Eat right for the most strength!

Building strength is not just all about lifting weights. Just like when you want to lose weight, building muscle is a combination of exercise and diet. To optimize your results, you must eat the right foods, and the right amounts of foods to build up strength.
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Eat for Strength

Give your body the fuel it needs when it comes time to max out

By C.J. Murphy, C.S.N.

Dear M&F,

I’ve been training hard, and I want to go for new personal records on the bench press, squat, and deadlift over the course of a week. How should I eat to give myself the best chance of beating my old numbers? —Mike S., Long Branch, NJ
I’ve been writing lifters’ diets for years, but to make sure you get the best information possible, I consulted some of the strongest men in the world to answer this question. Jo Jordan, Vincent Dizenzo, and Brian Carroll are elite powerlifters who all bench around 800 pounds and squat 1,200, so they know how to eat when it comes time to max out.

Their basic strategy: increase their carb intake the night before testing a big lift, and use supplementation. Increasing your carbs is essential for hitting huge personal records. Your body uses carbs for energy. If you don’t have enough stored, you can’t hoist the heaviest possible weights. However, you don’t need to carb load for days like some athletes do. Your body will use what it consumed a few hours earlier for fuel.

Eat a carb-heavy meal the night before training, along with some protein and healthy fat. The day of, eat most of your carbs shortly before the workout, during, and right afterward. Aim for 2.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight that day, and one gram of protein per pound. Eating any more carbs than this may cause you to feel “carb drunk” and sluggish during the workout. If you feel that isn’t enough carbs, you can increase the load by 0.5 grams per pound. (On off days between max-out sessions, reduce your carb intake by 15% to 20%.) During training, start drinking a shake containing carbs, protein, BCAAs, and glutamine, and finish it afterward.

THE MAX-OUT DIET

Eat like this on days you test a lift

BREAKFAST

1 whole egg
5 egg whites
1⁄4 cup steel-cut oats
1⁄2 cup chopped peppers
1⁄2 cup blackberries
A.M. SNACK
1 medium apple
1 oz almonds
11⁄4 scoops (30g) whey protein powder

LUNCH

4 oz lean beef
1 medium apple
Small salad
1⁄2 tbsp olive oil
11⁄2 cup quinoa (cooked measure)
1 oz black beans
P.M. SNACK
1 medium apple
5 egg whites
3⁄4 cup steel-cut oats
1 small box raisins
INTRA/POST WORKOUT SHAKE
21⁄2 scoops (60g) carb powder
11⁄2 scoops (35g ) whey protein
5g–10g BCAAs
5g–10g glutamine

DINNER

11⁄4 cup mashed sweet potato (raw measure)
1 cup broccoli rabe (raw measure)
5 oz chicken breast
1⁄2 tbsp olive oil
TOTALS
CALORIES: 3,184
PROTEIN: 213G
FAT: 65G
CARBS: 432G

Source

So, you’ve been training hard and hitting the bench press- doing squats and dead lifts hoping for results, but still not getting the results you want? If you are doing the exercises, lifting the weights, and training hard but still not seeing those muscles, then you may want to stop looking at the gym for all your answers and look at your kitchen. Are you wondering what to eat to get the results you want? Wonder no more, we have the answers about what to put on your plate to build strength.

Some of the best weight lifters in the world share the same basic diet plans. Their basic strategy is to increase the carb intake the evening before the big lifting test, and to use supplements to fill in the dietary gaps you need to close in order to build muscle. Bumping up your carb intake as a weight lifter is the only way to reach higher goals, and to see new personal records. Carbs equate to energy for your body- if you lack the proper amount of carbohydrates, you simply will not be able to harvest the strength to lift the weight you want. The average person doesn’t need to carbo load like the athletes do though, doing so will cause your metabolism to slow down. You do however, need to consume enough carbs for your body to burn over the course of your weight lifting sessions.

Before a strenuous weight lifting workout, eat carbohydrate dense foods the night before training in combination with healthy fats, and of course- protein. Aim for 2-1/2 grams of carbohydrates for every of body weight and one gram of protein per pound. Eating too many carbs can cause you to lag and feel sluggish- it’s a pretty fine line between enough and too much, but it’s not rocket science either.

Do you load up on carbs before a training session? Tell us your meal plans.

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