This article covers practical information you need to know, including how long you may need to rest between sets, whether different training goals require different rest times, and how to approach rest if you’re struggling to fit it in.

Let’s dig in. 

What do rest times do between sets?

With topics like these, it’s best to zoom out and consider what you’re looking to achieve with rest times, rather than treating them like an abstract rule you should simply follow. The best place to start is to look at what rest is actually doing for you between sets.

When you lift, you’re asking your muscles to produce force, and this comes with an energy cost. That cost will vary depending on your training factors such as volume, exercise selection, or how close you’re training to failure. For instance, a biceps curl (an isolated exercise) is mostly going to create local fatigue in the muscles doing the work. In contrast, a compound exercise like a squat will demand more from multiple muscle groups, increase your heart rate more, and create a higher overall metabolic demand.

So, what happens when we stop a round of lifting?

We start recovering, and that break gives your breathing, heart rate, and muscles time to settle so that you can push toward your next set. 

At its simplest, rest is about giving yourself enough time to recover so you can perform again.

How do rest times work with different set styles?

One quick point that can be confusing for less experienced trainees is the distinction between rest times between sets and set styles that intentionally manipulate rest during the active round.

For example, let’s say instead of doing straight sets, you’re doing a style of programming like myo reps. With myo reps, you take the first set pretty close to failure, rest for 15 seconds, do another set close to failure, rest again for 15 seconds, and then finish your final round of that set. That whole sequence is one round or one full set. After that set is complete, your rest time clock starts. 

There can be some differences in how programs define these setups, but a simple way you can look at it is this: If multiple exercises or mini-sets are part of that set style, your rest time starts once that whole sequence is finished.

With that clear, let’s look at the difference between rest times for muscle growth and strength, and how to think about rest time in relation to your goals and the amount of time you actually have to train.

Rest times for muscle growth

When it comes to adding muscle, there are still details and mechanisms we do not fully understand. People still debate the best way to think about muscle growth, from rep ranges to mechanical tension and everything in between. But for our purposes here, let’s say that muscle growth generally comes down to creating enough mechanical tension, training close enough to failure, and getting in enough high-quality volume over time.

And to be clear, that is a simplification of a very complex topic. But for this discussion, the question comes down to whether rest time helps or limits those training factors. 

Do shorter rest times limit muscle growth?

Let’s start with a study by Schoenfeld et al that helped shift the conversation about rest times, because hormone spikes and shorter rest periods had dominated the narrative up to that point. This study lasted eight weeks and included two groups of resistance-trained men. Both groups performed seven exercises for 3 sets of 8-12 reps to failure. They had one group rest for 1 minute, while the other rested for 3 minutes.

For muscle thickness, the longer-rest group showed a slightly greater increase in some muscles than the shorter-rest group.

While the results weren’t dramatic, they did provide some clarity on short-term hormone spikes and opened the door to other areas of focus. It also helped move the conversation toward volume, varied rest times, and a clearer view of what we might be trying to achieve with rest during a session.

A systematic review from Grgic et al came out shortly after looking at six studies that compared 60 seconds or less of rest against longer rest times. It found that the longer rest times offered a small advantage for muscle growth compared with rest times that were under 60 seconds.

This led to more debate. Did the difference come from rest time itself? Did the rest time provide time to complete more volume within a workout? After all, it’s logical to think that shorter rest times could lead to less recovery, which could reduce total volume or too many variables on proximity to failure.

Does rest time matter, or does training volume matter more?

A study from Longo et al leans into answering some of these questions. It took untrained athletes and had them perform a unilateral leg press two times a week for 10 weeks, using either one-minute or three-minute rest times. Half of the subjects performed three sets with three minutes of rest between sets with one leg. With their other leg, they performed as many sets as were required to match the volume load of their first leg while resting for one minute between sets. The other half performed three sets with one minute of rest between sets with one leg. With their other leg, they performed as many sets as were required to match the volume load of their first leg while resting for three minutes between sets.

The results showed that the higher-volume conditions produced more quad growth, regardless of their rest time. In this study, the growth seemed to track more closely with volume load than rest time itself. 

I wouldn’t treat this single study as a “case closed” answer on rest times or overstate its importance. But it still adds to the broader idea that rest time may matter partly because it affects how much quality work you can complete.

A more recent systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis from Singer et al looked at nine studies and compared four ranges of rest times and their effects on hypertrophy.

Overall, muscle growth occurred across all the rest time categories. The results slightly favored resting longer than 60 seconds for arm and thigh measurements, but there was some overlap between categories. The intermediate range had the largest effect estimate, but, again, it’s important to note all the variables at play, from measurement techniques to how close sets were taken to failure.

Can we safely say from the Singer et al study that going too short on rest will hinder muscle growth? I’d be careful with the absolutism of the wording, but it leans toward rest times that are a little longer. Some also use this study to say that longer rest times are worse for muscle growth, and I wouldn’t take that away from these results either. Mostly, this gives us a range to consider for more examination.  

One of the last studies I’ll throw into the ring is a recent 2026 paper from Attarieh et al, which had 17 untrained young men train knee extensions twice per week for 10 weeks. One leg trained with 2 minutes of rest between sets, while the other trained with 20 seconds of rest. Importantly, the shorter-rest condition performed additional sets as needed to match the total number of repetitions completed in the longer-rest condition.

The results showed no significant differences in muscle growth or knee extension strength between those two conditions. It’s worth noting that the study was done in untrained young men, used a single-joint exercise, and could have had possible order effects because the exercise order was not alternated.

Key takeaways for rest times and muscle growth

Overall, for muscle growth, context matters here. Lots of variables can affect your rest needs from exercise selection to program design. A short rest after leg extensions is not going to be affected the same as a short rest after back squats. So, the details matter.

That said, I’d argue we can’t really say short rest times are bad for muscle growth. A better way to put it is that short rest times could be a problem if they reduce the amount of productive work and volume you can complete.

If I had to lean in one direction, I’d lean toward slightly longer rest times because they usually give you more opportunity to perform well. That said, it’s still hard to pin down exactly how long rest periods need to be, or where the benefits start to level off.

Rest times for strength 

Are rest times for strength the same as rest times for muscle growth?

Not exactly. Strength is more directly tied to performance, so rest times may matter more when the goal is to lift more weight and maintain a certain level of output across your sets. If your goal is to get stronger, then you need to support a kind of training, including a rest time system, that will allow for your best performance.

Longer rest times and strength performance

Before getting into strength research, I want to address a few questions that may have come up in the muscle growth section. Some of those studies also reported strength outcomes, and at first glance, the results may seem a little mixed. For example, you might have noticed in the Longo et al study that strength results were pretty similar across all conditions.

However, if you read the details of the study, you’ll see that participants trained at 80% of 1RM on a unilateral leg press and were young, untrained men and women. That setup is going to create a different recovery demand than heavy bilateral strength work like squats, deadlifts, or the bench press.

This is part of what makes exercise training research tricky. You might see a headline that may be true within the study design, but that does not necessarily mean it applies equally to every training context. So, I’d be careful using this study to say, “Shorter rest times aren’t even that bad for strength.” That may be true in some setups, especially when the exercise is more isolated. But as you move toward heavier compound lifts, short rest can interfere with your performance.

The Schoenfeld study gives a better look at that contrast because the researchers used resistance-trained men. And unlike Longo et al, this study included multiple exercises, including free-weight back squats and bench press. One group rested 1 minute between sets, while the other rested 3 minutes. In this setup, the longer-rest group showed greater strength gains.

Now, this doesn’t mean three minutes is the perfect rest time for strength. But it does lend support to the idea that maybe we should scale rest with the exercise’s demand and our goals.

Another study from Millender et al looked at acute performance and rest intervals for upper- and lower-body exercises in resistance-trained women. 14 women performed 4 sets to failure on the chest press and leg press using either 1 minute or 3 minutes of rest between sets.

Note: Total volume was not matched across conditions, and again this was an acute performance study, not a long-term strength-gains study. 

The women completed the same number of sets with the same load, but the longer rest allowed them to complete more total volume. The shorter-rest group also produced a higher fatigue index and saw more performance drops set to set. While this study doesn’t show that longer rest leads to greater strength gains, it does show that longer rest creates more opportunity for work within the session.

So that was acute, but what about the longer term for strength gains? Let’s be honest, when it comes to strength gains over time, we need more than a few sessions or a few weeks.

What happens with longer rest times over time?

A really important study for this conversation comes from Salles et al that looked at 36 trained men with at least 4 years of resistance training experience over 16 weeks. They trained 4 days per week and were split into groups using 1-, 3-, or 5-minute rest intervals between sets.

All groups followed the same general program, alternating between heavy and moderate sessions, and strength was tested in the bench press and leg press. By the end of 16 weeks, all groups gained strength, but there was a pattern that reveled itself regarding time.

For the bench press, differences between groups were not significant at 8 weeks. But by 16 weeks, the 5-minute rest group had pulled ahead of the 1-minute group. For the leg press, the 5-minute group had already pulled ahead by 8 weeks, and by 16 weeks, both longer-rest groups had gained more strength than the 1-minute group. Meaning? Over the long-term it’s possible longer rest time may be more important.

Overall, there’s a good body of evidence showing neutral to positive outcomes for strength with longer rest periods (here, here, and here). Some studies show clear benefits, while others show similar strength gains between rest intervals. But I’d say the most important point is that when we move from acute performance to long-term strength gains, we get a better sense of what rest times may be doing in real life programs.

That does not mean everyone needs to rest 5 minutes between every set of every exercise. But if you’re pushing near-rep-max heavy compound lifts, you might want to give yourself more than a few minutes. If you’re going for a hard 3-rep set on deadlifts, 3 minutes might not be enough. You might need 5, 6, or even 8 minutes before your next set is actually productive. 

Practical tips for understanding rest between sets and time saving tips

I hope I’ve driven home the points about why you may or may not need more rest time between lifts, now let’s help you apply this to your actual training sessions. 

What to think about before your next set

Whether you use fixed rest times or self-selected rest times can really come down to preference, your training goals, and your ability to tell when you’re actually ready for your next set.

In practice, many people probably use some form of self-selected rest. You finish a set, wait until you feel ready enough to go again, and then start your next set. That can work perfectly well, especially if you’re honest with yourself and your performance is moving in the right direction. However, fixed rest times can be useful if you tend to rush your sets and/or your progress has stalled.

So, instead of treating rest times rigidly, I think it’s useful to learn some physical cues so you can use a mix of that knowledge with tracking your data over time (and get a real feel for what’s working for you). 

For example, let’s say you reach your rest time of 3 minutes and you’re still feeling shaky. If that’s the case, take that physical cue to not rush the set just because your rest time is up. That might sound obvious, but I’ve worked with enough people to know that some lifters will blindly follow rules without understanding their intent. The reverse is also true. If you feel ready to go sooner, especially on smaller exercises or lighter sets, you may not need to wait around just because a timer says so.

So, before jumping into your next set, you can use this quick checklist to decide whether you’re ready to lift again.

How to organize programming around rest

Rest times are probably not the first thing you think of when you’re designing your program, but they can become an important consideration if you’re short on total training time.

When you plan your training, you obviously want to think about your goals. But you also have to think about your daily logistics, such as driving to the gym, getting dressed, and total training time which should include your rest times. All of that adds up, and it’s not unusual for rest times to get sacrificed in the name of saving time.

With that in mind, let’s look at a few ways to handle this.

1. Consider your goals

Based on what we’ve covered so far, if muscle growth is your goal, you likely have a little more room to play with rest times. If strength is your goal, you’d probably be wise to make more deliberate time for rest between sets.

A good place to start is to ask yourself whether you’re training for strength, muscle growth, or some mix of both. From there, you can think about how much priority your rest times need.

2. Determine your training schedule 

Take an honest look at your schedule and what you can realistically give to your training sessions. Throwing together a packed program isn’t going to help much if you constantly end up cutting exercises or rushing rest times.

For strength, it’s better to give your bigger lifts enough time than to force everything into crowded sessions. That might mean training two really good days per week with longer rest times and a stronger focus on performance. Also, keep in mind that strength sessions may require fewer total exercises, as the priority should go to your main lifts.

For muscle growth, you have a little more room to play with organization, but you may also need more total volume across the week. 

If you’re really struggling with time, keep in mind that you can also play with your training structure and the number of days you train. Maybe it makes more sense for you to train more days per week with fewer exercises at a time. For someone else, it may make more sense to have 2 longer sessions for their main work and 2 shorter sessions for accessory work. 

The point is, don’t feel locked. Rest times are one variable, as is your exercise selection and the number of sessions you have per week. 

3. Consider supersets where it makes sense

Another thing to consider if you’re short on time is supersets. If you find yourself cutting out exercises or cutting down on rest time that you think would be better left in, supersets can be a useful option.

If I were writing an entire article on supersets, I would need to discuss a long list of styles and setups. But for this article, I’d like to focus on pairing exercises that don’t (meaningfully) compete with each other to save time while minimizing fatigue. 

For example, let’s say your training sessions are full body, and within one session you have a squat, a deadlift, a press, a row, a biceps curl, a triceps extension, and a core movement. If you run through all of those exercises with long rests between every set, the session could get pretty long for muscle growth and even longer for strength. But if you cut rest too aggressively on the big lifts, you may reduce the quality of the sets you care about most.

A possible setup and solution to that problem could look something like this:

Example of saving lifting time with supersets

It’s not perfect, but as you can see in the MacroFactor Workouts screenshot above, this kind of setup can save time and allow you to get more work done in a session. I’d still watch your progress over the long term to make sure you’re moving in the direction you want. But if you’re short on time, I’d argue this is usually better than cutting the work altogether.

How to customize rest times in MacroFactor Workouts

MacroFactor Workouts include default rest timers based on the type of movement you’re performing. For example, compound lower exercises default to 3:00, compound upper exercises default to 2:00, and isolation exercises default to 1:30.

You can change those defaults if you need more (or less) time, and you can also set rest times for specific exercises. For example, you might give yourself more time for deadlifts while using shorter rest times for some accessory work.

To change your default rest timers, go to More > Feature Settings > Workouts > Rest Timer > Timer Duration.

You can read more about the rest timer here and here.  

Take home

Rest times do matter, but they do not need to be treated as rigid rules. The right amount of rest depends on factors such as your exercises, training style, and how you handle overall performance during a session. 

For muscle growth, there is usually more room for a range of rest times. Many sets can work well with about 1-2 minutes of rest, especially isolation exercises or smaller muscle groups. Just make sure rest times aren’t limiting volume. 

For strength, longer rest times should be a priority. Again, performance and gains over time are the goal, so you want enough rest to perform each set with the force and technique you need. For heavy compounds, start at 3 minutes but be open to 5 minutes or even longer when needed. 

The main idea is to avoid letting rest times become a limiter for the work you’re trying to do. Be it rushing your sets or setting up unrealistic programming, just make sure your setup works for your training goals. 

The post Do Rest Times Matter for Performance or Muscle Growth? appeared first on MacroFactor.

But does warming up actually do those things? Where is the line between sensible preparation and overpromising benefits? And how should you approach warm-up sets if you are newer to resistance training or have never really thought about them before?

The goal of this article is to help you understand what a warm-up is meant to do and how to apply it in a practical way.

Let’s dive in.

What is warming up?

You’ll note the title of this article is warming up for resistance training, which means this isn’t about aerobic, cardio, endurance, or sport-specific warm-ups that can have different factors and reasoning. For this article, we are going to focus on how these changes relate to performance and training readiness for resistance training, such as strength or hypertrophy.

The biggest factor to keep in mind while absorbing this information is that warming up should be, first and foremost, about getting you warmer. When you go from sitting or very low-intensity activity to an exercising state, a range of physical processes begin to take place that help prepare you for movement, from increases in muscle temperature to improved neuromuscular readiness.  

As for how to warm up, the conversation and research can range from walking on a treadmill to more explosive lifts. I’m not going to get too deep into every aspect of warm-ups (spoiler: I’m not really going to cover foam rolling). But this article should cover the general ideas well enough that you can gauge for yourself what might be most useful, which is always the goal here at MacroFactor.

Let’s look at the different types of warm-ups:

General: Any light aerobic movement that increases heart rate and raises body temperature. The main goal is to increase muscle temperature and prepare the body for general neuromuscular readiness.

Stretching: This includes static or dynamic stretching or movement work and can also include antagonist stretching. 

Tissue prep: This typically includes things like foam rolling or other forms of manual soft tissue work. 

Specific warm-up: This is where you perform the exercise or work muscle groups you’re planning to train, but at a lighter load before your working sets. This category can also include heavier or more explosive preparation strategies, such as post-activation performance enhancement approaches.

Now that we have a general idea of some key terms, let’s start by examining one of the main reasons people think about warm-ups: injury prevention.

Injury and rates of injury for resistance training 

Regarding strength and hypertrophy styles of resistance training, I want to lead with the fact that we do not have a large body of direct evidence of warm-ups in relation to injuries. And it sort of makes sense when you consider the realities of research funding and priorities. It is often more practical to study high-profile injuries in sports, like ACL tears in pro football players, than what is happening to a 30-year-old lifter in the gym doing an upper/lower split.

That said, we do have some research to review.

