Gut Health for Strength Training
To Grow, you need to Eat
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated July 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
More calories need to be consumed than expended to increase lean body mass and muscle. Physical strength can increase slowly when metabolism is in homeostasis, and to gain strength at a faster rate eating 500 more calories daily will grow useful lean body mass.
So after deciding to make strength training a primary endeavor for health, it’s a known requirement to eat 250 - 500 calories per day in surplus. This additional load of food requires greater work from the gastrointestinal system, and therefore more gut stress is likely to be experienced.
The equation for increasing strength and building muscle by increasing dietary consumption is further complicated by how well food is digested.
All food eaten is processed perfectly efficiently (100% nutrients captured)
Food processed with occasional waste (25% not captured)
Food processed with constantly inefficiency (50%)
Food processed poorly (75%)
Zero useful processing (diarrhea) or intake of calories (fasting).
If food isn’t being digested efficiently, then even if calories are consumed in excess for building muscle and strength, those calories and nutrients won’t be utilized by the body and stagnation will occur. It’s rare to be at 100% perfect food absorption or zero food absorption, and most people because of their gut health are somewhat wasteful and inefficient at absorbing everything they eat.
When the goal is to building muscle and strength, and digestion inefficiency is an unknown, then it becomes very difficult to calibrate how much extra food must be eaten to be absorbing the nutrients needed in slight excess for healthy lean body mass to be added. On top of that, if digestion is inefficient and therefore the 250-500 extra calories aren’t absorbed as desired, then if even more food is eaten in order to offset digestive inefficiency, then digestive inefficiency usually will increase even more. It’s a blurry line that makes the whole situation complicated, and it’s for this reason that having good gut health is a prerequisite for any proper strength training cycle to be successful.
Ectomorphs or hardgainers, people who struggle to gain weight yet eat a lot of food, most typically blame their lack of results on an extremely fast metabolism, and there is some truth to that, but the bigger causal factor is usually poor gut health or exaggerated food intake.
Tip - Healing the gut often will heal adrenal fatigue
How to Heal the Digestive System
The first and most important goal with wellness is to be healthy. If you’re very weak to the point of detriment, then strength training improves overall wellness.
When sticking to the goal of maximum wellness and understanding the dynamics of eating on overall anabolism it becomes clear why healing the gut is the first step in pursuing any muscle building endeavors. Once the gut is healthy and processing food consistently at above a 90% efficiency, then a serious strength training routine can be started.
Exercise is acutely stressful on the body, and it is this stress that helps stimulate the body to adapt by growing muscle and getting stronger. Exercise stress also stresses the digestive system, as exercises places a lot of force onto the muscles and tissues of the core. If the digestive system is already functioning poorly and high-intensity exercise is placed on the body, gut health decreases even further and the systemic inflammatory load is to great for adequate recovery to occur.
With a healthy and well-functioning digestive system, systemic inflammation that exercise transiently creates is resisted and nullified with normal rest and recovery. Turmeric and curcumin supplements, cannabis (CBD/THC), and piperine (derived from black pepper), all have anti-inflammatory properties that target the digestive system can also help lessen the impact of exercise stress on the gut. In addition to those useful herbs and supplements, there are a few main factors at play that determine gut health. In a loose order of importance:
The state of the microbiome (diseased or symbiotic)
Food eating behaviors
Eating food allergens (creates massive inflammation)
Food state of matter (unprocessed to super processed)
Diversity of foods eaten (eat all the colors!)
Macronutrient ratios
Too many added sugars are bad
Not enough fiber is bad
Low fat and low protein diets are suboptimal for most
Dietary consistency (are consistent nutrients being eaten weekly?)
All these factors are important for gut heath, and if they are all not in order or functioning for an individual’s biologic needs, then there is a weakness in the diet, digestive system, and metabolism that ultimately needs to be resolved.
If more than 1 or 2 of these requirements for a well-functioning digestive system are out of balance, then it will take time, willpower, and strategy to restore gut health to optimal. Fixing one or two issues at a time in order of importance until all issues have been dealt with is the best way to proceed.
Through my own personal 10 year experience in healing my gut from a state of disease to function, I have learned how to do this, and I have written about gut health as a result.
Once the digestive system is healthy, chronic inflammation from the gut is reduced to normal levels (the normal rigors of digestion), allowing the immune and hormone systems to properly function once again. At this point the body is well primed for a strength-training program can be followed for many months or possibly years with the goal of increasing lean body mass and strength.
I have written a six month strength training routine for people who are ready to begin strength training to follow. Month one starts with full body workouts and then progresses in complexity from there. Growth enhancing methods like the Cistanche Cholesterol Protocol can also then be cycled on and off at maximum effect.
Gut Health for Strength Training
It’s important to exercise, from activities such as walking, hiking, and gardening to more vigorous activity such as lifting weights at a gym. If the digestive system is poorly functioning and the microbiome isn’t improving digestion, then stressing the body further with excessive ego-driven exercise will be a huge wellness setback. It is not recommended to completely stop exercising, but the frequency, volume, and intensity of exercise should be reduced to a beneficial baseload that allows the body to heal from other hurts.
If you are an intermediate to advanced trainee, then shifting gears to healing the gut for the long-term benefits can result in a loss of some muscle and strength in the short-term. Once the digestive system is healed and properly functioning though, when strength-training frequency and intensity is increased again, muscle memory kicks in quickly and strength and muscle quickly return. With a healthy digestive system, new muscle and central nervous system adaptations can be built at maximum efficiency and in the shortest amount of time.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
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