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Ketogenic diet and its effect on strength - Questions and Answers #1

In order to give you, our fans, a space for your own questions about diet, supplementation and training, we decided to create a section where we will answer your questions. So in the first part of this series , we'll talk about the effects of the ketogenic diet on strength - both in the long and short term.

question from matěj
Ketogenic diet and its effect on strength. I know that after acclimation to a given type of diet, one can get stronger on it, but my question is whether the strength wheneroding carbohydrate intake suddenly decreases or if it has minimal or no impact.

At the outset, it would be useful to remind the less knowledgeable reader that ketogenic diet is a type of diet based on a very low carbohydrate intake and a higher fat intake. I myself have experience with this type of diet, but it didn't suit me very well - I'm used to eating and the ketogenic diet is quite stereotypical and demanding in terms of food preparation.

Strength performance on a ketogenic diet

In terms of strength performance, however, not much has changed for me - of course it takes some time for the body to get used to a different energy source, and performance may be slightly weaker during the first week, ten days at most, because the body logically lacks carbohydrates. After assimilating to this type of eating, it is definitely possible to get stronger on a ketogenic diet.

Ketogenic diet
Probably the biggest pitfall of the ketogenic diet lies in the difficulty of preparing meals. However, if you get used to this diet, you can definitely benefit from it.

Adapt your training

Looking at the issue of ketogenic diet and strength performance from a scientific perspective, it should be ideal for low-volume workouts. If you only perform a low number of reps during a set (5 max) and each set is followed by a longer pause, youlo uses neither ATP (adenosine triphosphate) nor CP (creatine phosphate) as an energy source, which are not directly linked to carbohydrate intake (resp. They can be produced without excess carbohydrate intake). However, when the volume of work in training increases, the body begins to use it as "fuel" glycogen, the level of which is of course much more dependent on carbohydrate intake.

Mark Bell Ketogenic Diet
One of the top athletes who recommends a ketogenic diet is Mark Bell, founder of Slingshot and one of the top 10 powerlifters of all time.

So what's the conclusion?

So, in theory, this means thata ketogenic diet should be a good choice during preparation for a competition (in powerlifting, for example), but outside of that, it's not so ideal. Practically, I don't see any reason to cut carbs out of the diet. In fact, the vast majority of people will enjoy training with carbs far more than training without them.

That's it for this Q&A, but if you have any other questions, feel free to ask in the commentsquestions in the comments below this article or video and we'll be happy to answer them in future episodes of this series.

TIP: The 16 best low carb foods!

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