You got your eight hours of sleep. You consumed all your meals on time. You took your favorite pre-training supplement about 45 minutes before hitting the gym, and you were all hyped and ready to go the second you took hold of the first dumbbell. The workout was insane! You crushed the weights. Your mind-muscle connection was spot on. Every fiber was thrashed!
Now what?
It’s vital to remember that pumping the iron with ferocious intensity will only set the stage and create the potential for growth. Actually manifesting new muscle will require the perfect step-by-step post-workout plan, or everything you did before will go to waste. Please, don’t make the following mistakes once you finish the final rep, or you will end up just like a gerbil running on a wheel—going absolutely nowhere.
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Failing to Stretch the Targeted Muscles
Once the workout is complete you should forcefully stretch the muscles that were just targeted. For example, after training the chest, grab a pair of moderately heavy dumbbells and hold the bottom position of a flye for 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat this process two or three more times. This will help them recover more quickly and keep you more limber, but it has also been proved to ignite anabolism.
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Craploads of Cardio
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing a moderate amount of cardio (25 to 35 minutes maximum) after your weight training, since it will cool you down while burning off a little extra body fat. But it should not be excessive, or you will severely hamper the physiological and hormonal mechanisms that lead to muscular hypertrophy. If your overall program calls for large amounts of cardio, it would be best to separate it from your weight-training workout by a good five to six hours. This will keep cardio from stepping on your anabolic toes.
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Avoiding Supplements
When it comes to making progress, there’s nothing more important than proper diet and training. But a scientifically validated, well-timed supplement program will certainly hasten the process. So if gaining muscle and losing fat are high on your priority list, then make sure to take advantage of such proven post-workout supplements as creatine, leucine, LCLT, taurine, betaine, and beta-alanine. By consuming an efficacious dose of each immediately after training, you will help make sure that not a single rep or set goes to waste.
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Uninviting Inflammation
Recent research regarding muscular hypertrophy has shown that suppressing free radical formation and blocking the natural inflammatory response (which occurs from lifting weights) by using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, ice therapy, and certain powerful antioxidants actually interferes with anabolic mechanisms, which result in muscle growth. So unless you have injured yourself, allow the soreness and stiffness to settle in, knowing full well that your muscles are just working on getting bigger.
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Avoiding High-GI Carbs
As I mentioned previously, it’s essential (if maximum progress is your goal) to quickly take in the proper nutrients immediately after a workout—and carbs play a very important role in this equation. But not just any type of carbohydrate will do. Since we want to spike release of natural insulin (one of the most anabolic hormones in the body), it’s best to consume fast-acting or high-GI carbs post workout. Foods like white rice, white potatoes, rice cakes, some cereals, and bagels enter into the bloodstream rapidly, significantly elevating insulin levels and allowing you to force carbs, amino acids, and ingested supplemental compounds into muscle cells at a very quick rate. The result is faster recovery, repair, and growth.
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No Whey? No Way
Because whey protein (especially in isolate and hydrolyzed form) is digested very quickly, it will supply your muscle cells with much-needed amino acids more rapidly than any other protein source. Additionally, whey is very high in the amino acid leucine, which helps turn on a major muscle growth pathway and is most sensitive immediately after a workout. Failing to utilize the power of whey would certainly be a serious blunder when the goal is greater muscle mass.
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Too Fattening
The main purpose of the post-workout meal is to make sure that both carbohydrates and amino acids reach the bloodstream for distribution to muscle cells as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since consumption of dietary fats tends to slow digestion and processing, it would be a big mistake to include a significant amount during the all-important post-workout feeding.
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Not Feasting Fast Enough
After spending 90 minutes to two hours pounding the iron, your body is in severe need (as in immediately) of nutrients—especially amino acids and carbohydrates, to replenish, restore, and repair damaged muscle cells and feed the exhausted nervous system. Additionally, a short anabolic window exists for about 30 minutes post-workout, where the body is physiologically set up to push nutrients directly toward muscles while avoiding fat cells. Take advantage of this phenomenon by consuming a high-quality meal no more than 15 to 20 minutes after finishing your final set.
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Rest Robbery
In a perfect world, we would all be able to nap for an hour right after training to help our muscles and nervous system recover, repair, and revitalize. For most this simply isn’t possible, but I highly recommend that you at least avoid physically strenuous activity once finished in the gym and attempt to take a little time to just sit, relax, and comfortably consume your post-workout meal. Intense resistance-training workouts will be effective only if the body gets enough rest to allow for the repair and rebuilding process to take place.
