National Strength and Conditioning Association
Session Review
In this column, we will be reviewing sessions
from NSCA conferences, and sharing useful
information that was presented.
Never Get Hungry
By going too long without eating, you:
“Never get hungry and never get thirsty,” is how Dr. Dan
Benardot summarized his presentation on Nutritional
Strategies for Muscle Development at the 2004 Sport-Speci?c
Training Conference in Orlando, Florida.
• Increase the insulin response to food and create more fat;
• Slow down your metabolism—the less you eat, the less
you can eat;
• Increase the amount you eat at one time, forcing you to
store more of what you eat as fat; and
• Lose lean mass.
Dr. Benardot did a comprehensive review of the literature on
the building of muscle mass as it relates to macronutrients and
protein supplements. He concluded that it is much more an
issue of energy balance than protein intake. In other words,
when you supply energy (calories) may be as important as how
much energy you supply.
In a pure physics world, a reduction in calorie consumption
would be equaled by a reduction of weight. However, a body
will reduce its metabolic rate when calories are reduced, and
thus weight loss will not be equal to calorie reduction. Not
only is restricting calories a less-than-ef?cient method to
reduce body fat, but an athlete who wants to build lean mass
needs to consume 300 to 400 calories a day more than what
is necessary to maintain weight.
Dr. Benardot advises that athletes, in particular, need to eat
more frequently than they typically do. “If you want your
athletes to gain muscle mass, you should never let them get
hungry. Hunger occurs in 3-hour units because blood sugar
?uxes in 3-hour units.” Even athletes in sports where body
image is important, such as gymnastics, can stay leaner by
eating more often. Frequent eating (at least 6 times a day)
helps maintain:
Nearly every study conducted on athletes shows they do not
eat or drink enough. To make matters worse, the traditional
approach of ensuring that energy consumed equals energy
expended during the course of a day gives a limited picture of
what is really happening metabolically.
• Metabolic rate;
• Good energy balance;
• Lower body fat;
• Lower weight;
• Higher caloric intakes;
• Lower serum lipids;
• Improved glucose tolerance; and
• Lower cortisol production.
“If you looked at energy surpluses, energy de?cits, and you
looked at the amount of time that a person spends in an
energy de?cit or an energy surplus […] you get an entirely
different picture of what is happening to a person metabolically,” says Dr. Benardot. “A person isn’t in perfect energy
balance over the entire 24 hours, even though they may end
up in perfect balance at the end of 24 hours.”
Dr. Dan Benardot is a registered dietician and co-directs the
Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State
University. He also performs research for the United States
Olympic Committee, the American Cancer Society, and other
leading entities in the industry. You can purchase an audio tape
of his entire presentation by calling the NSCA Products
Department at 800-815-6826 or +1 719-632-6722.
There have been studies that show a correlation between
deviations from perfect energy balance and higher body fat.
In other words, the longer you go without eating, the more
likely you are to have more body fat and less muscle. “If
you want to build muscle mass, you can’t put yourself in an
energy de?cit during the day. Your body will catabolize your
muscle mass,” explains Dr. Benardot.
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This presentation is an example of the cutting-edge, sciencebased sessions at the NSCA Sport-Specific Training
Conference. We are already lining up speakers for the 2005
conference—put January 7th and 8th, 2005 on your calendar
today.
Bulletin 25.3