A helpful starting point is to examine what tends to get hurt during resistance training. A 2025 narrative review by Kawa et al identified the shoulder, lower back, knee, and hand or wrist as the most commonly reported injury locations in resistance training settings.

To be clear, this review does not establish causation. However, it is useful for helping us understand general patterns. Across the literature, most reported injuries we are seeing in resistance training tend to be mild strains, sprains, or tendon-related issues that resolve with rest or training modification.

While the Kawa et al paper focused on injury identification, a systematic review by Tung et al looked at injury incidence across studies. They reported a range of roughly 2.4 to 3.3 injuries per 1,000 hours of training in weightlifting and 1.0 to 4.4 injuries per 1,000 hours of training in powerlifting. It is also worth noting that some of the injury data in weightlifting and powerlifting includes competitions.

Comparatively, in sports like soccer (football), you see a much steeper increase during competition. Injury rates are typically around 3.7 injuries per 1,000 hours during training, but increase to about 36 injuries per 1,000 hours during matches.

In short, resistance training tends to have a relatively low injury risk compared to many other sports and activities. That doesn’t mean injury prevention isn’t important, but when you consider research funding priorities, it’s easier to understand why direct evidence in this area is a little thin.

So, now that you know how often and where injuries tend to occur, the next step is to examine whether warming up helps reduce injury risk.

Do warm-ups help prevent injury?

Again, with a caveat that resistance training injury prevention is not a heavily studied topic in and of itself, let’s dive into what we do have. 

One of the more commonly cited papers on this topic is a 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis that examined exercise interventions as a whole (not warm-ups specifically). They found that strength training programs in general were associated with reduced injury risk, while static stretching alone showed little preventive effect.

If we look at static stretching more specifically for warm-ups, one argument has been that improving range of motion over time could be helpful, especially if limited mobility changes how a movement is performed or increases stress on a joint or muscle. However, it is probably best to separate that discussion into short-term and long-term effects. Even then, you also have to consider alternatives, such as using strength training itself to improve mobility or movement tolerance.

For example, a 2025 systematic review, meta-analysis, and multivariate meta-regression found that both acute and chronic stretching can reduce stiffness, but only chronic stretching produced more meaningful stretch tolerance and sustained range of motion. And to be clear, much of the stretching examined in this review involved repeated sessions performed over weeks to months, not just brief stretching performed as just part of a pre-training warm-up.

With dynamic movements, you are usually working through a range of motion under some level of force. And in general, if there is going to be a small hiccup in coordination or comfort, one could argue it’s better to experience that with a lighter load before progressing to heavier working sets. And while there is some research to consider, there are limitations when it comes to direct application to resistance training. Much of the work in this area focuses on sport performance or requires more consistent, repeated exposure over time.

For more specific warm-ups or adding any resistance training or re-warm ups, the research usually dives into more sports like golf, baseball, or basketball. We can certainly learn from these studies, but in general, it’s worth being cautious about making direct translations to resistance training.

Injury take-home:

Resistance training tends to fall on the lower end of injury occurrence and severity compared to other sport activities, and the benefits of participating in resistance training clearly outweigh avoiding it altogether.

There are not many studies that directly compare different warm-up types or systems specifically for injury prevention in resistance training. From a mechanistic standpoint, you can make logical arguments for why certain warm-up approaches might help place you in a better position to avoid injury, but the current evidence does not allow us to draw clear cause-and-effect conclusions on any specific type of warm-up at this time. 

What about performance or hypertrophy outcome and warm-ups?

It would seem that there isn’t a large body of evidence examining warm-ups and injury risk, at least not research specifically tailored to resistance training. Much of the discussion relies on inference and mechanistic reasoning. So what about performance? Are there clearer lines to draw, or more obvious benefits or drawbacks?

Let’s take a brief look at a few different types of warm-ups and how they may affect performance.

Stretching 

Stretching also comes up frequently in discussions about performance, not just injury risk. Over the last decade, there has been ongoing debate about whether static stretching is detrimental to performance. In general, the duration of the stretch appears to be the biggest factor.

If you’re heading into a situation that requires greater force production, such as an explosive lift, you likely want to avoid longer static stretch holds. There is some flexibility in the exact timing, but the main concern is prolonged stretching that may temporarily reduce force production. Shorter stretches that are part of a general warm-up or combined with dynamic movement do not appear to have the same effect.

Dynamic stretching has received more favorable outcomes in recent years and has shown some potential for improving performance. However, the improvements tend to be small, and there are still relatively few long-term studies that focus directly on resistance training.

One study from Benine et al, examined both dynamic and static stretching performed before resistance training over an 8-week period. In this study, the static stretching condition totaled roughly 80 seconds, while the dynamic stretching condition involved a series of limb movements taken through a full range of motion. And the third group performed no stretching.

All groups completed the same training program, and all groups showed similar improvements in strength and muscle thickness, with no meaningful differences between them.

Antagonist stretching is another consideration. The idea is that stretching the opposing muscle group could potentially improve performance in the working muscles. For example, stretching the chest and anterior shoulder muscles before performing a seated row. The research for this topic is in its early days, but there have been some small positive results (here, here, and here). 

One recent 2025 study examined whether antagonist static stretching for 40, 80, or 120 seconds affected strength and power performance compared with no stretching (the control). They tested this in young, recreationally active men, who performed different durations of stretching before doing their lifts that included isometric contractions and slow and fast isokinetic movements.

Overall, the antagonist stretching did not meaningfully change performance outcomes. So, this isn’t to say there couldn’t be something with antagonist stretching, just that it’s likely pretty small and the circumstance more specific. 

Take-home regarding stretching and performance 

Static stretching could potentially have a negative effect on performance depending on how close it occurs to your training session and how long the stretch is held. 

That said, some dynamic movements can take you through ranges of motion in a more explosive manner. Therefore, it is usually worth starting with a small amount of general movement, even something as simple as a short walk, before moving into more intensive dynamic stretching. I think it’s sensible to warm up by practicing the movement you are about to perform, and gradually expose your body to the load and demands of that task. This keeps the focus on preparation and capacity, which is ultimately what matters.

Lastly, research on antagonist stretching is mixed. Short-duration antagonist stretching is unlikely to harm performance, but it also may not provide a meaningful benefit.

Specific versus general warm-ups

A general warm-up can vary, ranging from walking on a treadmill to cycling or other light aerobic activity. A useful way to think about a general warm-up is that you’re not trying to practice the exact movement or muscle groups before the exercise. Instead, the goal is to raise body temperature, increase readiness, and improve blood flow.

Specific warm-ups can vary in research definitions as well, but they usually involve preparing the same muscle groups that are about to be used in the exercise. In resistance training, this often means performing warm-up sets and gradually increasing the load until you reach your working sets. In some cases, it may also involve a related movement, such as performing push-ups before a bench press.

Starting with the general warm-up side of things, a recent 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression examined 33 studies to determine whether increases in muscle temperature improve maximal force, rate of force development, and power output. The researchers found improvements in power and rate of force development, but little to no meaningful change in maximal force.

In more plain terms, this means that in a warmer state, your muscles might contract a little faster and produce power more quickly, but it is probably not going to make a big difference in your peak strength.

Do we see a difference when we jump into more specific warm-ups versus general?

A 2021 narrative review examined 11 studies on different warm-up strategies and their effects on muscular performance. Overall, the findings were mixed. Some studies showed improvements in strength or performance, while others showed little to no effect. However, most of the studies reported either positive or neutral outcomes, with very few showing negative effects. That said, individual study design and training context still matter when interpreting these results.

Looking at some more recent research on this topic, one 2024 study by Viveiros et al examined 15 men in their twenties who had at least 6 months of resistance training experience. Each participant completed three separate training conditions, with each condition using a single warm-up set at a different load percentage.

They took each set of exercise to failure (3 total) and rested between sets for 2 minutes. The exercises included the bench press, an incline leg press, and a wide-grip lat pulldown. In this study, performance showed a slight advantage for the higher-load warm-up condition. 

A recent 2025 study from Enes et al looked at 29 trained men and women in their twenties using a randomized crossover design (meaning each participant completed every condition). Participants completed three different warm-up strategies: 1 set of 3 to 4 repetitions at 75% of their 10RM load, 2 sets of 3 to 4 repetitions at 55% and 75% of their 10RM load, and a control condition in which no specific warm-up was performed. The performance was tested at several time intervals after the warm-up.

The researchers found that heavier or more explosive warm-ups sometimes improved performance, but not consistently. Fatigue and recovery likely played a role in that variation, which highlights the need to balance readiness with fatigue. In other words, the goal of a warm-up is to help you perform your main lift, not to turn the warm-up into the workout itself.

There are also some practical points to take away from this study when thinking about hypertrophy. In this case, the different warm-up strategies did not meaningfully change how many repetitions participants completed or the total amount of work performed during the working sets. Since hypertrophy is strongly tied to total work and sets performed close to failure, this could suggest that the warm-up itself was not contributing much to muscle growth. Instead, the warm-up is more likely preparing the lifter to perform the work that actually drives hypertrophy.

What about postactivation performance enhancement, or PAPE?

This also gives us a chance to dig a little more into the concept of postactivation performance enhancement, or PAPE. Just as there is growing interest in approaches like antagonist stretching, there is also increasing attention on strategies that use heavier or more explosive movements before a main lift. In simple terms, PAPE refers to performing a heavier or more explosive movement before your working sets of the same muscle group, such as performing a heavy single bench press before your normal bench press sets.

Quite a few papers have examined this idea (here, here, and here), and most of them are really looking at heavier, more specific warm-ups. As we are seeing, this approach can sometimes improve short-term performance. However, the size of the effect raises a fair question about whether it meaningfully stands out from more traditional warm-up sets. We also still need more direct research in resistance training settings.

A new 2026 study used a randomized crossover design to test half-squats performed for 3 sets to failure, comparing a traditional warm-up with a postactivation performance enhancement (PAPE) condition that included a heavy conditioning activity followed by a longer rest period. This was a small study of 9 young, college-aged men who were trained but not advanced lifters. The researchers found that the PAPE condition led to slightly better performance and higher total training volume across the three sets compared with the control condition. And again, rest duration may have played a role here for modest results. 

Another recent study from Souza et al had 14 men in their twenties perform parallel back squats. They had to at least be able to squat their body mass and have an average of about 9 years of resistance training experience. The researchers compared lower- and higher-load conditioning activities across multiple sets of back squats, using a Smith machine to standardize the movement.

In this study, heavier or lighter conditioning activities did not meaningfully improve performance across multiple sets. However, a small benefit was observed in the first set, suggesting that any advantage from the warm-up condition may be short-lived.

This is a good example of the back-and-forth pattern we keep seeing on this topic. It’s not to say that there isn’t something there, just that there is still a lot of clarity to be gained.

Take-home on warm-ups for performance

Overall, it is still difficult to pinpoint exactly where performance improvements from warm-ups are coming from, but there is enough evidence to suggest that some type of specific warm-up can lead to a neutral or modest positive effect on performance. That said, building up with heavier warm-up sets or explosive movements may provide a small edge for some people, but it can also introduce fatigue. While there could be performance benefits, there is also a risk of reducing performance if the warm-up becomes too demanding and starts to resemble a working set.

In the next section, we will move into some practical tips and walk through how to perform more traditional warm-up sets if you are new to them.

Practical framework for implementing warm-up sets

Now that you have a better understanding of different types of warm-ups, let’s shift to practical advice. The goal here is to help you find the sweet spot between getting warm enough to support performance without doing so much that you feel fatigued before your working sets begin.

Decide whether you need general or specific warm-ups

Depending on how your training days are structured, you may not need much more than a small amount of general movement to get warm, such as a few minutes on a treadmill or bike before starting your session. If your training session does not include heavier compound lifts, you can usually keep warm-ups simple and avoid overthinking load progression.

The heavier the load, the more specific warm-ups start to matter. And in general, it usually makes the most sense to focus more on specific warm-ups for your biggest lifts. That said, some people prefer to run through a quick round of each exercise at a reduced load just to get the feel of the movement before training. There is nothing wrong with including a specific warm-up for any exercise, but giving them more attention is usually most useful for the lifts that place the highest demands on your body.

Learn how to progress loads

Let’s assume you’ve decided to include warm-up sets before your working lifts. One of the easiest things to remember is that warm-up sets should gradually increase in weight while the reps decrease. 

For example, if your working set is 275lb for 5 reps, a progression might look like:

That’s it. And you can use this progression as a general model for warm-ups, and make adjustments for different types of lifts. 

For example:

• Compound lifts may use 3 warm-up sets.
• Isolation exercises may use fewer sets.
• Core or lighter movements may skip warm-ups entirely.

This allows you to match the warm-up with the demands of the exercise. 

In the MacroFactor Workouts app, this process can be handled automatically. If you enable warm-up automation or use a preset scheme, the app will calculate warm-up sets based on your target weight using the same progression logic. 

And remember, you only to warm-up enough to feel prepared. If you reach a 60% warm-up set and already feel ready to move into your main lift, there is no requirement to continue to an 80% set. You can simply transition into your working sets.

There should always be a bit of self-regulation involved in warming up. Some days you may need several gradual steps, while on other days you might feel ready after just an empty bar and one heavier percentage jump. These examples are simply meant to serve as examples for people who are not used to structured warm-ups or who are curious about trying them for the first time.

Pay attention to joint comfort and general readiness

If you are returning to training after a period of time off or are in an older age bracket, warm-ups can be helpful for general joint comfort and minor aches. This is not about preventing injury, and the topic can get nuanced, but at a basic level it is about helping your joints feel ready to move.

You can do this with a general warm-up, a few lighter warm-up sets, or by gradually moving a joint through its working ranges before heavier training. Sometimes that alone can make the session feel more comfortable. For example, if you are planning to do overhead pressing, you might start with a set or two of light external rotations with a cable machine. Nothing heavy, just higher-repetition work to move the shoulder through its working ranges and get some blood flowing. After that, you would move into your normal pressing work.

If you are not sure which movements to use, tools like the exercise library in the MacroFactor Workouts app can help identify exercises that target the joint or muscle group you are about to train. That can be especially useful when you are easing back into training or trying to find movements that feel comfortable.

Closing 

There is no right way to warm up, and we are still lacking a lot of specific evidence for warm-ups in resistance training. That might be surprising, given how common warm-ups are in the gym. That said, we do have enough information to form some practical, sensible guidelines.

Here are a few points to keep in mind:

• Keep warm-ups simple. You don’t need complicated or long warm-up sessions. A good warm-up should only take a few minutes early in your workout. Then, prioritize based on whether you are performing compound or accessory lifts.
• Strength performance may benefit more than hypertrophy. We just don’t see strong evidence that warm-ups meaningfully affect muscle growth on their own.
• Warm-up needs may vary from day to day. Adjust the number of sets or intensity based on how prepared you feel.
• Stretching type matters, but the effects are pretty small. Dynamic or antagonist stretching tends to look slightly more favorable than longer-duration static stretching, but the differences are modest and results are mixed at best.
• Specific warm-up sets might help performance, especially for larger compound lifts. The heavier the planned load, the more useful gradual load increases tend to be.
• Progress gradually as you warm up. Loads usually increase while repetitions decrease as you get closer to your working sets.
• Find the balance between readiness and fatigue. Warm-ups should prepare you for the lift, not become a workout in their own right.
• More targeted, joint-specific warm-ups could help improve joint comfort. Moving a joint through its working range with light resistance might help reduce stiffness and make training feel a little better.

The post How to Warm-Up for Resistance Training appeared first on MacroFactor.

Reps in Reserve (RIR) is a vital part of that vocabulary. It’s a system designed to help you better understand the intensity of your training by measuring how close a set was to failure. By mastering this tool, you can move past guesswork and start regulating your training with more precision.

Let’s dive in.

A brief history of Reps in Reserve (RIR)

We’ll begin with a few definitions and explain where these systems came from and what they have in common.

The two most common terms in this conversation are:

Reps in Reserve (RIR): An estimate of how many reps you can perform before reaching failure. A typical example is if you are performing a barbell back squat and stop because you believe you have 2 reps remaining. That set would be rated as 2 RIR.

Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE): A scale you can use to rate or describe how easy or difficult your effort feels. The starting and end points of these scales can vary, but generally in resistance training they work on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest in terms of perceived effort.

A brief note on where these scales came from

We will talk in a moment about the importance of measurement in research methods, but when discussing RIR and RPE specifically, we’ll look to classic research from Gunnar Borg. He initially developed an RPE scale to help estimate the relationship between aerobic work and heart rate intensity. The original scale ranged from 6-20, and the numbers were designed to correspond to heart rate during exercise. For example, an RPE of 13 would roughly correspond to a heart rate of about 130 beats per minute, while an RPE of 20 would correlate with a heart rate of about 200 beats per minute, and so on. 

He created variations of the scale over the years, but the core idea remained the same. It was a practical way to estimate how hard someone was working, and whether the effort represented a moderate, heavy, or near maximal level of exertion.

Again, these scales have their basis in aerobic exercise. For resistance training, Thomas DeLorme began refining a system in the 1940s while working with rehabilitation patients. It became a foundation for using repetition maximum and percentage-based training. By the late 1980s, prescribing loads using a percentage of one-repetition maximum (1RM) had become pretty standard in both research and programming as a way to measure and control intensity.

