Paul Milano

Now I don't list these credentials to brag. (Well, maybe a little.) Rather, I list them to demonstrate that the combination of academic knowledge and real-world experience has enabled me to see the differences between what scientists think athletes should be doing

and what they're actually doing. It also enables me to see the differences between what athletes are actually doing and what Ithink they should be doing. Sometimes these gaps are quite large.

Sure, there are a lot of both strength/power and endurance athletes out there who know the recommendations — they know that they should be taking in some carbohydrate during and/or after training. However, even the ones diligent enough to take their carbs are often using the wrong ones, in the wrong amounts, and at the wrong times.

For example, when I talk to my athletes about workout nutrition, the ones who actually do use glucose electrolyte drinks often have absolutely no idea how much carbohydrate or how many calories they're taking in per drink or per training session. All they know is that they drink a bottle of Gatorade or similar drink during training. Whether that Gatorade has 10g of carbohydrate or 100g, they don't know.

They also don't know the following:

• Whether that Gatorade has any protein in it

• Whether to drink the Gatorade before, during, or after training

• How many grams of carbohydrate and protein they're getting/hour of training

• How to adjust their carbohydrate and protein intake based on body type

• How to adjust their carbohydrate and protein intake based on duration or intensity of effort

And, truth be told, these are all huge problems — especially for elite athletes — both of the endurance and the strength/power persuasion.

After all, knowing to drink some energy drink during training isn't advanced nutritional knowledge — it's primitive nutrition; what I'd call 3rd grade level nutrition. (And just because an athlete's peers are at the kindergarten level doesn't mean their 3rd grade nutrition is advanced.) I can't state it any more clearly than this — if an athlete wants to compete at an elite level, they'd better strive for more than the 3rd grade practice of nutrition.

Seriously, imagine if more athletes graduated from the 3rd grade nutrition level and ended up with the equivalent of a Masters or PhD-level nutritional intake. I tell you, the entire culture of sport would be transformed.

But hell, maybe it's actually better if most of the athletes out there ignored this information. If they did, the gap between them and my athletes would grow even wider, bringing my athletes even more Gold Medals, National Championships, Super Bowls, and Stanley Cups!


Practical Workout Nutrition

At this point, I'd like to share with you some of the workout nutrition protocols I use and find most effective with my strength/power and endurance athletes. (Remember, when I use athlete in this context, I'm talking about competitive athletes who train a few hours per day.) That's right, here's where it gets really practical.


Workout Nutrition - Baseline

As a baseline, start by ingesting 30g carbohydrate and 15g protein (in 500ml water) per hour of training. This means if you're training for one total hour, you're sipping your 30g carb and 15g protein drink during that hour. And if you're training for two hours, you're sipping your first 30g carb and 15g protein drink during the first hour and your second 30g carb and 15g protein drink during the second hour. And so on...

Then, once your workout is done, you'll have a whole food meal within an hour or two of training.


Workout Nutrition - Customization

For most athletes, the baseline recommendations above should do the trick. However, there are a few situations that may require special attention:

First, if you're an athlete who naturally has a very ectomorphic body type and tends to have a very difficult time maintaining body mass during high volume and/or high intensity training blocks or during competition periods (World Cups, etc), follow the strategy above and then, immediately after your workout, add another drink containing 30g of carbohydrate and 15g protein. After this drink, within 1-2 hours post exercise, have a whole food meal.

Further, if you're this type of athlete and you still need more recovery power and total dietary energy (after trying the above strategy), add an additional 15g of carbohydrate per training hour. This means each of your drinks would contain 45g carbohydrate and 15g protein per hour of training.

Second, if you're an athlete who naturally has more of an endomorphic body type and tends to gain weight easily or tends to gain fat during competition periods (World Cups, etc.) when eating a higher carbohydrate diet, you'll want to halve the recommendation above by ingesting 30g carbohydrate and 15g protein for every 2 hours of training. Therefore you'd be averaging 15g carbohydrate and 7.5g protein for every hour of training.

In addition to this, you'd add BCAA(branched chain amino acids) into your workout drink at a rate of 5g BCAA per hour of training. Therefore you'd end up with 15g carbohydrate, 7.5g protein, and 5g BCAA for every hour of training.

Of course, all of these strategies work best as part of an all-round good nutritional plan. So don't take these suggestions in isolation and think they alone are going to revolutionize your recovery. Sure, they'll help. But you've gotta make sure you're feeding well during the other 20+ hours of the day. And for more info on how you can do this, check out the Precision Nutrition program here.

At this point, one question I'm often asked is this:

"Can't we just have a big post-exercise recovery drink? Why recommend a certain amount of workout drink per hour of training?"

The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second is below.

First of all, having high blood concentrations of glucose (from the carbohydrate) and amino acids (from protein) during exercise is advantageous as the blood flow to working muscles is highest at this time. So, with a lot of nutrient-rich blood flowing to your working muscles, those nutrients will be best used for performance enhancement and recovery. Simply put, carbohydrate protein drinks are more effective when ingested during exercise vs after exercise.

In addition to the physiological reasons above, there's a very practical reason for recommending a certain amount of workout nutrition per hour of training — this recommendation helps you easily and efficiently regulate your daily energy intake such that it mirrors your training volume.

For example, if you're training 1 hour per day, you'll need less total dietary energy than if you're training 4 hours per day — but more dietary energy than if you didn't train at all. So rather than trying to tinker around with your staple meals on a day-by-day basis, trying to eat "bigger" meals when you're training more and "smaller" meals when you're training less (these strategies being imprecise and difficult to objectively apply), all you have to do is have a few more or a few less workout drinks and your daily calorie intake upregulates or downregulates. Watch how this works: