heavy sweating leads to thickening of the blood.
- It is necessary: to prevent the possible appearance of blood clots.
While you exercise, pay close attention to possible signs of dehydration: headaches, dizziness, dry mouth. In the future, this can turn into general weakness, increased fatigue, loss of activity. Therefore, when the first symptoms of dehydration appear, you should start drinking water right away. Stop training for this until the condition returns to normal. Approximate volume of water for a 60-75 kg person: 100-150 ml every 10-15 minutes. More intense loads require more liquid, it is also useful to use not plain water, but special isotonic drinks with vitamins, trace elements and carbohydrates. Nutrition during training, on the contrary, is undesirable. Only if the duration of training is more than 2 hours, you need to take a small snack with dried fruits.
Post workout
The main tasks of this period are to restore the normal rhythm of heartbeats and to remove accumulated toxins from the body, formed as a result of muscle activity, as soon as possible. This requires an additional amount of liquid. In addition, you need to “return” to the body useful trace elements and vitamins that came out with sweat during training. Drinking a glass of freshly squeezed apple or carrot juice half an hour after class will also help restore energy.
An hour after class, it’s time to eat. What is the best food to eat after a workout? In the morning, for those who want to lose weight, a green salad and boiled salmon are suitable, and for those who work to gain muscle mass, grilled chicken breast and 100 g of rice are suitable. In the afternoon, you can limit yourself to 100-150 g of low-fat cottage cheese or 1-2 glasses of low-fat kefir.
Other Recovery Methods
- While walking. To calm the pulse and bring it to 60-80 beats, it is useful to walk a little calmly, preferably in the fresh air. This allows you to prolong the breakdown of fats and provide additional oxygen to the body. When walking, the muscles return to their normal mode of operation in 10 minutes. The recommended total walking time is 30-40 minutes.
- Pool. Promotes the restoration of the thermoregulatory system and muscle tissue, the elimination of lactic acid, creates an additional aerobic load. Immediately after training, it is useful to swim for 15-20 minutes.
- Bathtub. Helps strengthen the immune system, improves the condition of ligaments and joints. On the other hand, the bath creates an additional load on the thermoregulatory system and the heart, it should be used with caution, especially after intense training.
Recommended diet: 2-3 sessions of 5 to 15 minutes each, after heavy loads it is better to limit yourself to a 5-minute session.