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Should I Eat Before a Morning Workout? Ask a PT

In last week’s blog post, we took a look at the low-bar and high-bar squat variations, and concluded that either variation is fine, but to pick the one that suits your unique goals and body mechanics. This week we’re asking, “Should I eat before a morning workout?”.

Should I Eat Before a Morning Workout?

Question: I’ve got a new job and have had to start training in the morning rather than the evening. I find it hard to eat breakfast before my workouts. Would it be okay to skip breakfast before my workouts?

Answer: I’ve never been a morning person, even when I was a PT, I struggled to form coherent sentences during my early sessions. So I always trained in the afternoon, 2-3 hours after I’d eaten a high-protein lunch.

Because of this, I believed that if I ever trained in the morning, I would NEED to eat before my workouts. Otherwise, how could I possibly train hard? Then, due to a change of circumstances, I found myself training at 7 am Mondays-Fridays, and guess what? I didn’t have time to eat breakfast.

You know what happened to my lifts? Absolutely nothing.

There was no change. Turns out that I didn’t need to worry about skipping breakfast, I could still train hard. When people say that you need to eat first, its because they have misunderstood muscle protein synthesis.

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Here’s a quick breakdown of how you build muscle

* You perform an exercise. For example, the bench press.

* This causes your muscle fibres to tear

* Testosterone and protein in your body help to rebuild your muscle fibres, making them stronger and/or larger*. This process is called muscle protein synthesis.

* The more testosterone and protein you have, the more muscle you can grow.

Without protein, your muscle fibres would not be able to repair optimally, and you could even lose muscle mass [1]. People, understandably, believe that for this process to work, you need to consume protein before you workout, so that it can fuel muscle protein synthesis.

They believe that if your body goes to the well (protein) and it is dry, you will start to see muscle loss. Which is true in the long term. But on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t matter.

Provided you get some protein within a couple of hours of finishing your workout, you will be fine.

Your body isn’t particularly fussed about protein timing; it is more fussed about total protein consumption over time. So long as you are getting enough protein overall, you will still see muscle growth.

High Bar vs Low Bar Squats: Which is Best?

Don’t get me wrong, eating before a workout is better for you, as you will have more energy. But if you can’t fit in a meal before a 7 am workout, then just make sure that you eat afterwards. Spend more time focusing on your total protein intake for each day, and less time worrying about pre/post-workout nutrition.

Don’t overcomplicate training and nutrition. Eat your protein, exercise regularly, and if you feel good, training without any breakfast, then keep going.

*Not exactly how it works, but this is just a general explanation