With 1RM, you’re essentially working from a percentage of the maximum amount of weight you can lift for a single repetition, usually within the boundaries of proper form (though this can be debated). Once you know what your maximum is, you would then design your programming around the percentage of those numbers.

RIR is a relatively new system of measurement developed by Mike Tuchscherer in his Reactive Training Systems manual. RIR has been examined in research alongside measures like bar velocity. The current iteration of RIR typically stands on its own and uses a numbering system similar to an RPE-type score. RIR helps you understand reps left in reserve and the intensity of a set. However, accuracy tends to decrease when you’re estimating very high numbers of repetitions.

To be clear, there isn’t a gold standard for estimating training intensity or one’s proximity to failure. Typically, reference methods default to a percentage of 1RM, but that approach also has its limitations. Ideally, what you are looking for in any estimation method is one that allows you to create a consistent testing system and clearly understand your reference points to your performance.

What does the research say about RIR?

If a research subject says they believe they have 2 reps left in reserve, but they continue the set to failure, were they right? If they are wrong, do they tend to be wrong by underestimating or overestimating their abilities? Are they staying within a reasonable range? In this instance, let’s first take a look at accuracy.

To answer those questions, we can look at a scoping review with an exploratory meta-analysis from Halperin et al that included 12 studies and 414 participants. Researchers examined how accurately people could predict the repetitions they had left before reaching failure across multiple resistance training studies. They found that participants tended to underestimate their repetitions to failure by roughly 1 rep on average. But for the most part, people were close enough to their true limit when compared with their estimations.

A few things to note: prediction accuracy improved as individuals got closer to failure, and accuracy also improved slightly as sets progressed compared with the first set.

In a study with male and female resistance-trained individuals, researchers looked at the accuracy of intra-set RIR predictions during the bench press. They essentially wanted to know whether lifters could correctly determine how many repetitions they had left before reaching failure. They found that the lifters did a pretty good job staying within about 1 rep of their failure range. It is also worth noting that the lifters had prior experience using RIR, so there is a strong chance that being familiar with the system helped. 

A more recent 2025 study in older adults (average age about 68 years) with some resistance training experience found they had a tendency to underestimate their ability to perform additional repetitions. However, even with this reduced prediction accuracy, RIR appeared to function in a helpful way for guiding their training effort and volume.

Regarding validity, research suggests that RIR, while subjective, can be evaluated by comparing estimates to performance markers such as velocity. For example, studies have looked at the relationship between bar speed and proximity to failure. As we get closer to failure, bar speed tends to slow down. This relationship gives researchers a reference point for evaluating RIR estimates.

We talked a little about this pattern earlier in work from Zourdos et al. More recently, a study from Kraft et al in 2026 examined hang cleans across multiple sets and intensities, in which velocity at a given RIR remained relatively stable. In other words, when lifters report that they are close to failure, their bar speed usually reflects that change in effort. This can help support the use of RIR for these types of estimates.

Is working within a range instead of training to failure as effective? Are there benefits or downsides?

The balance between managing fatigue and reaching failure is complex. RIR is a strategic tool that can help you trend toward failure, allowing for high intensity even when a set isn’t taken to a total grind. If you are staying within that range close to failure, you are likely to see meaningful progress. This will obviously be affected by age, training status, and even the type of exercise you’re doing.

A 2025 study from Hermann et al examined muscular adaptations in single-set resistance training in both men and women. Participants either performed sets to failure or stopped within roughly 2 reps in reserve. The experiment lasted 8 weeks, with 2 sessions per week and 9 exercises per session. Researchers measured strength, power, muscle size, and endurance.

In the end, both groups improved across all outcomes. There were small trends that favored training to failure for muscle size and power, but the overall differences between groups were modest. This lines up with a meta-regression from Robinson et al that showed a small dose-response relationship with muscle growth, where training closer to failure was associated with slightly greater hypertrophy.

In practical terms, the analysis suggests that if training to failure led to about a 9% increase in muscle size, stopping with 1 to 2 reps in reserve might produce roughly an 8 to 8.5% increase. Strength outcomes were largely similar across a range of RIR values.

Another study from Refalo et al looked at how people felt (specifically, their perceived discomfort and perceived effort) when training to failure versus working at roughly 1 to 2 RIR. The results were fairly similar, and there wasn’t a large difference in outcomes.

However, when analyzing perceived discomfort, participants indicated a slight preference for working within RIR versus working to failure. If you struggle with sticking to your lifting routine, experimenting with more RIR-based training and less failure-based training may be worth considering.

Lastly, a meta-analysis and systematic review from Grgic et al compared training to failure with non-failure training. The authors stated that while training to failure is not necessarily harmful, it may not always be needed for progress, and that training close to failure appears to be sufficient for most strength and muscle outcomes. 

Takeaways from this section: Once you’re accustomed to using RIR, it can serve as a decently accurate method for estimating effort, increasing intensity in your training, and gaining a better understanding of what failure feels like. While you don’t have to train to failure to see good results, there is something to be said for knowing where failure is and understanding your proximity to it. RIR isn’t perfect, but for estimation purposes and for consistently hitting a targeted range, it does a good enough job.

Establishing reference points

Now that we understand what RIR is and have reviewed the research on its use, let’s take a moment to understand why having a consistent reference point for measurement is actually useful in practice.

Imagine you’re trying out a new exercise at the gym. You pick a weight that intuitively seems “heavy enough,” but you aren’t quite sure. You might be able to get a good workout or two this way. But over time, it becomes more difficult to measure your progress and know if you’re truly reaching your potential. That’s where a system like RIR comes in handy.

The importance of anchoring the scale

In research, the term “anchoring” appears in statistical and psychology literature as a method for calibration and improving consistency in measurement. While anchoring does not eliminate bias entirely, the goal is to improve a person’s reference points so their judgments become more reliable.

Let’s start with a simple visualization exercise.

If I asked 100 people, without any basis or training, how many parked cars could fit on a football field, the range of answers would likely be very wide. Someone might know that a football field is 100 yards long (120 if including the end zones), but have no clear sense of the field’s width (53 yards) or the space an average car occupies (roughly 14 feet depending on the vehicle). Not to mention, the question itself contains many variables, such as the spacing between cars or the layout. With so much uncertainty, estimates will have wide ranges.

However, if I provided those same individuals a picture showing one horizontal and one vertical row of cars on the field, there would likely be an immediate and noticeable improvement in their guesses. If I then showed half of the field filled with cars, the estimates would likely improve again. As more of the unknown space is replaced with visible reference points, people will have less to guess about. The results would not be perfectly accurate, but they would likely move closer to the true value.

With RIR, you are dealing with something pretty complex: a person’s rating tied to their beliefs about their physical effort and fatigue. One person’s estimate of 2 RIR might reflect stopping with several repetitions still available, while another person’s estimate might be much closer to the actual limit.

So what’s the solution? In this instance, it’s exposure to true failure, which helps anchor the scale.

We need a safe way to evaluate each individual’s endpoint reference so they can begin estimating effort relative to it. Once a clear reference exists, individuals can work backward from that endpoint when judging how many repetitions remain. 

How to make meaningful starting estimates 

If you aren’t comfortable making starting estimates for testing failure (or you are venturing into a new lift that aren’t comfortable with), I’ve provided step-by-step instructions below.

If you are already comfortable taking a guess or estimate to test true failure, you can skip to the next section.

Step 1: Pick a stable exercise and focus on the movement first

I’m a fan of starting with more stable movements when you are learning how to test your limits. When the movement is well-supported and stable, it can be easier to control the set. So, the goal is to choose an exercise where the risk of losing control is lower.

For example, if you are new to training and decide to test failure with a lateral raise, you could run into problems quickly. Smaller muscle groups and less stable movements can fatigue quickly, and form may break down before you have a clear sense of your limit. Instead, when new to testing RIR, look for movements that are more stable and easy to stop when fatigue builds.

Good exercises for testing RIR when beginning training:

Dumbbell box or bench squats
Seated cable rows
Neutral grip dumbbell bench press
Lat pulldown
Dumbbell bicep curls
Cable triceps pushdowns

Step 2: Warm up with light weight and a repeatable moderate load

Take the time to get comfortable with the movement and feel out how much strength and how many repetitions you have available on that day. Start with a light weight and increase the load over a few sets, and pay attention to how your form holds or changes as fatigue sets in with each rep. Keep in mind that endurance fatigue can become its own limiting factor, so typically you’ll want to keep most warm-up sets under about 12 reps and well short of failure.

During your warm-up, feel free to adjust the weight and increase gradually as you test the movement. Unless you notice you are very far from the target range, resist making big jumps in weight during the warm-up.

Lastly, don’t neglect rest if you feel you got closer to failure than you meant to during a warm-up set. 

The goal of the warm-up sets is to hone in on a solid first working set estimate and gauge how close you are to failure by the time you hit your last set. Based on these warm-up sets, you should have a reasonable idea of a weight that will place you within a useful range for testing true failure.

Testing true failure and RIR estimates

Now we are assuming that you have a decent understanding of the exercise you want to perform and have a meaningful starting estimate. From here, you can start to get an anchor for your scale.

Quick note on what defines failure

For our purposes here, we’ll define “failure” as the following:

Failure – The point at which the lifter can no longer complete a repetition in proper technical form for the exercise.

This can, but does not always, coincide with momentary muscular failure. Technical failure and momentary muscular failure can be the same, but they are not always identical. Safety should be the priority, and there are times when you can feel that the last completed rep started to show failure components, such as losing form, so you do not need to attempt another rep to know it would result in failure. The difference between these two points is usually small, so go with safety and what feels best within this range.

Step 1: Select your exercise and choose a weight with a repeatable load

You should select a weight where you expect to reach failure somewhere within the range of 6-12 repetitions. The most important aspect of this test is to ask yourself: How many reps can I do with this weight before failure?

For example, let’s say you are performing a seated cable row test, and based on warm-ups and estimates, you think you can lift 80lb for about 10 reps before reaching failure. That’s your estimate. 

Step 2: Perform the set and test your RIR estimate

You will now perform the seated cable rows while trying to reach failure, keeping in mind ideal form and technique. This is important because you do not want to achieve reps by, for example, rounding your shoulders or jerking the cable and breaking down in form. All 10 reps should ideally be performed with proper technique and show muscular fatigue taking place, not just mental fatigue or boredom with the movement. 

Note: If the movement produces a sharp pain, you should stop. But if you are simply feeling mentally uncomfortable or tired of the effort, that is not the type of failure we are describing here.

Continue the set until you can no longer complete another repetition with proper technique, despite trying. As a reminder, in this example we estimated that using 80lb would fail rep 10. You should, if your estimate is correct, fail to complete rep 11 or not attempt an 11th rep due to how your 10th rep went. 

Result of your test? You actually reached 12 reps before failure. You now know that, at this stage of your testing, 80lb performed for 10 reps would represent about a 2 RIR, and that your original estimate was slightly off.

Do not worry about being perfect with your estimate. Be more concerned with maintaining good form and noting where you actually are in your RIR range. 

Step 3: Continue testing different exercises and building your RIR judgment

Depending on the exercise selection, training experience, or training session, you may not want to take every exercise to failure in one session. This is largely a matter of judgment and should take into account your current nutrition, recovery, and conditioning.

In short, if you feel well-rested, well-fed, and ready to test, then proceed. If you feel that testing the seated row to failure might negatively affect your lat pulldown later, simply wait until your next workout to test again.

Understand that this is a conservative approach and assumes a little less experience. If you are just getting back into training, it can be wise to lean toward the conservative side to manage fatigue. If you have been training for a while but have never formally tested your limits, you can likely push your limits a little more.

Step 4: Apply RIR to your regular sets 

Now that you understand anchoring and where failure occurs, you can start dialing back and aim to hit the target RIR range within your sets, if your program calls for it.

For example, let’s say you are training seated rows and your target is 2 RIR for each set. From previous testing, you now know that 80lb left you with roughly 2 reps in reserve during testing. That gives you a starting point.

From here, the goal is to build a general sense of where 1 RIR, 2 RIR, or failure occurs across the exercises in your program so that you can make more confident estimates during training.

Step 5: Periodically retest to keep your RIR estimates updated

Over time, you should test those estimates by occasionally performing a set-to-failure test. How often varies for each person and depends largely on your fatigue management and recovery. Some people test their last set at the end of most sessions, while others rotate and test a different exercise each session or only at the beginning of each cycle. 

When deciding whether it is time to test again, ask yourself a few simple questions:

• Are you performing a new exercise or using unfamiliar equipment?
• Have you made noticeable progress in strength or repetitions over time?
• Are recent sets feeling easier or harder than expected?
• Has training volume or intensity changed recently?
• Have you taken time off from training and are now returning?

You do not need to test failure every session, but you should do it often enough to land in a good range of estimates. 

Understanding RIR in relation to MacroFactor Workouts

If you’re using MacroFactor Workouts, the app uses a smart progression algorithm to help make suggestions based on your logged performance.

In MacroFactor Workouts, RIR starts at 0 and goes to 6. A lower RIR, such as 0 to 1, means you were very close to your limit. A higher RIR, such as 4 to 6, means the set felt easier and you had more reps left in reserve.

Let’s say you have a program where you are doing barbell back squats, and you log that you lifted roughly 275lb for 5 reps. The app does not know if that set represents a deload, a moderate working set, or something close to your maximum. However, if you also log that 275lb felt like roughly 2 RIR, the app can estimate that your strength capacity may fall within a higher range – for example, around 305-325lb. It can then adjust your progression accordingly based on the algorithm.

In short, RIR helps the app understand how hard each set actually was, not just how many reps you completed or how much weight you used. This allows recommendations to better reflect your actual effort and fatigue over time.

You can read more about smart progression here and updating RIR targets here. 

Takeaways

For any resistance training program, you want to establish a system for estimating your efforts during lifts. There are many methods you can use, but currently one of the most practical and widely used approaches is reps in reserve (RIR).

While it is a system with limitations, it does a good job of helping you estimate effort and stay within an effective range of intensity for progressing in your lifts. And what’s more, you do not need perfect accuracy for RIR to be useful, you just need to be consistent and work on your own estimates.

Lastly, if you’re using MacroFactor Workouts, RIR becomes even more valuable because it helps the system understand how hard your sets actually were. This context allows the app to make better recommendations and adjust your progression based on reported effort, not just the numbers you logged.

Some final tips

• There is often a tendency to underestimate your RIR slightly, so make sure you are safely pushing your limits and occasionally testing where failure actually occurs.
• Warm up properly and continue to assess effort as the set progresses, not just at the beginning, to improve your accuracy.
• Stay conscious of your RIR during training. Avoid being passive or assuming the effort level; instead, test it.
• Periodically taking your last set of an exercise to failure can be a useful way to recalibrate your estimates.
• Working at lower repetitions or closer to failure can sometimes make effort easier to judge than very high-repetition sets, especially when learning the system.

The post How to Use Reps in Reserve for Lifting appeared first on MacroFactor.

Our workout nutrition series closes by looking at what happens after you stop training. Some of the questions we will cover include “Is there really an ‘anabolic window’?” and “How important is it to get protein or carbohydrates right after a workout?” We’ll look at what your body is doing post-training and whether timing really matters.

Let’s dive in.

A recap and what we looked at so far

If you skipped the pre- and intra-workout pieces, here’s the short version of what you missed.

With workout nutrition, the main focus is on improving or maintaining session performance. You can examine the intensity or duration of your sessions to understand how your food intake could positively or negatively affect them.

For instance, very light activity, such as walking, draws more heavily on fat stores, which mainly come from stored fat. Shorter lifting sessions rely on a mix of stored phosphocreatine and glycogen. From a dietary standpoint, most glycogen comes from carbohydrates. If your sessions get longer or incorporate more cardio, glycogen usage will increase. As a result, you would likely benefit from a higher carbohydrate intake.

In short, your pre-workout nutrition provides a baseline for how you’re entering your training session. This can range from food you ate earlier in the day to specifically timed training nutrition. For intra-workout nutrition, while we still consider the foods eaten beforehand, the focus shifts to whether you need specific fuel to sustain performance during the training session.

The duration of your training session is usually the biggest factor in deciding whether you’ll use purposeful pre- or intra-workout nutrition. However, energy restriction, training in a depleted state, or repeated glycogen-demanding sessions can also increase the likelihood that you’ll perform better with more specifically timed fuel around those sessions.

Once the workout is over, the goal shifts to recovery. Recovery involves factors such as repairing muscle tissue and readiness for your next training session. Now we’ll look at what recovery involves, whether post-workout nutrition can influence it, and whether there is any need to consider the timing of nutrition after your workout.

Quick caveat about baseline nutrition versus timing effects

Something to consider in the context of post-workout nutrition is the difference between baseline nutrition and additive nutrition. In other words, when examining your need for post-workout nutrition, you should consider how much additional intake moves the needle, assuming you’re already meeting your basic macronutrient needs. This is an important starting point because the effects of post-workout nutrition can differ greatly depending on whether someone is already meeting their macro- and micronutrient requirements.

