Muscle Glycogen

Muscle Glycogen: How Carbohydrates Fuel Peak Exercise Performance

As you battle through a gruelling workout session, race, or daily chore, the working muscles of your body require a source of energy that is both sufficient and dependable. This is where muscle glycogen comes in to help fuel your body for optimal performance.

The muscle glycogen stores in your body can be found mainly in your liver and skeletal muscles. This stored glycogen is made up of glucose obtained from the foods you consume, particularly carbohydrates.

As you workout, your body acts by breaking down the glycogen to produce the energy necessary to see you through your high-intensity sessions. Over the years, there have been studies in sports nutrition indicating that the availability of glycogen in muscles is directly linked to high performance in extensive workouts and high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

This is why your understanding of the importance of glycogen and exercise performance can be the difference in the decisions you make when it comes to your training, consumption of carbohydrate rich meals, and even your overall recovery plan.

Understanding Muscle Glycogen

As you consume food, your body breaks down the carbohydrates to produce glucose. Depending on the amount of glucose produced, your body will use up part of the glucose as energy fuel during your training while any glucose left will be stored up in your liver or muscle cells as glycogen and this reserve to be used at a later time.

Whenever you workout especially during a high-intensity session, your skeletal muscles will break down the glycogen reserve into adenosine triphosphate or ATP which is that energy fuel needed for your muscle contraction.

Remember that your body uses the glycogen once available, so the amount of stored glycogen in your liver and muscles at any point in time will be dependent on several factors including your training status, the duration and intensity of your workout, and the availability of carbs in your body.

The Importance of Glycogen Replenishment for Optimal Performance

Picture this scenario, you begin your training session strong, but half-way into your scheduled exercise routines, your pace slows drastically and your power dissipates. This scenario is all too common amongst fitness enthusiasts and one of the main factors that could be responsible for the drop in energy level is the unavailability of sufficient glycogen.

If you intend engaging in HIIT, then you should know now that you will use up your glycogen reserve quicker than if you were engaged in low-intensity training. As a matter of fact, studies show that glycogen can be depleted during short bursts of highly intense workouts. What’s more, your glycogen reserve is not evenly distributed all through the skeletal muscle structure. Therefore, the rate of glycogen depletion across cellular compartments and muscle fibers will not be uniformly spread and in the case of endurance athletes the importance of this relationship carries a greater importance.

Furthermore, it has been discovered that fatigue can be delayed when athletes engage in extended periods (upwards of 90 minutes) of endurance based workouts when the starting available glycogen is increased.

In order to build up or replenish your glycogen stores, you need to consume carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes, rice, oats, pasta, bread, whole grains, and fruits.

Your level of activity will determine the amount of carbs you will need. For example, a person engaged in a light exercise routine would not require the same carb requirement in comparison to an athlete engaged in endurance workout.

It is for this reason alone that sports nutrition plays a very important role in determining the carbohydrate nutritional needs of active individuals rather than there being a universal carbs target that everyone should adopt.

Muscle Glycogen and Resistance Training

It is important to note that muscle glycogen is not just needed by endurance athletes like cyclists and runners, but also by bodybuilders engaged in strength training. During resistance training your body depends on the metabolism of carbohydrates, especially when you ramp up the intensity and/or training volume.

Nevertheless, consuming more carbohydrates will not automatically translate into you having a whole lot more strength for your training sessions. What matters more is to streamline your carbohydrate intake with the demands of your resistance training routine.

The Importance of Glycogen Replenishment

Before your next training you will need to replenish your glycogen stores, as you will need sufficient amounts of glycogen to see you through your workout regimen. So, whether you are intent on running multiple workout sessions with limited recovery or even competitions under a very short turnaround window, your rate of glycogen replenishment would be improved when you take carbs instead of just plain water.

With limited recovery time, you need to focus on your carbohydrate intake to replace depleted glycogen reserves to help fuel your exercise routine and improve performance.

But while muscle glycogen is very important to your endurance and/or strength training, you also need to back up your carb intake with proper rest, sleep, recovery, and hydration for greater training performance and results.

Final Thoughts

Muscle glycogen is simply stored up carbohydrates needed for enhanced performance which ultimately leads to improved gains. To ensure that your glycogen reserve is sufficient for your endurance or high-intensity training and to delay fatigue, your pre-workout meal needs to consist of foods that are rich in carbohydrates while you also adopt appropriate post-workout strategies for refueling in order to restore depleted glycogen stores.

To this end, you need to never fear consuming carbs, recovering properly with adequate rest and sleep, and having balanced post-workout meals with the macro and micronutrients necessary for your specific sports nutrition needs.