Simple carbs

Subject: Simple carbs Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:00 am

By Milos Sarcev
Flex magazine july 2002

"Over the years, I've had discussions with many "experts" who are adamant that simple carbohydrates have no place in a bodybuilder's menu. I generally wouldn't suggest eating an abundance of sugars throughout the day, but consuming simple carbohydrates such as dextrose (or glucose or sucrose) immediately after a workout is an absolute in order for bodybuilders to get the gains they're seeking.

Here's why: During your weight-training session, your muscle fibers are put under tremendous stress, which causes your muscle cells to deplete adenosine triphosphate (ATP), glycogen and amino acids. The human body always wants to be in a normal state (homeostasis), and when this balance is affected by training, your body shifts into survival mode. So, immediately after your workout, your body's physiological preference is to address the shock that just occurred--searching for nutrients to restore glycogen and ATP levels as well as repairing existing muscle proteins damaged by intense weight training.

What many people don't realize is that the window of opportunity for doing this is relatively narrow. If you don't have the nutrients available, as well as the mechanism for delivering those nutrients into the cells, then your body may miss out on what I call the "Federal Express" of muscle building, where you get the most benefit from your recovery.

Here is where dextrose comes into the picture: If you mix substantial amounts of dextrose (50-150 grams [g], depending on your body size, the length and intensity of your workout, as well as the muscle group trained) with fast-absorbing whey isolate (40-60 g, depending on your weight) and add creatine monohydrate (3-5 g) and glutamine (5-15 g), you are creating the ideal muscle-building environment.

Dextrose (or glucose) will hit your bloodstream within three minutes, reaching its peak concentration in about 40 minutes. Whey isolates deliver free-form and peptide-bonded amino acids into your bloodstream within 15-30 minutes. These increased levels of sugar and aminos will cause your pancreas to release your body's strongest anabolic hormone, insulin.

Insulin is a delivery mechanism. It opens up the membranes surrounding muscles and promotes the transport of amino acids, glucose, creatine and glutamine, and carries them into the available empty storage places in the muscle cells you just trained. The wonderful thing is that the human body "supercompensates" by bringing more nutrients to the muscle cells than were previously in place, which creates muscle hypertrophy (growth).

I can tell you from personal experience and that of my many clients on this regimen that the results are astonishing. Several clients gained more than 30 pounds in less than a month without increasing their percentage of bodyfat. I would encourage anyone who wants to increase muscle size in a short period of time to try this "Federal Express" muscle-building system. It's the most effective way to build muscle fast."