For example, this article assumes your baseline macro- and micronutrient needs are already met. We’ve made this distinction because past research often showed positive results for post-workout nutrition simply because the participants were using those meals to fix a general deficiency.

So, the goal of our current research review is to look at the value of what post-workout nutrition can do beyond general nutrition recommendations.

In short, this article assumes that individuals are meeting their daily recommended carbohydrate, fat, and protein intake and obtaining adequate micronutrients. The question, then, is whether allocating some of that intake during a post-workout window provides any benefit.

The factors we examine when looking at recovery 

Recovery is a broad concept in the post-exercise state. Some individuals focus on maximizing muscle growth from their sessions, while others are more concerned with being ready to train again within a short time frame.

So, the next phase is one of the first factors to consider regarding post-workout nutrition.

For performance, if another training session is approaching with a limited recovery window, you could ask whether you are adequately replenished. For immediate performance needs, the focus is on glycogen replenishment. Does the timing of carbohydrate intake affect the rate of glycogen replenishment or your overall performance?

If repair is the priority, the focus shifts to whether you are providing your body with the resources needed for recovery and growth. Muscle protein synthesis (MPS), for example, regulates muscle repair and growth. In that case, we would examine whether there is a window during which specific nutrition can improve MPS. Would you grow more muscle if you ate sooner after training? Would strength gains increase?

One final note before diving into the research. From experience, I know several related topics are often associated with post-workout nutrition, particularly reducing DOMS or inflammation. I considered including them here but chose to keep this article focused on what the series has covered so far: strength, hypertrophy, and performance. However, I will cover those topics in a future article.

Total protein intake versus timing

Before diving into timing, we need to establish the importance of your baseline nutrition. For strength and hypertrophy, that rests heavily on total daily protein intake. 

One of the larger references here is Morton et al, which looked at the general relationship between protein supplementation, strength, and gains in fat-free mass. They examined 49 randomized controlled trials on protein supplementation. And while the study didn’t isolate timing, it did examine many timing-based studies. Overall, it found that protein supplementation increased fat-free mass gains and maximum strength, with no noted difference based on timing. The exact intake at which benefits plateau or reach diminishing returns has sparked some great analysis. However, in practical terms, the easy takeaway is that once you hit an adequate intake of protein, timing probably doesn’t matter as much.

In a meta-analysis published shortly after Morton, Wirth et al analyzed 65 randomized controlled trials examining post-workout protein intake and its effects on lean mass and various strength tests, from grip strength to leg press. Overall, the timing of protein intake was not a deciding factor in improvement. Again, overall adequate protein intake appeared to matter most.

Around 2023, Trommelen et al looked at the anabolic response to different protein doses (0, 25g, and 100g) consumed after resistance exercise. While this was not a specific timing study, it showed that larger post-exercise protein intakes produced prolonged amino acid availability. Additionally, there didn’t appear to be a ceiling for usage. This suggests that per-meal protein limits may be less important. This type of study can help inform discussions about timing and distribution, assuming adequate total intake.

So, that’s a snapshot of a solid body of evidence showing that total protein seems to be the most important factor for strength and hypertrophy (well, assuming there is consistent resistance training). However, these studies largely examined individuals who weren’t specifically fasting or intentionally delaying intake. Does that make a difference, and should that be kept in mind more when looking at post-workout nutrition?

Effects of delayed or time-restricted feeding on muscle and strength

Thus far, systematic reviews on time-restricted eating and body composition show that changes in fat-free mass are comparable to standard meal windows when exercise is matched. So, shifting when you eat does not appear to impair muscle or strength outcomes as long as your total intake is adequate.

This again supports the idea that distribution and timing probably are not moving the needle in a big way in muscle gain or strength compared with total nutrition, but let’s look at a few specific studies to see if there is any nuance we are missing.

One 2024 randomized controlled trial by Lak et al looked at men during an eight-week training program who had at least one year of resistance training experience under their belt. The participants were split into two groups. The first group consumed 25g of protein (immediately) before and after training. The other group delayed protein intake by three hours before and after training. Total daily protein intake was the same at 2g/kg/day. At the end of the experiment, both groups gained similar amounts of muscle and strength.

A new 2026 study by Csala et al looked at skeletal muscle mass and strength alongside changes in extracellular vesicle miRNA profiles in resistance-trained men. They divided them into three groups: a group with no post-workout supplement, a group that consumed carbohydrate and protein immediately post-workout, and a group that consumed carbohydrates and protein three hours post-workout.

It’s important to note that total energy intake was not matched across the groups. And the supplement groups received additional carbohydrate and protein on training days. Also, body composition was assessed using bioelectrical impedance analysis, which isn’t the ideal method for detecting small changes in skeletal muscle mass.

Compared to the control group, both post-workout feeding conditions (immediate and three hours later) showed greater improvements. That said, the supplement groups received additional carbohydrate and protein, and it’s very possible they consumed more total energy than the control group, and more total protein overall.

In that sense, this becomes more of a study that looks at having a supplement versus not having a supplement, or extra protein versus baseline intake, rather than a pure timing study. Lastly, when comparing immediate intake to delayed intake (three hours later), there was no statistically significant difference in strength or hypertrophy.

I’ve already started to see the Csala et al study cited as new support for nutrient timing, but it’s really not the strongest argument on its own. A more commonly cited study with a somewhat stronger design, if you were going to make a stronger argument, is the classic Esmarck et al trial. This study looked at delayed versus immediate protein intake in older men. Both groups received a relatively small protein supplement of about 10g, either immediately after training or two hours later. Total daily protein intake was intended to be around 1.0g/kg bodyweight, but it should be noted that this was self-reported.

The immediate protein group showed increases in cross-sectional muscle fiber area and strength, while the delayed group did not. However, given the low overall protein intake and older population, these results may reflect insufficient daily protein and resistance stimulus rather than timing superiority.

In the end, delayed intake isn’t likely to move the needle much, but if you’re already low on protein and part of an older population, you may want to consider upping overall intake. If that fits around training time, that’s fine. 

That said, for one final practical consideration, if there is the chance of a long gap before your next meal, post-workout protein is a reasonable option. If you plan to eat within about 2-3 hours, immediate protein intake is unlikely to matter much. However, if several hours will pass before you consume protein again, post-workout protein intake can help maintain amino acid availability and should be considered. 

Effects of delayed workout nutrition on performance

Generally speaking, this section is going to focus more on carbohydrates and the role they play in glycogen replenishment. Glycogen depletion during resistance exercise can vary widely depending on the session. A recent 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found that a single bout of resistance training has the potential to reduce muscle glycogen by 24-40% (with greater depletion with higher volumes or longer the sessions). And I’ve already mentioned what we know regarding sustained cardio. Therefore it’s fair to ask yourself how hard you went in your training session and how soon you have to do it again. Are you also in an ongoing energy restriction phase? Are you restricting carbohydrates in favor of hitting your protein? These factors might matter from a performance standpoint.

For a little primer, a review from Alghannam et al looked at the restoration of muscle glycogen when needing to return fairly quickly to another training session (about 3-6 hours). Unsurprisingly, carbohydrate intake drove muscle glycogen replenishment during that small window. There also appears to be a difference in the rate of restoration when carbohydrates are consumed immediately after training versus delaying intake by about two hours. Mechanistically, glycogen replenishment is probably the fastest within that post-workout window and gets a bit of a bump. The question becomes, how much is this bump needed and what about longer windows after training?

A small 2024 study by Díaz-Lara et al looked at two groups of recreational trainees. One group received immediate post-exercise carbohydrate intake, and the other group received water immediately after the workout, followed by delayed carbohydrate intake three hours later. Within 24 hours, muscle glycogen returned in both groups; however, the delayed group showed a small decrease in high-intensity interval performance. The delayed group also reported higher ratings of perceived exertion and fatigue sooner. 

While it was a small study, it used a crossover design, meaning each participant completed both conditions with a two-week washout period between trials. It is also important to note that these were high-intensity interval exercise sessions, so the findings may apply more directly to HIIT or endurance training than most resistance training setups.  

If we dig more into resistance training, an interesting study from Blake et al took well-trained men and women and split them into two groups. Both aimed to hit a 10% surplus of TDEE while training four times per week for eight weeks. Group 1 fasted before training and delayed intake until one hour after training. Group 2 spread their Calories throughout the day, including around training.

Outcome? Both groups gained fat-free mass and improved overall strength.

However, one interesting note is that there was a slight decrease in overall training volume for the time-restricted feeding group that delayed protein intake post-workout by about an hour. Because this was also a time-restricted feeding study and not just a post-workout timing study, it’s difficult to isolate timing alone. That said, it is interesting that even during a surplus, total work performed decreased slightly, though overall strength and muscle gain were similar.

Overall, glycogen depletion does seem like it can be a factor for performance; it’s just a matter of judging how much and when.

Overview of all post-workout nutrition considerations

Most people don’t need a rigid plan for protein or carbohydrate intake after training and will do fine eating within their normal distribution. However, if your recovery time is limited, adding carbohydrates after exercise may help restore glycogen stores more quickly. Here is a flexible guide you can use depending on your setup.

Strength and muscle recovery for single daily sessions

• For most lifters training once per day or less, specific post-workout timing is usually not necessary. Food intake should be the same as any other day-to-day eating.
  
• Hitting total daily recommendations for protein, fat, and carbohydrates will generally support your recovery.
  

Performance for sessions within 24 hours or multiple sessions in one day

• If a demanding session occurs within the same day or early the following day, consuming carbohydrates soon after training may provide a small benefit to recovery for that next session.
  
• About 0.5-1.0g/kg of carbohydrates post-workout is a good starting point when recovery time is limited, with higher intakes of roughly 1.0-1.2g/kg per hour if recovery windows are shorter. Protein intake alongside carbohydrates (0.2-0.4g/kg) is also optional. Note: These numbers are not intended for specialized endurance fueling strategies.
  
• Composition wise (for immediate post-workout carbohydrate needs): a mix of glucose and fructose (2:1 ratio) in an easily digestible form.
  
• Continue to meet overall daily recommendations for protein, fat, and carbohydrates throughout the day.

Takeaways for post-workout nutrition

As recently as the early 2000s, it was reasonable to believe that consuming protein and carbohydrates immediately after training was not only important for protecting muscle, but also for building it.

However, as we’ve dug into the details more, many of those studies were influential because they increased total daily protein intake, often bringing participants closer to baseline needs. That’s not to say there aren’t still factors to examine regarding carbohydrate intake or aspects of performance, but the broader picture has shifted toward total intake mattering far more than intake in a narrow post-workout window.

Most people don’t need to be overly concerned with how quickly they get post-workout nutrition if – and it’s an important “if” – they’re already hitting their daily macronutrient needs. The exact timing of food within a small window after training is unlikely to provide benefits beyond simply eating adequately throughout the day.

That said, there are some circumstances where timing may be more relevant, especially for performance. For instance, if you have a short window between sessions, replenishing carbohydrates is important to be prepared for your next round, and immediate intake appears to have an edge. While the evidence is still accumulating, it is strong enough to consider if you fit those circumstances.

With topics like this, it costs very little to eat after training, and in some situations it may help. But the persistent idea that delaying a meal means you are leaving gains on the table is not supported by the evidence. If eating sooner fits your needs, it’s a simple strategy to try. Just understand that its importance depends on context.

The post Post-Workout Nutrition: Does Timing Matter? appeared first on MacroFactor.

Intra-workout nutrition looks at how well that fuel sustains your session. Do you have nutrition available for the duration of your session? And if you add fuel mid-session, what’s ideal?

Note: This is the second article in our workout nutrition series. Much of what we covered about pre-workout nutrition also applies here. Many of the same ideas about substrate availability and performance still matter once training begins, but there are a few distinctions that make sense to separate.

The purpose of intra-workout nutrition 

During training, your muscles rely on stored glycogen and circulating glucose to keep producing ATP. Glycogen is stored in several regions within muscle fibers, and different stores are used depending on the type and duration of training. As training intensity increases, your body relies more heavily on carbohydrates, and glycogen becomes your main fuel source. When glycogen levels get low, performance can drop, and your body may begin using more amino acids for energy, which you want to minimize if you’re trying to maintain or build muscle. One way to reduce protein use, including the breakdown of muscle tissue, is to ensure adequate fuel during training sessions.

The type of training you’re doing also shapes how important your workout nutrition is. For example, lower-volume strength training doesn’t usually depend much on carbohydrate availability, whereas endurance or higher-intensity interval training sessions benefit more from carbohydrates during training.

Before we dive into specifics, we need to look at the considerations that apply to intra-workout nutrition.

Many of the factors that determine whether you need fuel before training are ones that determine whether you’ll benefit from consuming anything during training. This helps frame intra-workout nutrition as more relevant when your pre-workout meal can’t sustain the full duration or intensity of your training session.

So, the need for intra-workout nutrition usually boils down to these three conditions:

• Longer durations that increase glycogen turnover.
• Repeated high efforts that rely more on glycogen availability.
• Hydration loss or a continued energy deficit.

With that in mind, let’s look at how different training styles, hydration, and even low energy availability can influence your nutrition decisions. 

Endurance 

A systematic review and meta-analysis from Ramos-Campo et al examined more than 130 studies in endurance trainees and found that the longer the session, the larger the benefit of taking in carbohydrates during exercise. In events under 60 minutes, they didn’t really lead to a meaningful effect. However, once the sessions passed the one-hour mark, performance improvements became more noticeable, and by the 120 to 180 minute range, the effects were even larger. So, duration was one of the strongest factors in the results.

Overall, this lines up with what we see in pre-workout nutrition: the longer you go, the more important it becomes to keep your carbohydrate availability up. Once your training extends past an hour, mid-session fueling also becomes easier to justify.

What about adding in protein? 

A systematic review and meta analysis from Nielsen et al looked at how adding protein to carbohydrate feedings affects endurance performance. The authors grouped studies into a few categories, including feedings during exercise, feedings during the recovery window between two bouts (note: not the same as post-workout nutrition), and they also made a point to match total Calories.

The review looked at a range of training times (1 to 3 hours) to see how glycogen turnover or nutrition could be a limiting factor. And in this context, it’s clear that having some protein intake during these longer sessions supports performance and overall output. So, to be clear, intra-workout nutrition helped performance.

That said, a secondary question becomes, “Did adding protein to a carbohydrate supplement improve performance compared to carbohydrate alone?”

While performance did improve during long sessions, when the comparisons are calibrated for total Calorie intake, the differences were less stark. This means the benefit is likely to be driven by the extra Calories, not necessarily just the protein itself.

Beyond performance, another factor to consider regarding protein is if intra-workout strategies are helpful in reducing (downstream) muscle damage. A double-blind crossover trial from Liang et al tested different carbohydrate and protein combinations before and during a longer running session. Note, it wasn’t a pure intra-workout design, but the feeding happened close enough to highlight if different strategies could affect performance and muscle damage. 

Result? Performance didn’t differ, but protein conditions the next day showed lower levels of creatine kinase and myoglobin. Now, to be clear, these are indirect markers and not definitive evidence of reduced muscle damage, and the study was small, with only 10 participants. Still, it’s an interesting point that we’ll revisit more when discussing post-workout nutrition.

Quick recap: Unsurprisingly, your carbohydrates continue to be the driver of performance during longer or more demanding sessions, but total Calorie intake is still an important factor. Your protein isn’t going to move the needle on performance the way carbohydrates do, but having some in the mix during long endurance work may reduce the rise in muscle-damage markers afterward.

Resistance training

Just as I discussed in the pre-workout article, there isn’t a lot of strong evidence to support specific nutrient timing during resistance training sessions under 60 minutes. Also, MacroFactor has discussed protein timing and distribution in detail, so this is really about taking a closer look at carbohydrates.

In our pre-workout article, we looked at the systematic review and meta-analysis from King et al that examined 21 studies with more than 260 participants consuming a carbohydrate drink, placebo, or water before or during their workout.

The results were mixed, with relatively small benefits that only showed up when resistance training sessions lasted longer than 45 minutes or began after at least 8 hours of fasting. The challenge of the training sessions also mattered. For example, the closer participants trained to failure, the more useful carbohydrates became. Though the amount of carbohydrates consumed didn’t make much difference. 

What can be confusing when looking at resistance training and intra-workout nutrition research is that the mechanistic and outcome data don’t always perfectly align. For example, a review by Bird et al hints at the need for carbohydrate and protein availability during resistance exercise so it can help with glycogen resynthesis or hormone markers. And while these mechanism arguments make a good case for maintaining carbohydrate availability during training, they don’t always translate into measured performance shifts (like those summarized by King et al).

One likely reason for this disconnect is understanding energetic demand. When you’re lifting something heavy, stored phosphocreatine can supply some of that immediate energy while anaerobic glycolysis will contribute more the longer you continue. So, as training increases and your rest periods shorten, or if you’re training closer and closer to failure, carbohydrate metabolism will become more important. Training style and duration determine how much glycogen you will use.

So a 45-minute lifting session at a moderate intensity with longer rest periods won’t challenge glycogen stores the same way an intense, 2-hour resistance workout that’s cycling intensity would.

Quick take-home: For shorter or lower-volume lifting sessions, extra carbohydrates during training probably don’t add much. But if sessions get longer or are highly intensive throughout, maintaining carbohydrate intake could make a small difference.

