- Bananas: all nutritional properties
- Power supply for workout
- Banana benefits before a workout
- Banana benefits after the workout
Keeping a healthy diet is essential at all times in life, but one of the areas you eat influences the most is a sport. And eat banana before a workout, can be useful for your performance.
The foods you choose and the times when you consume them play a key role in your ability to perform at best during your workout and achieve significant results. To know which diet is best suited to include, how, and when, therefore, it is essential. One of the most recommended fruits for regular sporting people is the banana because it is a source of numerous nutritional and beneficial properties. That’s why eating it before a workout is significant.
Bananas: all nutritional properties
Banana is a highly complete and healthy food. This is an excellent energy source that is quickly assimilable, contains about 74% water, 23% carbohydrates, 1% protein, 0.5% fat, and 2.6% of dietary fiber. A banana of size and average weight provides about 90 calories.
Benefits
The main feature that makes it great for sports is the high content of potassium (350mg in a bed):
- useful for fighting hypertension
- fighting the onset of fatigue
- and preventing muscle cramps
This fruit is also very rich in other essential minerals such as magnesium, iron, and calcium. Magnesium and potassium act as electrolytes in the body, affecting the way muscles contract. When the body loses electrolytes through sweat during exercise, an imbalance can occur, which can cause muscle cramps and fatigue. Eating a banana is an excellent way to replace those electrolytes and avert these risks.
So too many vitamins, particularly A, B1, B2, B6, C, E, PP, which preserve the elasticity of the skin and stimulate the functioning of the immune system, promote the metabolism of proteins.
Sugar is the primary energy source, and in a mature banana, it has two types: half glucose and half fructose. This easily digestible combination supports athletic performance and reduces stress. It is produced by carbohydrates, which are converted into sugar during the digestion process.
Finally, the presence of tryptophan in this fruit, converted into serotonin by the organism, also gives the banana light antidepressant properties.
Supply requirements for workout
Specially treating the diet before a workout is significant. In addition to what you put on the plate, you have to be extremely careful about the timing.
Overeating in the hour preceding the workout increases the risk of stomach cramping and diarrhea while eating a meal too long before exercise. At the time of starting to train can make you feel more tired since digestion requires energy.
Therefore, the advice is to eat a balanced meal that includes bananas or other fruits at least two hours before exercise. The meal should include protein, such as lean meat or fresh fish, carbohydrates, and good fats for the body to benefit.
Banana benefits before a workout
Suppose your busy daily schedule does not allow you to make a proper meal within the set time. In that case, an excellent way to overcome the problem and not get to the appointment with the empty stomach workout might be just to make a snack for a workout with a banana.
Bananas have a high glycemic index and are optimal for rapid energy supply before a gymnastic session. And being indicated to ward off the sense of hunger that an essential caloric cost could bring about and help stay active for more extended periods.
For this reason, they are particularly indicated for athletes who practice swimming competitions, weight lifting, or other physical activities.
Eating them before and during a workout, according to the advice of your doctor, who assesses the amount of the workout performed
- ensures a valuable energy source that supports the physical effort,
- improves performance
- helps to counteract the onset of muscle cramps.
Banana Benefits Post Workout
High-glycemic foods such as bananas are also good for post-exercise recovery.
Suppose you want to have a snack post-workout. In that case, it is even more recommended to focus on the very ripe ones. And therefore, sweeter ones, both to replenish muscle glycogen reserves and the presence of substances, such as:
- thiamine
- noradrenaline
- dopamine
- serotonin.
Researchers at Appalachian State University in Kannapolis and published in the scientific journal Plos One. Even showed that their effects would be more effective than consuming sports drinks to reduce muscle stress and the inflammatory state generated after intense sports activity.
The study looked at twenty cyclists on a bicycle exit of 75 km. At the end of it, those who consumed bananas instead of sports drinks had less expression of pro-inflammatory molecules.