7 ways to increase glycogen stores
When it comes to nutrition, protein is not the only thing that matters for getting in better shape. Carbohydrates, fats and other compounds are important too. This article explains how to optimize growth by increasing glycogen stores.
Protein is certainly important for repairing muscles and tissues. It has a direct effect on muscle building because it supplies amino acids, which drive growth.
Looking at muscle growth as a whole, it does not depend one hundred percent on protein alone. Carbohydrates also play a role. In fact, the amount of carbohydrate stored in your muscles as muscle glycogen determines whether your muscles remain in an anabolic, muscle-building state.
So how important is glycogen? You can eat considerably more protein than nutrition scientists recommend and still fail to grow if your glycogen stores are too low. When those stores are full, however, muscle growth and recovery improve significantly.
Why not simply eat plenty of carbohydrates, then? Because they also make you gain fat.
Getting your body to store carbohydrates in your muscles instead of as fat is seriously difficult. Here are seven tips to help you avoid the pitfalls.
1. Eat frequently
The best approach is to divide your daily food intake into six meals and eat every three hours. More frequent meals ensure that you store more glycogen and accumulate less fat in your fat stores. Suppose your daily carbohydrate intake is 500 grams. If you split those carbohydrates across three meals, your body allocates some to your muscles as muscle glycogen and some to your fat stores as fat. If you spread the same amount of carbohydrate across six meals, it loses its ability to stimulate fat storage, and more is stored in your muscles. The result is a larger glycogen reserve to support growth and less fat in your body.
2. Eat carbohydrates before and after your workout
The next tip is to eat more carbohydrates both before and after training. Carbohydrates eaten before your workout provide the strength and energy you need during it and prevent the loss of muscle mass. Since most of these carbohydrates are burned during your workout, they do not turn into stored fat. After your workout, carbohydrates are needed to replenish muscle glycogen before they have any chance to affect fat storage. Carbohydrates before and after your workout protect muscle mass and raise glycogen levels, which in turn help your muscles grow. Because carbohydrates play an important anabolic role, meaning they promote muscle growth, we can say that in this situation they do not make anyone gain fat.
3. Choose the right carbohydrates
Everyone’s body handles carbohydrates differently; this is what we mean by carbohydrate sensitivity. You do not need a complicated blood test to work it out. Insulin sensitivity is a specific measure of how efficiently your body handles carbohydrates. If carbohydrates make you tired or cause you to gain fat, you are probably insulin resistant. This means your body is very likely to release more insulin than that of someone who gets plenty of energy from carbohydrates or does not immediately gain weight from eating them.
If you are insulin resistant, you should avoid sugar, juices and refined carbohydrates such as rice cakes, mashed potatoes and white rice. Instead, choose slower-digesting carbohydrates such as potatoes, brown rice, pasta and buckwheat. Their more complex structure favors glycogen storage rather than fat storage.
4. Vary your carbohydrate intake
Fourth on the list is varying your carbohydrate intake. Reducing your carbohydrate intake triggers various changes in your body. Your muscles begin to demand more carbohydrates. Cutting back improves your muscles’ ability to use carbohydrates, so they are not stored as fat. When you increase your intake again, all the carbohydrates go into your muscles, making them look fuller and rounder. Larger glycogen stores also stimulate protein synthesis and therefore muscle growth.
Restricting carbohydrates for two or three days speeds up muscle growth. Make sure you get enough protein while reducing your carbohydrate intake, though, or your muscles may begin to break down. This is always a risk when restricting carbohydrates.
5. Optimize fat burning
You also need to consider other substances that affect fat burning, primarily capsaicin (found in chili peppers), bitter orange extract and caffeine. These increase thermogenesis and therefore calorie expenditure. They also improve your muscles’ ability to use glucose, a component of carbohydrates, from the bloodstream.
Larger glycogen stores do more than provide extra energy and support muscle growth. They also reduce fat storage. This means that anything that promotes glycogen storage, including dietary strategies and supplements, reduces fat accumulation.
6. Unbeatable wine vinegar
The next tip is sure to surprise some of you. You may well wonder whether something like this can really help your body store carbohydrates as muscle glycogen.
Tartaric acid, found in wine vinegar used in salad dressings among other sources, has been found to have some indirect muscle-building properties. Wine vinegar has previously been used to stimulate appetite, fight fatigue and bind minerals. It also increases calcium absorption, and in vivo experiments have proven that it promotes glycogen formation. This is also the basis for the theory that wine vinegar relieves fatigue. Wine vinegar improves your body’s ability to store carbohydrates specifically in your muscles, preventing them from slipping past to be stored as fat and thereby lowering your energy levels.
Take 3-4 tablespoons of wine vinegar with food before and after your workout.
7. Fats
Finally, do not forget fats. Certain fats really do help your body produce more glycogen. In particular, the omega-3 fats found in fish oil and flaxseed oil help your muscles respond to insulin’s anabolic effects. As carbohydrates are used, insulin is released, helping transport carbohydrates into your muscles. However, it also affects fat storage. It can lead to fat storage and increase the amount of enzymes that help form fat. Omega-3 fats can produce an anabolic effect by allowing your muscles to “draw in” carbohydrates with the help of insulin. This increases glycogen storage and reduces insulin’s ability to store carbohydrates as fat. The recommended intake is 5-6 grams of omega-3 fats per day.
Translated from Body magazine; Author: Chris Aceto
Author: Greta
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