When hydration or continued low energy status could be a factor 

I haven’t talked much about hydration because these articles are mostly focused on macronutrient factors, but hydration still plays a supporting role in training performance.

In simple terms, hydration or euhydration refers to how well your body maintains a balance of water and electrolytes. How hydrated you are going into a workout can affect not only performance but how hard your session feels. Low energy intake can also affect your hydration. When Calories stay low for long enough, glycogen stores, total body fluid, and electrolytes can all drop from their ideal baseline.

A meta-analysis by Savoie et al looked at 28 studies on hypohydration and muscle performance and found that losing around 3% of body water reduced muscular endurance by about 8% and strength by roughly 5%, with similar drops in anaerobic power.

Later trials follow a similar pattern, showing that mild to moderate dehydration can reduce endurance and strength, though the effect size depends on training status and the method of dehydration. Some authors have also noted that research in this area is more complex than they’d prefer, given that study designs vary widely and dehydration measurement methods are inconsistent.

Still, across different approaches, a fair takeaway is that being slightly dehydrated could hurt endurance and may take a small edge off strength, but I wouldn’t get too attached to specific numbers.

With energy status, there are discussions that short-term low energy availability reduces your muscle’s ability to take up and oxidize glucose. Meaning, if you’ve been in a deficit for a period of time, your muscles may not use intra-workout carbohydrates as well. This raises a fair question: How much could low energy reduce carbohydrate use during training, and is intra-workout nutrition still worthwhile if you aren’t starting the session with full stores?

A 2025 study by Margolis et al tested this idea by placing participants in a range of deficit percentages (20, 40, or 60%) for six days. Researchers then had them complete 90 minutes of steady-state cycling, during which they consumed 80g of glucose.

They found about a 10% reduction in exogenous glucose oxidation (how well you can use what you immediately take in), while performance was the same as when participants were fully fueled. This shows that intra-workout carbohydrates can still support performance even when energy intake has been low. Meaning, it’s not wasteful to take in carbohydrates during your workout if you’re participating in endurance training.

What about higher intensity intervals or crossfit training? 

A 2025 study from Triviño et al looked at CrossFit athletes completing a two-hour mixed session that included lifting and interval work. The subjects also consumed 60g of carbohydrates during the workout, and then a placebo on a separate day. There were no differences in performance or their perceived exertion. But there are two things worth noting: the athletes already used intra-workout carbohydrates in their normal training, and they entered the sessions well fed with prior carbohydrate intake.

Taking all these factors together, you could suggest that carbohydrate ingestion during training doesn’t move the needle much if you’re already in a fed state, but the Margolis study shows that it may still help when you start with some degree of depletion. And if you recall from the King et al study, intra-nutrition started showing more relevance after 8 hours of fasting in resistance training (though their pre-workout nutrition study showed less of a difference). So while it’s not definitive, there could be something there with energy restriction, depending on length and severity. This also goes back to what I was discussing regarding resistance training in general. Meaning, let’s say you’ve jumped back into lifting while also trying to lose weight, are utilizing a lower carbohydrate diet, and are also training to failure and going pretty hard for 45 to 60 minutes? This is the kind of situation where you’d give more thought to intra-workout nutrition, but I’ll admit that this isn’t directly covered in research. 

Quick take-home: If carbohydrate availability is already high, you’re probably fine during shorter sessions. If energy availability stays low or hydration drops, performance could start to slip, and in those cases, intra-workout carbohydrates may become more relevant.

What about pre-workout nutrition versus intra-workout?

Direct comparisons of pre-workout meals and intra-workout carbohydrates barely exist, but that’s mostly because the question isn’t very practical. The useful question isn’t which one is “better,” but when a pre-workout meal stops being enough on its own. A solid meal before training sets you up well by topping off glycogen and keeping blood glucose steady, but in some training situations, that only carries you so far. That’s where intra-workout carbs start to matter. 

A meta-analysis from Bourdas et al reviewed more than 40 years of data and found that once sessions last longer than an hour, taking in carbs during the workout provides a measurable performance benefit beyond anything you did beforehand. And to be clear, it’s not that pre-workout nutrition stops working – it’s that longer sessions create fuel demands that a single pre-workout meal just can’t sustain. So, the value of intra-workout carbs isn’t about “beating” pre-workout intake but more about extending how long you can keep output high once the session outlasts your starting fuel.

What to eat while training 

Ideally, intra-workout nutrition should prioritize digestibility and ease. Start by considering gastrointestinal comfort and portability. Choose foods or drinks that are easy to consume and sit well with you during training.

Overall, glucose–fructose blends (roughly a 2:1 ratio) have decent evidence behind them for endurance training and may slightly improve total carbohydrate oxidation rates. Liquid options also make it easy to include sodium or other electrolytes, especially when training in the heat.

That said, whole-food options can work just as well when matched for total carbohydrate intake. Studies comparing foods like bananas, raisins, honey, and even potatoes against drinks or gels have shown good performance outcomes. The tradeoff tends to be comfort and practicality, as higher fiber can cause some GI distress, and whole foods items can be a bit more cumbersome. 

Additionally, concentration, dose, and timing can drive comfort. A 2025 systematic review on minimizing GI symptoms found that sipping the carbohydrate fructose-glucose mixes helped with GI discomfort. I should note that research tends to put an emphasis on concentration over exact timing, but in practice, you could argue that sipping small amounts or larger intakes every 15 to 20 minutes works fine too. The authors also note that GI tolerance can be “trained,” and that absorption and comfort can improve over time.

In short, the best intra-workout nutrition is the one you can consume easily and scale with your demand.

Putting this together for intra-workout nutrition considerations

Most people don’t need an elaborate plan for fueling during a workout. But in some cases, it helps to keep your carbohydrate or fluid intake steady as you train. Keep in mind that these are flexible guidelines, not hard rules, and they assume your pre-workout meal isn’t enough to sustain you through the entire session. The time ranges are simplified for practicality, not meant as exact cutoffs.

Strength and resistance training

• In short or moderate sessions, carbohydrate intake is rarely a limiter for performance.  
• For workouts lasting more than 45 minutes, or when training fasted, you can consume about 0.3-0.5g/kg of carbohydrate per hour. Most people sip gradually.  
• Ideally, everyone should hit their total daily protein (1.6-2.2g/kg/day) and have a balanced diet of macronutrients. 

Hypertrophy or hybrid training 

• Carbohydrates may matter more if training exceeds 45 minutes.
• You can consume about 0.3-0.5g/kg of carbohydrate per hour. Most people sip gradually.  
• Optional: Adding protein (0.3 g/kg) may help protect muscle. 

Endurance training (>60 minutes)

• Carbohydrate availability is more likely to impact performance.
• For sessions over an hour, 0.5-1.2g/kg carbohydrate per hour (roughly 30-90g/hour). Composition-wise, a mix of glucose + fructose (2:1 ratio).
• You can sip continuously every 15-20 minutes.
• Optional: Adding protein (0.3 g/kg) may help protect muscle.

Closing

The goal of intra-workout nutrition is to support you when your pre-workout meal isn’t quite enough to sustain your workout. For the average person training under an hour, you can probably get by without any specific intra-workout nutrition, especially if you’ve eaten within the past few hours and are well hydrated. But as duration, intensity, or environmental stress increases (see: hot outside), getting even small amounts of carbohydrates, fluids, and a little protein could make a difference. While you can use nearly any food source, liquids and gels tend to be more practical since they’re easier to digest and consume during training.

Our final article will look at post-workout nutrition and finish things out. 

The post Intra-Workout Nutrition: What Matters Once Training Begins appeared first on MacroFactor.

In this first article, we’ll focus on pre-workout nutrition and what the research shows about eating before training. Is it okay to train fasted? Is breakfast enough to support training? Do you need specific amounts of protein or carbohydrate beforehand? We’ll review what the evidence shows to help you make more informed choices.

Let’s dig in.

Why we discuss workout nutrition 

To avoid resting on too many assumptions, I’d like to briefly explain why it’s worth examining workout nutrition in the first place.

In simple terms, workout nutrition is about nutrient timing. The core questions are straightforward:

• Can eating before, during, or after training improve performance or recovery?
• How much does timing matter compared with total daily intake?
• And are the effects large enough to make a meaningful difference?

This series takes a closer look at those questions, separating what’s worth paying attention to versus marketing noise. In this first part, we’ll focus on pre-workout nutrition and how eating before training may (or may not) affect performance, fatigue, and your mindset during exercise.

Before we get into specifics, let’s look briefly at what’s happening in your body during training.

A brief look at the body during training 

When you start any kind of physical activity, especially structured exercise, your breathing and heart rate increase to meet the demand you’re creating for more oxygen and nutrients in your muscles. Inside those muscles are mitochondria (biology throwback: “powerhouses of the cell”), and all the extra oxygen and blood flow help mitochondria produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is the molecule that directly powers muscle contractions. And to keep ATP production going, your body needs a steady supply of oxygen and nutrients.

This is where nutrition comes in, as it ensures you have enough fuel to keep everything running.

In practical terms, workout nutrition is there to ensure you have all the available nutrition necessary to perform during a training session and then recover afterwards. This series asks whether there are real “windows” for workout nutrition or if eating throughout the day is enough.

Scope of this series

This series won’t cover specialized nutrition needs, such as carbohydrate loading for endurance events or macronutrient strategies for bodybuilding competitions. It also won’t focus on specialized diets, such as ketogenic diets. Instead, it focuses on average trainees engaging in resistance or general endurance training while eating a mixed macronutrient diet.

It’s also worth noting that this article doesn’t cover pre-workout products and focuses instead on macronutrient-based strategies. For example, caffeine is a well-established ergogenic aid and is often included in workout products. It’s certainly valid and worth considering before a workout, but it is out of scope for this article. That said, if you’re interested in evidence-based supplement use, we’ve covered them regarding performance, body composition, and health.

Macronutrients in action

Because your body’s ability to use fuel depends on how and which nutrients enter the bloodstream, it’s worth taking a quick look at the role of each macronutrient to understand how each one supports energy production during training.

Carbohydrates

When you eat carbohydrates, your body converts them into glucose, which is an energy source for exercise. They also produce more ATP than fat for the same amount of oxygen. When you train, your muscles mainly use stored glycogen for energy, and as those stores run low, blood glucose helps keep you going.

It’s common to think of glycogen as a single tank of fuel, but it’s more like tons of smaller reserves. Glycogen exists in different compartments, and how it’s accessed depends on training type and intensity.

For example, during a typical resistance training session, total muscle glycogen might drop by about 25 to 40%. However, certain compartments, such as intramyofibrillar glycogen, can run out much faster. Endurance exercise tends to deplete these stores even more quickly.

Glycogen storage varies from person to person, but most people maintain around 400 to 500 mmol per kilogram of dry muscle on a balanced diet. With a higher carbohydrate intake, levels can rise to about 700 mmol, while low-carbohydrate diets can drop them closer to 200 mmol.

Increasing training intensity will obviously increase oxygen use and heart rate, and thus affect glycogen use, increasing its use as exercise intensity increases. At lower intensities, most fuel comes from fat oxidation. This is why people sometimes say that, depending on training intensity, you’re “burning carbs” or “burning fat.”

Energy use at different training intensities

The rate of digestion also varies a lot between different carbohydrate sources. Simple carbohydrates break down quickly and provide faster glucose, while fiber-rich foods digest more slowly and can slow stomach emptying if eaten too close to a workout.

Fat

Fat oxidation is a slower source of ATP production and contributes more at lower exercise intensities. For example, most energy used at rest and during daily activity comes from fat oxidation.

As training intensity increases, your body shifts more toward glycogen because it can produce ATP from carbohydrates more efficiently and at a faster rate. This changes the ratio of fat to glycogen oxidation, though this ratio varies. For example, in trained individuals, fat oxidation can range from about 0.4 to 1g per minute, with endurance athletes sustaining the higher end of that range even when training harder. 

Fat stores are rarely depleted because total body fat provides a much larger energy reserve than glycogen. However, during long or intense sessions, glycogen can be a limiting factor; if glycogen levels drop, fat oxidation will increase, but overall energy output can decline.

From a digestion standpoint, dietary fat moves through your system more slowly than simple carbohydrates. The sustainability aspect of fat as a fuel mainly comes from how much is stored in the body, not from immediate dietary intake.

Protein 

Ideally, protein shouldn’t be a main energy source, especially if that protein comes from breaking down muscle. During exercise, your body is designed to draw energy primarily from carbohydrates and fat. That doesn’t mean protein intake isn’t important; it just means that for workout nutrition, the goal isn’t to increase protein oxidation. For protein, you’re ideally looking for recovery or repair, not performance. You want the performance to come from your carbohydrates and fat sources.

If you’re wondering how much protein we can use during training, it varies, but it’s not much. A 2025 meta-analysis by Clauss and Jensen found that protein oxidation made up about 3% of total energy used during endurance exercise, which aligns with other previous estimates. However, this study showed that while energy from protein oxidation is low, it can increase in its ratio with higher exercise intensity or glycogen depletion. This means it’s not just the duration of exercise that matters, but the combination of intensity and carbohydrate availability that could increase protein use.

While it typically takes endurance training to reduce glycogen, training hard in a chronically low-Calorie or low-carbohydrate state could create similar conditions. That doesn’t guarantee muscle loss, but it could increase the likelihood of greater protein oxidation, which most people want to avoid.

Research like this supports the idea of increasing protein intake to cover the small amount you might use during longer workouts. You don’t want to rely on protein as a primary fuel source, but getting enough may help reduce muscle breakdown when energy or glycogen runs low. Lastly, research continues to show that total daily protein intake is the most important factor, as we’ve discussed in many MacroFactor articles.

From a digestion standpoint, whole-food proteins vary in how quickly they are absorbed. In general, liquid proteins like whey digest faster, while whole-food proteins, especially those with more fiber, move more slowly. These differences matter less for performance and more for digestive comfort.

Quick nutrient recap

The main goals of pre-workout nutrition are to fuel your training and reduce unnecessary muscle breakdown. Carbohydrates are the priority here since they are most directly tied to maintaining performance and glycogen levels as workouts get longer or more intense. Still, it’s worth considering whether protein or fat intake plays a role too.

Next, let’s look at how these effects differ between types of training, such as resistance and endurance exercise.

Pre-workout nutrition and its effects on different training styles

By now, it should be clear that both your overall diet and what you eat before training can influence how you perform at different intensities and durations. To see how this plays out, let’s look at a few studies that show how pre-workout nutrition affects performance in resistance, endurance, and mixed training.

Quick caveat: Before getting into the research, it’s worth noting why this topic can feel a bit more complicated than, say, post-workout nutrition. “Pre-workout” can describe a wide range of situations. Some studies involve people training after an overnight fast, while others examine participants who ate a full meal several hours earlier and are now consuming a smaller timed intake. Even among fed conditions, the timing, size, and composition of that meal can vary.

Because of that, the question isn’t only what to eat before training, but also when you last ate, how much energy you have available, and what macronutrients your previous meal contained. Those factors can all influence performance and are worth keeping in mind when looking at research or experimenting with your own routine.

Resistance training

For resistance training, the main questions are whether pre-workout nutrition can improve strength or volume performance and whether it helps preserve lean mass over time. Can lifters do more reps? Maintain load across sets? Reduce muscle breakdown?

Looking at the bigger picture, a systematic review by Henselmans et al found that eating more carbohydrates didn’t meaningfully improve resistance-training performance when total Calories and protein were the same. Across 49 studies, higher-carb diets rarely led to more total work performed, and getting enough protein (roughly 1.6–2.2 g/kg body weight) was still the most important factor for maintaining muscle.

That said, the review did note small benefits from timing carbohydrates around training, especially during longer or high-volume sessions, training fasted, or when Calories were restricted. In those cases, extra carbs did seem to help maintain performance.

Adding a little more to the data, a systematic review and meta-analysis by King et al looked at 21 controlled crossover trials and found that pre-workout carbohydrates improved total training volume when sessions lasted longer than 45 minutes or involved more than 8-10 sets. In short, carbs might matter more when workouts are longer or more demanding. However, newer research from the same group suggests that context plays a big role. In trained lifters doing upper-body workouts after an overnight fast, a high-carbohydrate meal two hours before training didn’t improve performance compared to a low-carbohydrate meal, or even a low-Calorie placebo.

Looking at protein intake specifically, a 2025 meta-analysis by Casuso and Goossens looked at five randomized controlled trials to see whether protein ingestion before or after training improved exercise-induced adaptations. The results showed no meaningful difference in lean mass. There was a tiny bump in leg strength (based on two small studies) when protein was consumed before training. As discussed in detail in our article on protein timing, research shows that there are no small “anabolic windows,” which again aligns with the importance of total daily protein intake.

Resistance training takeaways

Training duration is still the biggest factor influencing whether pre-workout nutrition makes a difference. For most lifters who eat enough protein and Calories, strength and muscle usually do fine.

While both can be affected by extended energy restriction, it generally takes being underfed for longer periods to make an impact. That’s why it’s worth paying attention to your strength during a deficit. So, if you’re training fasted and hitting higher training volumes, you might want to eat something before training to see if it helps. 

