A lesson we could all follow
Never underestimate the importance of nutrion on performance. Tuesday was one of those strange days for me when I got up and wasn’t hungry much. I usually eat oatmeal for breakfast but instead had this much less filling flax flakes cereal with skim milk. It’s a decent cereal as far as cereals go as it’s ingredient list is something a child could read, it has like 8 or 10 grams of fiber in one serving and virtually no sugars (1g). But there aren’t many calories in it. Anyway, I never ate my typical mid-morning snack of fruit and nuts and held off on my lunch. For some reason all day I just had no appetite. But before I met my workout partner at the gym I finally said to myself I should eat something. I still wasn’t really hungry for some strange reason and I ate two slices of whole grain wheat bread with a tablespoon of all natural peanut butter on each slice. I washed it down with a glass of skim milk and headed to the gym. I did my 10 minutes of moderate cardio to warm up as I usually do to get a sweat going. Then I began doing squats. Since it was my first exercise of the routine (I’ve recently switched to all body workouts for a bit just for a change of pace) I did a few warm up sets with my body weight and then just the bar and one 45lb plate a side. I felt fine and then started to stack on the weight. For this workout I wanted to focus on a rep range of 10-12 so I did my first working set with 265 lbs. I did 12 good reps without issue then rested briefly and did another set of 12 with 275 lbs. Again all good reps and no issues. Then in my third set using 285 lbs I was on rep four and about two thirds of way down when I heard a click or a creak and felt tension in my right quad near the tear drop. I finished the rep and then racked the weight. I walked around and tested it a bit by putting my weight on it and massaging the area lightly. Then I did some light stretching on it. It felt pretty good still. So, I rested some more and did some jumping jacks to get my blood flowing again. I then tried the set again. I got the weight up with no issues. Got my stance set. Went down to do my first rep and felt that tension in the exact same spot again. So, back to the rack. I continued on with my workout and about half way through it I was struggling. My blood sugar levels were low making me feel light headed and nauseated. I actually managed to get through the workout not wanting to quit and realizing I was just low on energy from not having taken in hardly any calories all day. I’m not sure that is what caused my quad strain - I’m certain it is not a tear or a pull as the pain from that would been far greater and I can use my legs with only minor discomfort - but undernourished and improperly hydrated muscles won’t perform as they should. It’s sort of like running your car low on oil and coolant. It can’t possibly perform at it’s peak then and you run the risk of damage. Fortunately, mine was minimal. But the lesson to be learned if is EAT. Food is fuel and without it you cannot perform at your best. And if you must miss a meal slow burning complex carbohydrates right before workout aren’t the best fuel - I’d have been better off taking in some orange juice and a yogurt to get quick burning fuel. I won’t let that happen again……
October 9, 2008 at 3:36 am
My 2 cents: if you were undernourished & low on energy your entire body would notice, not just one particular muscle. I’d keep an eye on it and perhaps for the next WO go a little lighter and really focus on form?