#301 Do You Need Carbs for Strength Training - Menno Henselmans Part 1

Menno Henselmans (0:00)

While there is some evidence that carbohydrates, higher carbohydrate intakes, can increase resistance training performance compared to lower carbohydrate intakes, it is of very low quality. And there are many alternative explanations in these studies for why these findings could have been the case, rather than carbohydrates per se.

Siim Land (0:18)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast, I'm your host Siim Land, and our guest today is Menno Henselmans. Menno is an online physique coach, researcher, entrepreneur and bodybuilder. This is a two part podcast.

In the first part, we talk about a recent meta-analysis Menno and his colleagues did on the effect of carbohydrate intake and muscle strength.

In the second part, we're going to talk about his new book, The Science of Self-Control. This episode is sponsored by Magic Spoon.

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Siim Land (1:42)

Menno, welcome to the show.

Menno Henselmans (1:43)

Oh, good to be back.

Siim Land (1:46)

Yeah, I think the first time we were even like up to 3 or 4 years ago.

Menno Henselmans (1:51)

Yeah, it might be longer even.

Siim Land (1:53)

It was a really long time ago. Yeah, but the reason I had you on back is you recently published this new study or like a meta-analysis about different kinds of studies about carbohydrates and strength performance.

And yeah, maybe let's start with what were some of the main findings that you found there.

Menno Henselmans (2:11)

Sure. I think carbohydrate requirements, the main thing a lot of people don't know, and even I didn't know, I wasn't aware, that there has never been a systematic review. So there have been many positions, standpoints, some review papers on how many carbs bodybuilders, power lifters, strength settings need.

And the effect on performance and the like. But they've never been systematic. What that means is that it's basically, I mean, very roughly put, it's just someone's opinion. It's cited by scientific references, but you're free to pick whichever references suits your agenda. So it's not very rigorous. And we conducted a systematic review, which means that you have to look at the entire literature using predefined criteria. You have to define what it is you're studying, what outcomes you're interested in, like repetitions to failure, maximum strength, those kind of things.

And based on that, you have to just look at all the evidence there is. You cannot leave anything out. And based on that, we found that while there is some evidence that carbohydrates, higher carbohydrate intakes, can increase resistance training performance, like weightlifting, compared to lower carbohydrate intakes, it is of very low quality. And there are many alternative explanations in these studies for why these findings could have been the case rather than carbohydrates per se. One big one is that in literally all of the studies finding benefits of higher carbohydrate intakes compared to lower ones, the higher carbohydrate intake group also consumes a higher total energy intake, which is a huge confounder, right?

since in the last few years we have a couple of great studies, especially from Naaruddin, Vin Naaruddin's lab.

They showed conclusively for the first time that the perception of having eaten increased performance compared to not having eaten. And it increased performance similarly to actually having eaten a breakfast. So they compared a group not consuming anything. They trained after an overnight fast in the morning. And they didn't consume anything. They just had water. And the one group had an actual breakfast. And then the other group had a similar breakfast. It was like gels. And it was actually devoid of calories. So it just had sweeteners, flavor compounds.

It was like, like I said, it was a modified kind of gel thing. So just very processed food. But they told them it had energy. And that improved performance similarly as the actual breakfast with carbohydrates. Which goes to show that it was not the carbohydrates that improved performance. But simply the idea that people cannot train without them eating.