Pre-workout nutrition doesn’t make or break strength or hypertrophy outcomes, but it could provide small situational benefits. Keep that in the back of your mind for later when we’ll talk about readiness and training comfort.

Endurance and interval training 

As discussed, glycogen use during resistance training is relatively modest, so pre-workout meals tend to have less impact on performance. In endurance or interval workouts, glycogen demands are higher, and availability can become an actual limiting factor. So let’s look at what the research shows.

A systematic review and meta-analysis by Aird et al examined 46 studies comparing fasted and fed exercise to see if a pre-exercise meal affects performance. The result? Carbohydrate-dominant meals consumed 1 to 4 hours before exercise improved performance. Specifically, it helped performance lasting longer than 1 hour.

Protein- or fat-heavy meals did not have the same impact on performance. Additionally, the dose of carbohydrates in this study definitely mattered. Intakes below about 1g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight had minimal effect, while higher doses had more of an effect on performance. A narrative review by Rothchild et al published a little later found similar outcomes after examining more than 100 studies on pre-exercise nutrition.

A review by Stratton et al looked at those who consumed breakfast versus those who omitted it in endurance- and resistance-trained athletes who trained earlier in the day. Once again, they found that for longer-duration exercise lasting more than 60 minutes, consuming a carbohydrate-rich breakfast 1 to 4 hours before training improved performance compared with exercising fasted.

So, if you’re doing endurance training, you probably shouldn’t skip breakfast.

In fact, a randomized crossover study by Metcalfe et al found that even when total daily Calories were matched, power output dropped in people who skipped breakfast compared with those who ate it. The group that skipped breakfast also reported higher perceived exertion.

What about interval training?

Studies on interval training can be tricky because much of the research focuses on its role in fat loss or metabolic outcomes. Still, when you look at the broader body of work, a pattern appears showing that carbohydrate availability may matter more.

A recent 2025 study by Thomassen et al had people perform intense knee-extension workouts using one leg with full glycogen and one that was glycogen-depleted. The low-glycogen leg performed about 40% worse in the test. Strength didn’t drop, but the leg ran out of steam much sooner. That suggests glycogen doesn’t directly affect how strong you are, but it can affect how long you can keep working at a high level before fatigue sets in.

Looking at perimenopausal women, a small randomized crossover study by Kotopoulea-Nikolaidi et al looked at high-intensity interval work that alternated between about 85 to 90% of their maximum heart rate and easier active recovery periods. After finishing the intervals, they completed a test to see how long they could keep exercising before reaching exhaustion. The researchers found a slight trend toward higher work output and better mood after a high-carbohydrate meal compared with protein-based or fasted conditions.

Also, as a reminder, the earlier study by Clauss and Jensen showed that intensity can increase protein utilization, and we’ve seen other studies show increased glycogen demand during high-intensity interval training or CrossFit-style training sessions.

There are obviously wide ranges within interval training when it comes to intensity, length, and how depleted you are beforehand, but it’s worth considering these factors, especially if you’re doing extremely demanding sessions in a fasted state or during a long-term Calorie deficit. There’s also a pretty decent amount of evidence suggesting that as high-intensity performance increases, glycogen can start to play more of a role. 

Endurance and interval training takeaway

Overall, research shows that eating carbohydrates before exercise helps support endurance performance, especially when workouts last longer than an hour. In trained athletes, restricting carbohydrates lowers glycogen stores, which can, in turn, reduce performance in endurance or interval sessions that rely on glycogen for fuel.

A quick look at factors like satiety or habits

There are additional factors beyond fuel utilization that can influence pre-workout nutrition decisions, even if they’re not completely understood just yet, ranging from satiety to habitual factors.

The King study discussed earlier compared a very low-Calorie (2.6 Calories) placebo with low- and high-carbohydrate pre-training meals in trained lifters. While total training volume was similar across conditions, (not surprisingly) people reported more fullness and less hunger after a Calorie-containing meal. This suggests that eating something before lifting helps, but what you eat may matter less than simply being fed.

A study by Naharudin et al adds another layer by testing whether the texture of a pre-exercise meal matters. They compared a semi-solid placebo with a thinner carbohydrate drink, and found that the semi-solid placebo helped lifters complete more repetitions.

Habits may also play a role, as one study found that skipping breakfast before a morning resistance session impaired performance in people who normally eat breakfast. Overall, breakfast omission doesn’t appear to harm resistance performance for most lifters, but when it does matter, it matters a lot for that individual.

Altogether, these findings suggest that if you feel fed or more comfortable going into training, it can make a difference. Any performance or strength advantages seem small, but they appear often enough in research to be worth noting, with the caveat that “responses vary.”

Putting this together for pre-workout nutrition considerations

Most people don’t need a complex pre-workout nutrition plan. These guidelines are meant to be flexible ranges, not strict rules, and are taken from the collective of the research we’ve been discussing. 

Strength and resistance training:

• In short or moderate sessions, carbohydrate intake is rarely a limiter for performance.  
• For high-volume training sessions, pre-workout carbohydrate intake may improve performance.
• Ideally, all trainees should hit their total daily protein (1.6-2.2g/kg/day) and have a balanced diet of macronutrients. 
• Optional: Eat a small meal or snack before training to help with readiness and energy during exercise.

Hypertrophy or hybrid training:

• Carbohydrate intake could matter more for sustaining training quality and volume. 
• Ideally, all trainees should hit their total daily protein (1.6-2.2g/kg/day) and have a balanced diet of macronutrients. 
• Optional: A pre-workout meal containing about 0.5g/kg carbohydrate and 0.3g/kg protein, eaten 1-3 hours before training, could support performance.

Endurance training:

• Performance depends more directly on carbohydrate availability. 
• Meet total daily protein (1.6-2.2g/kg/day), balanced diet, and Calorie needs. 
• Ideal: Carbohydrate-rich meal (1-4g/kg) 1-4 hours pre-training seems to improve endurance performance. Adding 0.3g/kg of protein could help preserve muscle during longer sessions.

A quick note on whole foods versus supplementation

One aspect we haven’t covered yet is the difference between using whole foods and food supplements for pre-workout fueling. Many studies rely on liquid carbohydrate sources because drinks make it easier to deliver them. For example, most trials in the Aird review used glucose or maltodextrin drinks, while a smaller number included whole-food meals.

However, that doesn’t mean whole foods are off the table. In real-world settings, most people eat mixed macronutrient meals before training. A narrative review by Naderi et al compared traditional foods with supplements and found that when they matched total carbohydrates, the performances were pretty much the same. That said, the authors noted practical considerations, such as higher-fiber foods being harder to digest before training and generally being less portable. For that reason, liquid or semi-solid options are the common choice for most people.

In short, experiment with different meal types and timing to see what feels and performs best for you, as workout nutrition can be highly individual, especially in terms of readiness and comfort.

Closing 

Endurance and some styles of intensive interval training are cases where pre-workout nutrition can truly move the needle. When a session runs long or the intensity stays high, carbohydrate availability becomes a more limiting factor for performance. In these instances, a well-timed meal or snack (with carbohydrates and maybe a little protein) could help maintain performance and might protect muscle.

Most of the pre-workout nutrition debate falls in that middle ground where the workouts aren’t easy, but the duration or intensity isn’t high enough to fully drain you. In these situations, the need for specific pre-workout nutrition mostly comes down to individual preference. However, it’s still worth experimenting to see whether it makes a difference for you. As long as it’s digestible and comfortable, it’s worth trying.

In the next article, we’ll look at what happens once training begins and how intra-workout nutrition fits into the picture.

The post Pre-Workout Nutrition: What the Science Says About Fueling Your Training appeared first on MacroFactor.

Let’s dig in.

A brief history and introduction to terms 

Organic farming is an agricultural practice that emerged in response to conventional farming’s reliance on synthetic use in farming. Its origins are complex, but we can see a shift began in Poland in the 1920s when courses were launched aimed at helping farmers reduce stress on their land. Similar movements took place in the United Kingdom, focusing on soil health and recycling of animal waste, often referred to as “humus farming.” In the United States, Oregon and California were leaders in regulating organic farming in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, standards and definitions vary, but a few consistent points help define the organic industry. 

As you can see from the table, except in a few areas of practice, the lines can blur. Farming methods vary not just by system but by region, farm size, equipment access, and even the social dynamics of a farming community. Tillage, for example, is a hot topic in both conventional and organic circles. Some organic farms use aggressive tillage, while others minimize soil disturbance and prioritize cover cropping or the benefits of “no-till” or “occasional till,” which can all spark debate.

That leads to one of the most important points to keep in mind while reading research on this topic: farming is highly individual. As I’ll discuss, positive or negative outcomes depend not only on the farm’s land but also on neighboring land and even on what happened on the land in previous decades.

What defines healthier food?

Early in writing this piece, I realized I’d walked myself into a semantic trap. The word “healthy” is often used loosely in food conversations but rarely with a clear definition. When you stop to think about it, what makes food healthy can get murky fast. Are we talking about nutrient density, absence of harm, or long-term outcomes? What about mental health or just pure enjoyment?

To keep things simplified, I’m narrowing it to two practical categories: nutritional value and food safety.

General nutritional value factors

A recent scoping review by Wang et al looked at nutritional value through three factors: 

One caveat with this topic is that there are gaps in comparative and long-term analyses. To avoid overreaching, I won’t get into bioavailability or long-term health outcomes in this article. Both are important, but they’re complex and context dependent and deserve their own piece. For now, I’ll focus on nutrient composition.

General food safety factors 

This section looks at several factors, including animal health, crop cultivation, preservation methods, and the environment of the animal or crop.

For example, a crop’s exposure to potentially harmful substances isn’t limited to what’s sprayed during the growing season but also includes what’s already in the soil, along with water quality and airborne contaminants. Similarly, the safety of livestock products should be considered alongside the risk of animal waste entering nearby crops. For instance, pathogens linked to manure, such as E. coli and Salmonella, have been found in soil and occasionally on produce like spinach. It’s remarkable that foodborne illness is as rare as it is, which speaks to the diligence of farmers and the oversight of regulators.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the key safety issues in crop and livestock production:

A quick comment about practices versus guidelines

I discussed what may or may not be allowed in organic farming, but I want to clarify the distinction between guidelines and practices. Guidelines refer to the formal rules that govern permitted or prohibited systems and materials used in farming. This distinction applies to both conventional and organic systems. Practices, on the other hand, are the methods farmers actually use within those allowed systems or guidelines.

For example, organic guidelines include requirements for organic feed, restrictions on antibiotic use, and provisions for some form of outdoor access. However, within those guidelines, the actual living conditions for animals in both organic and conventional systems can vary. Outdoor access may be required on an organic farm, but that could mean a small screened-in porch attached to a mostly closed facility. In contrast, some conventional farms may have large outdoor grazing areas, even when it’s not required by their guidelines. And as I’ll discuss later, this isn’t about animal welfare but about how grazing conditions could influence nutrient profiles.

In agricultural production, management practices can vary widely, including pest control, crop rotation, monocropping, cover crops, and antimicrobial washes. Farms that focus heavily on maximizing yield can experience lower soil functionality, whether conventional or organic. In other words, pushing production too hard can have consequences regardless of the guidelines or label. The same applies when comparing farms with more weeds or those that use natural herbicides. Within the same guidelines, practices can still vary significantly.

This all matters because even when studies try to control for heterogeneity in comparisons between organic and conventional food, differences in specific practices can still drive outcomes. Therefore, long term, it might be more useful to identify which practices work well — regardless of the label. Just something to keep in mind as you read about this topic.

Organic animal products

I’m keeping animal products separate from produce. Most reviews comparing organic and conventional foods do the same because including both in a single analysis introduces too much complexity. Systematic reviews on organic produce already account for variability in soil quality, crop type, and post-harvest handling. With animal products, additional factors such as feed composition, antibiotic use, and slaughter practices make it even harder to establish clear inclusion criteria that consistently separate organic from conventional. Therefore, I’ll examine animal-based organics separately and through a slightly different lens.

Organic animal products: nutrition

Managing animal growth to enhance nutritional quality and food safety is a complex process. For instance, slower growth or access to forage can shift fatty acid profiles and influence overall fat accumulation. Breed and muscle structure also contribute to variability in fat and micronutrient content, independent of whether the meat is organic or conventional. In milk, breed and region can affect the composition of fat, fatty acids, and proteins.

Feeding systems, which include the nutrient content of the feed and how it’s delivered, can affect meat quality and growth outcomes in ways that go beyond an organic or conventional label. For example, two studies (here and here) compared lambs raised under several feeding systems ranging from fully pelleted or concentrate-based diets to forage and pasture-based approaches. Although neither study was conducted in certified organic settings, one study used methods commonly associated with organic production. The forage-based system (similar to organic production) improved the nutritional quality of the meat, while the concentrate-heavy system supported faster growth and larger carcasses. In this case, it was the feeding design itself (not an organic label) that determined the results.

Looking at more comparative research between organic and conventional, in a systematic review and meta-analysis, Średnicka-Tober et al compared the nutrient composition of organic and conventional meats across 67 studies. The researchers found a small difference in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), but not in total fat content. For example, if conventional meat contains about 2g of PUFA per 10g of fat, and organic meat has roughly 23% more, that increase would bring it to about 2.46g (versus 2g), which is a noticeable, but not a major shift.

A more recent study comparing organic and conventional turkey meat found the organic turkey had higher total and monounsaturated fat but lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids. The researchers used the same breed and targeted similar slaughter weights, but the feed compositions differed. The organic had a higher energy-to-protein ratio and lower methionine content, which they linked to variations in fat content. Pasture access didn’t appear to influence the results. The researchers also found an increase in vitamin B6 in organic meat, which could meaningfully contribute to daily intake.

A study examining bulk tank milk and free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations analyzed conventional, organic, and certified grass-fed (CGF) dairy farms over several years. CGF farms were treated as a distinct category, even though they may also follow organic or conventional practices, based on their certification. The study found that CGF farms had the highest average FFA concentrations, with organic farms in the middle and conventional farms the lowest. There was also notable variation between farms and across different times of year, suggesting that feeding systems and other management choices influence milk composition beyond the production label.

All of this suggests that it’s difficult to draw a clear line on nutrient quality based solely on an organic label or even a specific production style. There’s too much variation across animal breeds, feeding systems, and farm-level practices. More importantly, there’s no strong evidence that these differences are nutritionally meaningful. Even when a study shows what looks like a large jump in FFA levels from conventional to certified grass-fed bulk milk, it’s unlikely to meaningfully affect your health.

Organic animal products: safety

When it comes to safety, the main concerns for animal-based products in the organic industry aren’t about chemical residues from crops (that’s more relevant to plant foods). Instead, the focus is on how well the industry manages microbial risks, antibiotic use, and parasite exposure, and how much of that might reach the consumer level. In other words, we’re looking at contaminants that can cause foodborne illness or toxicity. The key question is whether organic animal products lead to greater or lower exposure to these risks compared with conventional products.

A review by Sosnowski and Osek found a variety in the pathogens present between organic and conventional animal products. Some studies reported higher rates of Campylobacter on organic or free-range farms, while others found the opposite or no difference. Findings for Salmonella were also mixed, with a few studies showing higher contamination in organic pork. The prevalence of E. coli and Listeria varied widely depending on the product and study design.

A systematic review and meta-analysis compared conventional and alternative production systems. The prevalence of Campylobacter was higher in alternative systems (52.8%) than in conventional systems (15.8%), while Salmonella prevalence was similar between the two. In this review, “alternative” referred to a broad range of systems, including organic, pasture-raised, antibiotic-free, and free-range.

There’s some evidence suggesting that, overall, organic animal farming may slightly increase the chance of exposure to certain bacterial pathogens. This is likely due to consistent practices such as greater outdoor access and limited use of medications to control infections. That said, some studies still report lower or similar exposure rates on organic farms, and outcomes vary depending on the pathogen.

If infection does occur, though, there’s a potential upside: pathogens from organic farms are generally less likely to be antibiotic-resistant. In other words, you can still get sick, but it’s less likely to involve a strain that’s resistant to treatment. That’s one point in favor of organic production from a food safety perspective.

Recap

A wide range of factors, including feed systems, exercise, and outdoor exposure, can influence nutrient quality and safety in livestock farming. Both organic and conventional systems have improved over time, which is why I tried to focus as much as possible on newer research. Studies from the early 2000s often looked worse across the board compared with more recent years.

At this time, there’s no clear net benefit to organic labeling in terms of meaningful differences in health or safety. That said, some farming practices that align more closely with organic systems show small statistical advantages in nutrient profiles. Avoiding antibiotic use may also help reduce the risk of exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, though the overall risk from foodborne antibiotic resistance remains very low.

Organic plant-based products

Just as there are numerous nuances in organic animal farming, there are just as many in organic versus conventional agriculture. In general, produce follows a similar pattern, so I won’t belabor the point. You can make a case for organic or conventional foods having an edge in nutrient content, depending on the crop, growing conditions, and geographic location. The farming system alone isn’t a reliable predictor of nutritional quality. Across individual studies, high variability and a lack of consistent trends prevent either system from showing a clear advantage.

