Before Workout: 10 Things You Should Avoid

The first thing you need to pay attention to is how you eat before workout.

Does overeating prevent you from exercising?

Imagine a situation: you go home hungry. A delicious dinner awaits you. You eat your fill, and what happens next? I’m starting to feel sleepy.

It is because the digestion of food is a process that we ignore. But it requires much energy from our body.

You begin to feel sleepy because the body seems to hint to you that, friend, let’s reduce energy expenditure on other things and direct it to the digestion of food.

Therefore, if you realize that you have a workout soon, try not to overeat too much because its effectiveness will decrease.

How long does it take between a meal and a workout?

When you have eaten, and the stomach begins to digest the food, the blood flow to it increases.

At the same time, when you train your muscles, your body sends blood to them. And if the break between food and exercise is not enough, then your digestion will be problematic. And filling the muscles with blood will worsen.

Hence the question – how long should there be a break between eating and workout? The fact is that different people will need different times to digest food. And the best thing is to learn to understand your body. But you can focus on the corridor between one and a half and three hours from eating to training.

Eat before or after a workout?

But not only is a full stomach in workout not very good but an empty one too.

When you’re hungry, you think about eating, not how to get a good squeeze. And this, of course, does not add strength to the workout either.

And the worst-case scenario is when you wake up in the morning, skip breakfast, and go to work out. Not only is the body not yet awake, but there is no energy for productive work.

Therefore, a workout should always be not on an empty stomach.

Read also:

Eat Banana Before or After a Workout? Is it Good?

Cardio before or after a workout?

If you combine cardio and strength exercises in one workout, then it is better to do cardio at the end.

Because if you start running on the track initially, you will consume glycogen, which could be the fuel for strength exercises.

But here we are talking about long cardio. That is, if you quickly walk on the track for 5 minutes before a workout to warm up – this is only a plus. But if you run for 15, 20 minutes, or more, there will be more minuses than pluses in muscle development.

Is static stretching helpful before a workout?

If you like to stretch before a strength workout, doing a static stretch is bad.

Studies show that static stretching before training worsens the results in running, jumping, and lifting weights.

Static stretching is when you stretch your muscles and stay in this position. Usually for 10-20 seconds.

But we have another option – dynamic stretching. It is when you pull the muscles with springy movements. And here it is, unlike static, at the beginning of the workout will not hurt.

Before or after a workout to pumping ABS?

If you start every workout by pumping your abs, then this is another thing that you should not do.

You may not even think about it, but most exercises involve working the abs. You train your shoulders-the press stabilizes your body, swing your biceps-the press also turns on, and the chest is the same.

If you train your abs at the very beginning of your workout, you will not only get tired before the main exercises. But also to worsen the stabilization of the body in them. and this is not to mention such exercises as:

• deadlift
• squat

A tired ab can lead to injury. Therefore, it is better to move the six-packs workout to the end of the class.

State of hangover

I think it’s no secret to you that workout while hungover is a bad idea.

The next day after you have drunk alcohol, it is better not to exercise. Because the body, first of all, needs the strength to cleanse itself of alcohol at this moment. And secondly, the very quality of the workout will be very poor.

So give your body at least a couple of days to recover normally. And then come fresh to the gym.

Can you workout without sleeping all night?

If you have not slept all night and are going to train, then it is better to discard this idea. Because in a dream, your body recovers. and if this recovery is not there:

• little strength
• coordination is worse
• attention is blunted

All this, of course, does not add to the advantages of workout. Therefore, try to sleep at least a few hours before it.

Should you take painkillers for muscle pain?

If you feel a burning sensation in your muscles during a workout, you don’t like it and decide to use an analgesic. Then I would not advise you to do this.

There are several reasons for this:

1. You will feel the work of the target muscles worse.
2. In 2017, Stanford scientists proved that taking painkillers can disrupt and slow down muscle recovery after exercise.
3. You can get injured and not even understand it.

If you feel pain from a particular exercise, replace it and review your technique. Whether the load is adequately selected in it at all, in the correct version, you will not feel much pain from the exercises.

Coffee before workout?

A small cup of coffee before a workout will give you both a boost of energy and stimulate your attention. Especially, in this case, you will feel if you drink coffee infrequently. But the stomach of each person reacts to this drink in its way.

Coffee is, if you didn’t know, a natural laxative. And some people drink much coffee before workout and risk sitting in the toilet between sets. It is certainly a rarity. And it can manifest itself if you drink a large glass of coffee right before workout with a not very strong stomach. But it still happens.

Read also:

After Workout: 3 Things to Try Post-Workout

And if you have something to add from your personal experience, then the comments are open. You can write what you think you should not do before training. It will be interesting to read.