STOP Doing This AFTER Your Workout!

When it comes to working out, it isn’t just what you do during your workout but after your workout as well that makes a difference in how much muscle you can build. In this video, I’m going to share with you the 10 worst things to do after training that can hold back your gains and undercut the effe

So clearly you work out. But do you  take aspirin? Or more importantly, do you take aspirin after working out? Because if  you do, that could be a big problem. Or maybe not, depending on how old you are.

You see, recent  research has shown that taking aspirin after a workout could actually blunt the effect of what  you’re trying to accomplish with the workout itself. If you’re trying to blunt inflammation,  you’re interrupting the normal repair and recovery process that actually builds muscle. However,  there is research that shows that in older adults, over the age of 50, taking up to 1200mg of  ibuprofen or aspirin after a workout can potentially even be anabolic. In both cases,  a dose of just 400mg doesn’t really have any effect at all. So, it’s not just a dose dependent,  but age dependent thing that you’re going to need to figure out what’s best for you.

Next on the list of things you want to avoid after training is cold water immersion  therapy or ice baths. Now, don’t get me wrong, the mood boosting and dopamine increasing  effects of this practice are something that’s been documented very, very much by some of the  smartest people in the world. That being said, the timing of when you do this will matter if  hypertrophy is the goal of your workouts. Growing muscle. Because if we do this within four to six  hours of training, we will get that same blunting effect of the inflammatory response that’s  productive for creating those muscle gains in the first place.

What would be interesting to know  in future studies is whether or not the same age dependent factor factors in here as well. Meaning  if you’re older, maybe this doesn’t have as much of an effect, and you should be doing more of this  cold-water immersion. The fact is that once again, it’s the modality that maybe doesn’t warrant  your concern, but the application and timing of it in your specific circumstance might. Now, the avoidance of this next practice is one that will not only let your games breathe a  sigh of relief. But also, probably the people you share the road with on your way back from  the gym because there’s no need to rush anymore, necessarily.

That anabolic window that  you’re rushing home to get your protein shake in doesn’t really exist, or at least not  as important as we once thought it was. Now, recent studies have actually shown that whether  you have your protein an hour before you train or within an hour after you train, you’re going  to get the same benefits of muscle protein synthesis. On the other hand, if you like to train  first thing in the morning in a fasted state, the urgency that you might have following your  workout to ingest protein will be higher. The vast majority of us do not do that, however, so  take your time, say your proper goodbyes when you’re leaving the gym, there’s no rush. Which leads us to our next mistake that you want to avoid and that is misinterpreting the  misinformation on the anabolic window, to the point where you misinterpret the significance  of protein in general.

Because protein is and always will be, the most important macronutrient  you put in your body if building muscle is your goal. Well, the specific timing of its ingestion  surrounding that small little area of your day that you spend training is less important, the  overall ingestion of protein throughout the day and meeting your daily total requirements is  critical if you want to see your maximum muscle gains. Now, what is that number? Roughly between  0. 8 and 1.

2 grams per pound of body weight, which is more challenging to achieve if you’re actually  not consciously trying to get to those numbers. A rough guideline of 30g of protein per meal as a  minimum will fit most of us into that stated range rather easily. And also, it helps to cross that  29-gram threshold where leucine signals the mTOR pathway to create muscle protein synthesis. Which  is why, by the way, our PRO30G protein includes a full 30g of protein per serving, much more  than our competition because we understand this process. The bottom line is that while the timing  of your protein may be less critical regarding that anabolic window, the anabolic window being  opened more readily throughout the entire day is going to be dependent upon your intake of  an adequate amount of protein every day.

Now, if the goal of your workout is to build as  much muscle as possible, the next big mistake that you need to avoid after your workout  is doing cardio. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’d be better to do your cardio after the workout  than before in this case, because you’re simply dipping into the reserves of energy that you  should be devoting to your main goal of strength training and lifting weights. However, any type  of cardio done immediately after your workout is going to similarly dip into those reserves and  those recovery reserves that might prevent you from putting on the muscle you’re trying to. That  being said, the type of cardio that you do also is going to have an impact. For example, if you just  finished a heavy leg workout and now figure that a five-mile run might be good for building your  endurance, you’re competing with yourself.

The energy systems are clashing, and you’re not going  to get the best end result in either direction. The same would be true if you just finished  a killer upper body push workout and think that doing the heavy bag for 30 minutes is a good  idea. It’s not. That said, avoiding conditioning altogether is a giant mistake, you need to do it. Especially if you want to be a complete athlete and especially now, as we know about longevity.

The inclusion of cardiovascular fitness into your regime is one of the most important things  that you can make sure you do if you want to live a longer, higher quality life. So, when  do you do it? On your off days. In other words, on your non strength training days. And we don’t  have to look much further for evidence of this than our own Jesse.

Again, a typical hard gainer  who used to like to run miles and miles and miles, but also kind of have this side goal of wanting  to lift a lot of heavy weight. Well, they clash. And the only time he was able to increase those  gains seriously in the gym, when he put that running on a different day. He sort of shifted  that goal to a sub goal and focused instead on primarily building muscle. And if and when you  do the same, you can continue to experience the benefits in both areas, just not when you’re  trying to combine them both at the same time.

Now, unless you’re a professional boxer or a  UFC fighter trying to make weight for a fight, then I highly recommend that you avoid making  this next mistake and that is weighing yourself after your workout. There’s no point to it. Now,  most often when this happens, it’s those that are looking to lose weight. But again, the weight that  you will lose in any given workout will never be the body fat that you’re attempting to lose from  those workouts. It will simply be water weight, and the water weight will be replaced as soon  as you rehydrate your body after your workout, and you might find yourself becoming discouraged.

Too little, you don’t really want to go back and do the workout again. If there’s too much, you  overestimate how successful the workout was and you’re misled. You don’t use weight loss on a  scale as an acute measurement of the success or failure of any given workout. Now, if you want  to use the scale as a measurement of progress over time to make sure you’re heading in the right  direction, then by all means go for it. But still understand this the scale weight is never going