For example, a 2022 narrative review compiled hundreds of studies comparing the nutritional quality of organic and conventional plant-based foods. The review covered a range of nutrients, including protein, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acid profiles. Ultimately, it found no consistent advantage for either system.

The table below compares protein and amino acid content and shows that results are mixed. Some crops perform better under conventional systems, others under organic, and many show no real difference. Still, it’s worth asking how meaningful those differences really are for your day-to-day nutrition.

A 2024 systematic review of 147 studies reached a similar conclusion. About 71% of comparisons showed no consistent difference between organic and conventional. Among the rest, results were mixed, with both coming out ahead at times. For example, vitamin C levels were occasionally higher in organic foods, while beta-carotene tended to be higher in conventional ones. However, outcomes often depended on region, crop year, and other growing conditions.

Organic plant-based products: safety 

As a reminder, organic farming systems don’t allow synthetic crop chemicals. From a practical standpoint, most synthetic chemicals are designed to be highly efficient. For example, they may adhere better to produce or be more effective at killing weeds. This efficiency often reduces the need for repeated applications, but residues can also persist longer on crops or in the soil. In contrast, organic-approved chemicals tend to break down more quickly and may require more frequent use. As a result, short-term environmental exposure can sometimes be higher with organic methods, while synthetic compounds may persist longer in soil, water, and plant residues. It’s a tradeoff, with pros and cons on both sides.

In general, organic foods contain fewer crop chemical residues, and diets higher in organic foods tend to show lower urinary pesticide metabolites. However, crop type and context still matter. For instance, one organic farm might use more pesticides than a conventional one, especially for crops like grapes that face heavy pest pressure, leading to higher residues than in other produce. In short, exposure depends on the crop, and testing depends on what’s measured, how often, and by whom.

In the United States, the USDA randomly samples and tests both organic and conventional produce, finding that 99% of samples meet residue exposure levels within approved safety standards. In Europe, the EFSA found that 96% fell within safe limits. However, regulators test for only a limited set of organic-approved crop chemicals.

Overall, many crop chemicals approved for use in organic farming have limited research on their human health effects. For example, bacillus thuringiensis carries some notable safety warnings, but related illnesses are difficult to identify because it’s often grouped with Bacillus cereus during testing due to their genetic similarity. Spinosad is generally low in acute toxicity, though the EFSA has flagged potential reproductive and endocrine risks. There are also few human studies on neem oil (azadirachtin), thymol, and food-grade diatomaceous earth. In addition, some evidence suggests that organic foods experience recalls at higher-than-expected rates due to processing issues such as bacterial contamination.

This is where it’s worth raising a point about how natural crop chemicals are evaluated and how the naturalistic fallacy fits into the discussion. For example, in the United States, the FDA can designate substances as safe for use in foods without requiring any premarket study. These items often receive a GRAS designation, which stands for “generally recognized as safe.” The FDA defines GRAS status as a collection of factors described as:

“…it is generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures (or, in the case of a substance used in food prior to 1958, through experience based on common use in food) to be safe under the conditions of its intended use.“

And it’s that phrase — “or, in the case of a substance used in food prior to 1958, through experience based on common use in food” — where many substances, not just organic crop chemicals, can slip through loopholes. For example, trans fats were long protected under the GRAS framework and have since been banned from food products in many countries.

That said, GRAS does have plenty of logic and reasonable use. We can’t study everything, and there’s a degree of good faith and practicality that has to come with regulation. Still, when it comes to natural substances that can kill living things or bacteria that spread in similar ways to conventional ones, the same level of scientific scrutiny should apply.

Because of all this, I can’t confidently say that organic practices or crop chemicals are any safer (or worse) than conventional ones. To be clear, the overall risk for both is quite low, especially if you practice basic food safety. My point isn’t that your organic food is going to make you sick, but that both systems deserve the same critical eye. If you’re concerned, a good scrub and rinse give peace of mind either way. 

Overall take-home

One of the most common misconceptions about organic farming is that its goal is to produce healthier food. While that could be an outcome, the original intent was to improve agricultural practices while minimizing damage to soil health. When it comes to producing healthier food, we’re still figuring out the best paths forward and learning about the challenges on all sides.

It’s easy to assume organic is safer, but both conventional and organic high-yield systems come with trade-offs. The idea that “small is good” and “big is bad” oversimplifies a much more complex reality. As we’ve seen, “natural” doesn’t always mean safer or more effective, and synthetic isn’t automatically harmful. Comparing organic and conventional farming in absolute terms probably misses the point, but for now, that’s where much of the science (and debate) still focuses.

If there’s a hopeful takeaway, it’s that both systems continue to improve and address their problems more effectively. We’re getting better at balancing efficiency and safety, and for now, that’s a good place to land.

The post Are Organic Foods Healthier and Safer Than Conventional? appeared first on MacroFactor.

This article looks at how alcohol affects body composition and whether there’s still room for it in your goals.

Let’s dig in. 

What is alcohol? 

Alcohol (specifically ethanol) is produced by fermenting yeast with the sugars in fruits or grains. It contains energy but doesn’t provide any functional support to your body or its processes. Calorie-wise, alcohol provides about 7 Calories per gram, though the energy cost of metabolizing it is roughly 15 percent. Because of that, you’ll sometimes see net values of around 5.7 to 6.2 Calories per gram reported in the literature.

When you drink alcohol, it’s absorbed into your bloodstream and sent mostly to your liver, where it’s broken down into acetate that your body can use as fuel. You can’t store alcohol like fat, and it’s difficult to convert it to fat, even at higher intakes. However, your body prioritizes clearing alcohol as quickly as possible. So, if you drink heavily over time, your liver has to keep breaking down ethanol. To do that, your body suppresses fat oxidation, which can cause fat to build up in liver cells. Over time, that buildup can lead to alcohol-related fatty liver disease.

As with any drug, the dose makes the poison. While body weight plays a role in how alcohol is processed, total body water and lean mass also matter. Alcohol is water-soluble, so it distributes mostly into body water rather than fat. Because women typically have less total body water than men, the same amount of alcohol can lead to higher blood alcohol levels for most women. This is one reason intake charts aren’t just separated by body weight, but also by sex.

Other factors come into play too, such as food in the stomach, enzyme activity, age, or even how often someone drinks. Ultimately, each person has their own alcohol elimination rate. When looking at studies, you might also find that papers define it in slightly different ways, but generally speaking, this serves as a good starting point.

Quick research caveat 

Before we get into what the research says, it’s worth noting that much of what we know about alcohol’s effects on body composition comes from observational research, not direct cause-and-effect trials. There are some controlled dose studies and mechanistic work, but alcohol can be very harmful at high doses. It’s a drug, after all. So while it’s possible to measure people’s existing drinking habits in observational studies, deliberately instructing participants to drink heavily for weeks or months isn’t great ethically.

Because of the ethical and practical issues around studying alcohol, much of the more detailed mechanistic work comes from animal or in vitro studies. While associative data can be supported by known biological pathways, other variables also play a role. For example, alcohol isn’t just an energy source; it’s also part of foods and beverages that contain other energy sources. That can make it harder to tell how much alcohol itself contributes to fat mass gain compared with other energy-containing nutrients.

In short, when examining body composition in the context of alcohol, it helps to take a multifaceted view and consider both direct and indirect effects, as well as their impact over time. This approach is especially important since much of the existing evidence is associative rather than causal.

Factors of body composition 

The primary focus of body composition is understanding the ratio of muscle mass to fat mass. It’s more than just body weight; it also covers other tissue and water content outside of just muscle and fat.

When looking at alcohol, there are a few ways it can affect body composition. Some are obvious, like extra Calories adding to body fat. Others are less direct, such as alcohol lowering sleep quality, which can affect fat or skeletal muscle.

Overall, we are looking for links and possible reasons why adding alcohol to your diet could affect things versus just having the basic three macronutrients of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. 

Does alcohol contribute to increases in fat mass?

Alcohol itself doesn’t directly contribute to fat gain. While it contains Calories, it’s difficult for alcohol to be converted to fat on its own, and your body prioritizes burning it off since it can’t store it. However, because most people consume alcohol alongside carbohydrates, fat, and protein, it can become easier to enter a Calorie surplus. Any fat you consume during that time is more likely to be stored, which is the general pathway to an increase in fat mass.

So, the gain in body fat comes from the increase in overall energy intake, not from alcohol itself turning into fat.

In this section, we’ll look at how alcohol can push you into a surplus, whether it’s due to adding extra Calories, making it harder to control how much you eat, or indirectly affecting sleep.

How alcohol influences total energy intake

While there are clear links showing that alcohol can increase short-term food intake, the relationship between alcohol and weight gain is more complicated.

A recent systematic review of seven cohort studies found no clear link between moderate alcohol consumption (defined as one or fewer drinks per day for women and two or fewer for men) and changes in body weight or waist circumference. For men, there was no difference at all, and for women, there’s even some evidence that moderate drinking may be linked to slightly less change in weight.

Looking at extra Calories specifically, a systematic review of 22 controlled trials using doses from about 8 to 56 grams of alcohol found that participants consumed more total Calories when alcohol was included, but most of those Calories came from the alcohol itself. In other words, they ate about the same amount of food but added the drinks on top. This lends some possible explanations as to why swapping out Calorie-containing drinks in studies can lead to weight loss.

For heavier drinking, a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of 127 observational studies found that high alcohol intake was associated with greater odds of being overweight or having obesity. Heavy drinkers also had higher odds of carrying more fat around their waist. This trend shows up across different populations and cultures. For example, a large Irish survey found that increasing beyond light drinking was linked to higher waist circumference and BMI, even when controlling for other factors. A similar finding appeared in Korean men, where binge drinkers had a higher risk of obesity compared with non-binge drinkers.

It’s worth noting that frequency isn’t always the same as quantity. Lean et al and O’Donovan et al both found that frequent, light-to-moderate drinking (a drink most days, for example) doesn’t necessarily lead to higher BMI or weight gain. When total intake stays low, more frequent drinking appears to be more neutral than infrequent but heavier drinking sessions. In other words, it seems to be more of a quantity issue than a frequency one.

It’s also worth noting that this quantity pattern can shift when looking at alcohol use disorders. For example, it’s not uncommon to see underweight heavy drinkers. If someone gets most of their Calories from alcohol but little actual food, they can lose mass overall. To be clear, that isn’t the goal. As we’ll discuss, excess alcohol intake can lead to a loss of muscle mass. And since this article is about body composition, it’s worth caring what your body is composed of. Still, it highlights that when it comes to drinking, it’s not always “drink more, gain more.”

More indirect effects

When it comes to other factors, alcohol can lower resistance to eating and chip away at self-control systems, or disinhibition. In other words, without a drink you might stop eating sooner, while with a drink you might eat more later. One study looking at undergraduates found that if participants had a drink within a day, they were more likely to report overeating on that same day.

Regarding sleep, we recently published an article exploring how sleep can affect body composition. While there isn’t much direct research linking sleep, alcohol, and body composition, we can look at indirect pathways. For example, alcohol can influence sleep quality or duration, which in turn may affect body composition.

One systematic review examined how alcohol affects sleep in healthy adults. It found that moderate drinking could delay or change the quality of REM sleep, while heavier drinking could increase overall nighttime sleep disruption. A long-term twin study also found that, regardless of genetics or shared family factors, frequent drinking can worsen sleep quality over time. This doesn’t necessarily mean these effects always lead to weight gain, but the associations are there.

Quick recap

Drinking and weight gain aren’t as black and white as you might expect. Alcohol adds to your total Calories, but for some people, there can be a balancing effect that keeps body fat stable. For others, as drinking quantity or frequency increases, it can become harder to manage overall intake.

Either way, cutting liquid Calories can make it easier to maintain or lose weight. If you’re struggling with either of those goals, alcohol is often the first thing to go.

Does alcohol affect muscle mass?

As we’ve seen, alcohol intake is a bit more nuanced when it comes to changes in fat mass or waist circumference. But what about alcohol as a potential hindrance to muscle repair or growth? Are things just as murky?

When it comes to muscle and lean mass, dose seems to matter most. Mechanistically, alcohol can suppress mTOR signaling, which may blunt muscle protein synthesis and have an anti-anabolic effect. While direct effects of smaller doses are harder to test in humans, cell and animal studies show that even lower amounts of alcohol can affect how muscle cells use quick energy or handle sugar. In short, we know there are some mechanistic effects, but let’s look at a few human studies at different doses to get a clearer picture.

We’ll start with a relatively unconventional study, as it’s not a traditional resistance training study, but it’s worth including because it used a relatively low dose of alcohol and followed participants over 10 weeks. In this BEER-HIIT study, individuals completed two HIIT sessions per week while consuming either a regular beer, the equivalent amount of vodka, a non-alcoholic beer, or sparkling water. All training groups lost some fat mass and gained lean mass, and moderate alcohol intake didn’t blunt these effects. These lean mass gains were modest, but what’s interesting from a real-world perspective is that participants who stayed weight stable still gained lean mass despite having a beer or two a day. Overall, it didn’t make much difference.

A recent 2025 cross-sectional study looked at nearly 20,000 adults and grouped them into four categories: never drinkers, mild drinkers, moderate drinkers, and heavy drinkers. Moderate intake, which in this case was even slightly higher than what some countries define as moderate drinking, was roughly 30–60 g per day for men and 20–50 g per day for women, or about 2–4 drinks daily. This range didn’t show a notable decrease in fat-free mass. However, heavier drinking (more than 60g per day for men and 50g per day for women, or roughly 4–5 drinks or more per day) was linked to lower fat-free mass, especially in men. In short, higher intake seems to bring a slightly higher (but still relatively small) risk of fat-free mass loss for men.

What about intake levels that mirror a more intense night of drinking or partying?

A study by Parr et al looked at how alcohol affects muscle recovery when consumed right after a tough resistance training and cardio session. They found that heavier alcohol intake (about 1.5 g per kilogram, or roughly 6–12 standard drinks for most people) blunted the usual post-workout rise in protein synthesis. While protein intake helped, muscle protein synthesis was 24% lower with alcohol plus protein and 37% lower with alcohol plus carbs compared with protein alone. To be fair, that’s a lot of alcohol, but together these studies show that as intake increases, the effects on muscle recovery and growth become clearer.

Putting that all together, a systematic review of human studies found that moderate to heavier alcohol intake can reduce muscle protein synthesis and affect other factors, such as lowering testosterone and raising cortisol. One thing to note is that most of these studies were conducted in younger adults, so for aging individuals, where recovery already tends to be slower, adding a suppression factor like alcohol probably doesn’t help.

Quick recap

More than weight gain, there seems to be a clearer dose-response relationship when it comes to muscle and lean mass. Lower doses of alcohol likely aren’t a big deal for those trying to preserve or build lean mass, but higher doses can interfere with those efforts and probably aren’t the best idea.

Practical takeaways

If you’re trying to lose fat:
Remember that alcohol adds Calories and extra energy to your meals. From a nutritional standpoint, when you’re in a deficit, you only have so many Calories to cover your essential macronutrients and a solid mix of micronutrients. Allocating deficit Calories to alcohol usually isn’t the best move unless your daily deficit is small. In general, avoiding alcohol in a deficit is probably the best call — or at least keeping it to the smallest serving you can. I’ve always been a fan of saving alcohol for maintenance days. So if you want to enjoy your weekend, consider aiming for a smaller deficit or none at all if you plan on drinking.

If you’re trying to gain muscle:
When you’re trying to gain muscle, you have a bit more wiggle room since you’re hopefully already covering your essential nutrient bases. It’s possible that alcohol could help you add extra Calories, but it’s still worth keeping it reined in. Heavier doses of alcohol are where we see more catabolic activity and less support for an anabolic environment. A little, even if frequent, seems to be fine, but it’s smart to keep an eye on both dose and frequency if you’re trying to protect your gains.

A few practical tips: 

Keep in mind that alcohol content can vary widely, even within the same type of drink. For example, one 12oz beer might be 4.7% ABV, while another could be 9.8%. That means a stronger beer could contain about 20g of alcohol in a single serving.

Swapping alcohol Calories for carbohydrate Calories can help you stay on track with your other macros. For example, if you have a 200-Calorie drink, you can think of that as roughly 50g of carbs swapped out. Small adjustments like that make fitting a drink or two into your day much less stressful, especially when Calories are tight.

There’s some evidence suggesting that drinking closer to bedtime can cause more sleep disruption. Finish drinking at least three hours before bed. Generally speaking, the earlier, the better.

I’m a big believer in logging all days of eating behavior whenever possible. Outside of vacations or intentional “off” periods to give yourself a mental break, it’s useful to see what your weekends or typical break days really look like. If alcohol is involved, you’ll get a clearer view of how much you’re actually taking in and how it might affect things like food intake, sleep, or recovery.

If you’re using MacroFactor, logging drinks along with meals makes it much easier to spot patterns and adjust without guesswork. The app tracks Calories from alcohol as “blue” Calories under “Other.” Keep in mind that “Other” Calories can also include energy not directly attributable to alcohol.

