The basics of sleep, hydration, and nutrition are the low hanging fruits of performance. Easy to access, albeit hard to change at times, but extremely impactful on our overall health and wellbeing. The cognitive and physical benefits of breakfast are well established and the timing and contents of the meal has been shown to influence future athletic performance. A previous blog discussed the importance of pre and post workout protein intake and a new article further supports the utilization of pre workout meal.
Authors in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research studied the impact of a pre workout meal on resistance trained men (Naharudin et al. 2019). Participants were included if they performed strength training at least 3 days per week and ate routinely ate breakfast prior to their workouts. In the study, each participant’s 10 rep max was found during a back squat and bench press exercise. They were then randomized to either a breakfast containing 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body weight or water only. 2 hours post meal each participant performed 4 sets at 90% of their 10 rep max on each of the 2 exercises. As expected, total work performed and performance was significantly lower in the group who skipped breakfast.