I am doing something, not many coaches do nowadays.

I am going to pull the curtain back and give you everything. This will include the exact way that I coach my clients. You might be asking “ But Mike won't that harm your business”

It might but I honestly don't care. Doing this allows you, the reader, to understand everything I do as a coach and allows you to learn a thing or two.

Do you know how to time meals for your best performance in the gym?

Before we get into that we need to understand what performance is and how it's going to differ from person to person. Performance is “the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function” ( thanks google). If you're an athlete then performance is all about doing your best to win or to get better. For the rest of the 99% of the world, performance in the gym can range from showing up that day and doing the workout pain-free, to beating last year's time of doing this workout. Only you can determine what performance is for you

There is a wide range of factors that affect performance. Stress, your daily schedule, work, family, sleep & nutrition to name a few. Since I cannot change how much stress you have or how good ( or bad) your work day is, I am going to focus on your pre & post-workout nutrition. Here are 4 steps to increase performance through nutrition

Step 1: determine how much you should be eating in a day

• In an ideal world, you would hire a coach to figure this out but I get it not everyone has the time or money for one. Instead, there are about 1 million different calorie calculators out there on the internet. Go to one of them ( you can use the exact one I use with every client here) to determine your total calorie intake needed.

Step 2: Determine what time of day you train

• This is important for a few reasons. If you train in the morning or at night I would suggest a few different things

  • Morning training: EAT SOMETHING. It doesn’t have to be a huge meal but you need something. Too many people do not eat enough in the morning because “it'll sit in their stomach” The foods can range from a banana, a bowl of cereal, or even a rice crispy treat ( yes that). You want quick digesting carbs pre-workout. That is even more important in the morning since you haven't eaten for 6+ hours

  • Night training: You have more wiggle room here than if you train in the morning. BUT you need to be cautious of eating your fats too close to training. Eating too much fat too close to training will cause you to digest and possibly feel bloated or slow during your workout.

Step 3: structure your meals so you can get 30-60g of carbs pre-workout and 40-80g post-workout

• This structure doesn't change regardless of when you train. You want 30-60g of carbs pre-workout 30-120 minutes before training and you want to get the post-workout carbs as soon as you can. The sooner the better, but as long as you get them in it's good.

Step 4: do step 3, 4-6 days per week and watch your performance rise

So I am not a fan of telling you what to eat. I can but what's the point? I'd be giving you the answers to the test without you learning a single thing. I am a big fan of giving you the tools and the blueprints but I want you to build the house.

Notice how I haven't even talked about protein, strength training, or sleep yet? Stay tuned for them in the coming weeks!

PS: I am taking on 2-3 more 1:1 clients before I raise my prices at the end of August. No this isn’t a ploy to get you to sign sooner. The business is reaching a point where prices have to increase to ensure I can keep delivering top-tier service to clients.

Don’t forget to call your mom

-Mike