Take home

For the most part, these findings place alcohol in a mostly neutral or negative category, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. What might surprise some people is that small amounts of alcohol, even daily, don’t automatically lead to muscle loss or weight gain. As mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to pin down a direct cause-and-effect relationship, especially at lower doses. There are plenty of other factors involved, like how walkable your environment is, the quality of fats and carbohydrates in your diet, or your overall daily activity.

That said, you don’t have to be a health maximalist to see that alcohol doesn’t offer much nutritionally. For the same Calories, you’ll almost always get more value from food. And that’s really the point when it comes to body composition: 150 Calories from a beer or 150 Calories from a chicken breast? It’s an easy call. Alcohol is a Calorie-dense drug, and there’s no getting around that. In higher amounts, it’s also not doing much to help recovery or muscle growth.

TL;DR: A little alcohol is probably fine for most body composition goals. A lot is probably a bad idea.

The post How Does Alcohol Affect Body Composition? appeared first on MacroFactor.

In this article, we’ll look at what to expect with aging in general, how menopause can add its own effects, and what this all means regarding body composition, strength, and performance. Hopefully, this will provide some guidance on how to approach this phase of your life (or better understand it for clients or a loved one). 

Let’s dig in.

Stages, symptoms, and hormonal shifts 

Menopause is currently defined as going 12 consecutive months without ovulation or regular follicle activity, not due to another cause like amenorrhea from illness or medical treatment. The time before and around this transition is typically referred to as perimenopause, while the period after things stabilize is called postmenopause. Age ranges vary, but the median age per the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) is around 52. 

I think the simplest way to approach this conversation is to view menopause as a collective transition. Menopause isn’t a single event; it’s a series of gradual changes that unfold over many years. It’s also a shift in a wide range of hormones, and aging itself is part of that process. 

From a testing perspective, on an ideal level, we’d see repeated blood measures over weeks, months, or even years to gain a better picture of different phases. But from a practical and cost level, you can see how that wouldn’t be very easy to execute. Therefore, you can imagine how a single blood draw in a clinical setting could give you a snapshot, but it’s more like one corner piece of a much larger puzzle. Symptom tracking helps fill in those gaps, but as you’d expect, many of the symptoms are vague or overlap with other conditions.

So, the first thing I want to emphasize here is this: If you’ve heard people say that it’s tricky or “we just don’t know” certain things about menopause, that’s not a cop-out. It’s a reflection of how complex, expensive, and varied this area of research is. That said, I’m also not a fan of using that uncertainty as a license to throw out wild takes. We do have a solid foundation in the mechanistic understanding of hormones and how they interact in the body. And from that, we can build a pretty strong framework.

We could delve into the details of individual hormones, but that’s not the point of this article. For example, estrone (E1) is also an estrogen, and its levels can actually rise slightly after menopause due to conversion in body fat, though it’s much less potent than estradiol. So, it’s not quite accurate to say there’s no estrogen after menopause or that only estrogen drops. It’s more accurate to say that the ratios shift and estradiol (an estrogen) level drops more significantly.

So, I won’t break down every hormone here; I might reference how a few values shift to illustrate key points. Just know that there’s a lot of interaction going on behind the scenes, and what I’m covering barely scratches the surface. In a real-world setting, things often go back to symptoms versus frequent blood tests. 

Separating aging from menopause 

I don’t want to assume too much in this article, so let’s briefly touch on the topic of aging.

All individuals undergo different phases of hormonal changes throughout their lives. To be honest, regardless of sex, we’re never really in one stable state. From infancy to adulthood to midlife, there is a range of changes, from subtle to significant swings. From one person to another, it’s also hard to lock down what counts as ideal. That said, this article focuses specifically on body composition, performance, and strength. And when that’s the focus, the traits that help most people maintain or improve those things do tend to decline after midlife.

In Janssen et al, researchers used full-body MRI scans to measure skeletal muscle in 468 adults aged 18 to 88. They found that there is a gradual shift in muscle loss that starts earlier than most people expect. And while relative muscle mass (percentage of body weight) can start to decline at earlier ages, absolute muscle mass does not tend to drop noticeably until our mid-40s or later, with this pattern observed in both men and women. 

With performance, velocity and power drop a lot more sharply as we age. Your late 20s are typically when you’ll start to see significant shifts begin. Strength tends to hold out a bit longer, but even with consistent training and good nutrition, it gets harder to maintain as we move past our 60s. It’s important to note, there can be differences in severity and where those changes show up. But to be clear, across the board, we tend to get weaker, slower, and a little fatter as we age.

So, with that said, is menopause any different? More specifically, are there things that distinguish simply getting older from aging while also undergoing the transition of menopause? That’s the point of this article, because aging itself brings valid challenges, and I don’t think it’s easy for any of us. But where is that line between aging and menopause?

Body composition and menopause 

With body composition, we are looking at changes in the ratio of muscle mass to fat mass. In this instance, researchers will watch for these changes in individuals going through the stages of menopause, as well as the general transition to midlife. 

Let’s start with fat mass, specifically. Does body fat increase during menopause, and does waist circumference go up?

The short answer is: Often, yes. But it’s more nuanced than saying, “You just start gaining fat during menopause.”

A common knee-jerk explanation for body changes during menopause is that metabolism just slows down. But that’s not quite right. Greg wrote a great article on how basal metabolic rate changes with age, and the gist is: BMR declines gradually over the decades, not suddenly at menopause. So while there is a slow drop with age, we don’t typically see a sharp cliff during the transition from pre- to postmenopause.

Now this isn’t to say we don’t gain actual fat mass as we age. Generally speaking, most people gain weight across adulthood, which can add up over time, though it often levels off or even reverses slightly after the 70s. We also decrease activity as we age and create an overall condition that lends itself to easier weight gain. 

With that said, fat gain often feels different during menopause, especially in the midsection. It is common to hear things like, “I’ve been doing the same things for years, and now I’m gaining belly fat when I never used to.” And while fat gain still requires a Calorie surplus relative to your personal energy expenditure, people still seem to notice a shift. What is it that’s taking place?

Alterations of fat distribution during menopause 

As discussed earlier, hormone levels shift during menopause, most notably, estradiol drops. This drop can have a meaningful impact on fat storage patterns and distribution. Before menopause, fat tends to be stored more in the hips and thighs, and this is often described as being more “pear” shaped in appearance. As estradiol declines, the pattern shifts toward more central storage, particularly visceral fat in the abdominal region. The result is a more pronounced stomach and a rounder midsection. And because most of us are accustomed to seeing our bodies gain or lose fat in familiar areas, this kind of change can feel more noticeable. You might not notice small fluctuations in your hips or thighs, but if you’ve never really carried weight around your middle before, it’s going to stand out when you all of a sudden gain in that region.

A meta-analysis from Ambikairajah et al took a look at this and lent some interesting inferences to the conversation. It analyzed data from over 1 million women across 201 cross-sectional studies and 11 longitudinal studies and found that while fat mass increases with age, it’s not necessarily tied to menopause. The study also noted that while there can be an increase in fat centrally located in the stomach, there can be a decrease in fat in the legs — essentially a shift away from a pear-shaped distribution toward a more apple-shaped one.

Now, this study rests a lot on cross-sectional data, but we do see similar findings popping up suggesting that during or after menopause, fat distribution tends to shift even without big bounces in overall fat or BMI during that same period of time. 

Another factor to consider is the gradual loss of lean mass that often happens alongside fat gain. In Greendale et al, researchers observed a small but measurable decrease in lean mass (about −0.06 kg per year) across the menopausal transition. On its own, it’s not a huge shift. But when you mix a little lean mass loss with a little increase in fat gain (even if it’s just a distribution change), those subtle changes contribute to changes in body composition.

This aligns with findings from other research on lean mass loss. One longitudinal study of middle-aged Finnish women saw lean and muscle mass drop across the menopausal transition, even after accounting for aging. Another showed lean mass losses were closely tied to vasomotor symptoms and stage of menopause. With this said, menopause doesn’t have to stop one’s ability to gain lean mass, but it might lead to a need for a tad more resistance training volume or intensity than is typical for certain populations and their training styles. 

Quick recap

None of this changes the basics: Calories and daily energy expenditure still matter. However, menopause alters the hormonal landscape in ways that favor fat gain and changes the pattern of fat distribution while making it more challenging to maintain lean mass. In short, there is reason to believe that body composition can become harder to manage, even if your habits haven’t changed. That said, training and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are viable mitigators. 

Strength and performance during menopause

As discussed earlier, aging itself presents challenges and affects both performance and strength in men and women. The lingering question might be: Is there a factor beyond aging that affects menopause and leads to performance or strength decreases? 

From a mechanistic standpoint, we can examine several factors that occur when estrogen levels drop. For instance, we can see decreases in neuromuscular function and estrogen plays a role in protecting from muscle damage. Together, these changes can lead to less power and strength and slower recovery during and after menopause.

One study that examines this angle is from Bondarev et al. They examined women between the ages of 47 and 55 and compared their physical performance, which included measures such as handgrip strength and lower body muscle power. They categorized women based on hormone levels and menstrual history, with the mean age difference between premenopausal and postmenopausal women being approximately 2 years, so age differences were relatively modest. The postmenopausal women had lower grip strength and less body muscle power than their premenopausal counterparts.

The study also notes that women with higher physical activity levels generally performed better than those with low activity, regardless of menopause stage. This suggests that menopause may contribute to reduced strength and power beyond the effects of aging; however, staying active can help counteract some of these effects.

A more recent 2025 study included pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal women randomly assigned to either a control group or a relatively light resistance training program (meaning this wasn’t pushing anyone’s 1RM). Even with the lighter loads, menopause status didn’t affect the adaptations to training, including women with the lowest estradiol levels. Something else to note is this study excluded HRT users (which I will get into in a moment). These studies show that even light resistance and maintaining physical activity can still produce a positive training response across different hormonal states.

Now, much of the training research on the topic of menopause tends to focus less on what specifically happens to strength and power during the transition from the start of perimenopause to the postmenopause transition and more on how implementing exercise can help offset negative and common menopausal symptoms. Overall, it seems like there are small effects that can take place with menopause, but I think a fair question to examine is how much menopause has to throw you off your game. I think a big tell would be if we saw a lot of big shifts that happened with the introduction of hormone therapy.   

Quick recap

There appear to be small effects (outside of aging) that can impact individuals during the menopause transition. With that said, training alone seems to have a pretty meaningful and positive impact to counteract a lot of these effects. 

Does hormone replacement therapy help?

Now, the reason behind these changes during menopause from a mechanistic standpoint seems to be quite complicated. We learned that estrogen drops more sharply and dramatically during the transition through menopause. Estrogen seems to help maintain the pool of satellite cells in muscle and support receptor signaling that aids recovery and limits muscle damage. And while debated, there could be effects of estrogen loss on joint stiffness or osteoarthritis, which can all play a role relevant to strength and power. On the body comp side, estrogen could help reduce visceral fat gain.  

There are other hormone-related factors in the mix, too. For example, adiponectin levels tend to increase on average; however, in women who gain visceral fat during menopause, those levels sometimes decrease. Higher FSH levels have also been associated with increased fat mass and changes in body composition, although the mechanisms underlying these associations are not yet fully understood.

So, the obvious question is: Does HRT help with any of that? And to be clear, I’m not talking about relief from hot flashes or other vasomotor symptoms, just muscle, performance, and body comp for now. 

One review from Javed et al looked at 12 randomized controlled trials and found no statistically significant difference in lean mass between hormone users and non-users. Another review from Xu et al, which looked at 20 studies on strength outcomes like handgrip and knee extension, also found that HRT didn’t lead to notable improvements. A systematic review and meta-analysis by Nolan et al looked at eight studies comparing oral contraceptive pill users with naturally menstruating women. Hypertrophy, power, and strength were not statistically significantly different between groups. And while these findings are specific to oral contraceptives, they illustrate how adding exogenous sex hormones did not meaningfully change training adaptations.

An earlier meta-analysis and systematic review found more positive outcomes but rested a little heavily on animal models. And it’s also important to recognize that hormone therapy protocols and dosages have changed a lot through the years, so heterogeneity across these studies is high. But we aren’t seeing that the hormone changes themselves are making big swings in strength and performance. 

What this all does suggest is while there are biological mechanistic possibilities, hormone therapy alone isn’t likely to be enough. And in general, that tracks pretty well with what we see about resistance training and aging across sexes. If you want to maintain muscle, strength, and performance, you have to keep training for it, and that’s going to be a bigger factor in this situation until we hit the next aging level. 

Let’s go one step further though and see if utilizing HRT with training gives a better advantage. 

Interestingly, there aren’t a ton of these studies, and some of the older ones tend to use more outdated HRT methods, but I think it’s enough to have a conversation. An older study by Sipila and Poutamo compared a one-year program of strength and performance training with and without the use of HRT and found that while trainees in both groups improved, there were slightly larger increases in strength and muscle cross-sectional area in those who utilized HRT. This could suggest the possibility of a synergistic effect. 

A more recent study from Vrist Dam et al found that training with HRT led to larger gains in muscle cross-sectional area and fat-free mass compared to a placebo group. This research group seems to be examining this area and released another study finding the advantage of HRT use with training. So, all of this points to a possibility that estrogen could help preserve muscle better alongside resistance training but, on its own, is probably not going to make any noted difference.

And as discussed earlier, hormone therapy does appear to slow or even shift fat distribution. Studies comparing women using HRT to those who aren’t show that users tend to carry less abdominal fat. However, once therapy stops, that fat distribution usually returns to the typical postmenopausal pattern. 

I haven’t touched much on how common menopause symptoms can also affect performance, strength, and body composition. Poor sleep is one of the most obvious examples, as it’s extremely common during menopause. As discussed in a recent article, consistent and quality sleep are important for easier weight management. On top of that, hot flashes or erratic body temperature could certainly tank motivation and focus. Hormone therapy could help these things in many individuals. 

That said, hormone therapy is a personal decision and full of complex nuances. For example, while estrogen could support better fat distribution, too much without progesterone can cause uterine thickening and increase cancer and stroke risks. That’s why most treatments pair estrogen with progesterone. So, if you’re considering HRT, it’s worth working closely with someone who knows your health history and can help you balance the benefits with the risks.

Quick recap 

Hormone therapy appears to be most effective in slowing the fat distribution patterns that occur during menopause. With strength and performance, there could be a slight advantage in using hormone therapy alongside training, but the use of hormone therapy alone isn’t likely to do much. Lastly, though not the main topic of this article, if someone is affected negatively in their weight management and training by some of the more common side effects of menopause, hormone therapy might be an aid but should be individualized and discussed in detail with an expert physician. 

Final thoughts

What we’ve covered so far is that aging is a very real factor in decreasing performance and strength and in changing body composition; however, menopause also plays its role. With that said, I think that role tends to be viewed as more intensive regarding sharp losses of strength or huge swings in fat gain, and as you can see, I don’t think it has to be that severe. I find myself struggling to find the balance between motivation and the sometimes harsh reality of aging. Sure, top-tier performance peaks years before menopause, but that doesn’t mean you stop striving to do your best. You can certainly lose fat during menopause and even maintain or build some strength. Overall, you probably don’t need to adjust your expectations much beyond what you’d already do for aging in general.

The biggest positive takeaway here should be that training is significantly important for having a better experience during menopause, from body composition to strength to performance. And there’s even evidence to suggest that it could be a little helpful for some associated symptoms. However, when it comes to the more intensive vasomotor symptoms of menopause, it seems like many need more than just exercise. 

While I don’t want to come across as overly optimistic, embracing basic self-care habits (like regular exercise) puts you in a much better position to manage the transition to menopause. It won’t erase the realities of menopause, but it can help you navigate this stage with more confidence and, hopefully, a little less fear. 

The post How Menopause Impacts Body Composition, Strength, and Performance  appeared first on MacroFactor.

In this article, I’ll cover how sleep affects hunger and performance, and how training and nutrition, in turn, affect sleep. If you’re trying to optimize this part of your life, take a moment for this one. You might pick up a helpful tip or two.

Let’s tuck in.

A little background on sleep

Sleep is a series of behaviors and patterns that lead to changes in our brain activity and physiological responses (e.g., breathing, body temperature, and heart rate). The positive side effects of sleep lead to improved neurological health, muscle recovery, and immune health (just to name a few). 

Most of this article focuses on how sleep affects performance and body composition, and how those goals can also influence your sleep in return. You’ll see a few terms come up along the way that aren’t always part of everyday conversation, so I’ve defined the ones that might trip you up (because many of them are similar but ultimately different). 

Caveat: This article doesn’t go into great detail on general health issues. That said, I do think it’s all pretty intertwined, and improvements in sleep tend to spill over into other areas, too. Better sleep usually means feeling and functioning better across the board.

Ideal sleep duration and quality

Generally speaking, most people looking into sleep duration want to know the “ideal” amount that offers the most benefit with the least downsides. However, the research on this topic relies heavily on observational data, which can muddy the waters a bit. For instance, some studies link longer sleep with worse health outcomes, but that might be because people with poor health could sleep more, not because extra sleep causes harm. The same goes for things like phone use before bed. It’s easy to assume that nighttime smartphone use causes poor sleep, but it might be that people already struggling with sleep or stress are more likely to reach for their phones late at night​. All these things can bring nuance to the table, and are always something to keep in mind.

With all that said, you’re usually going to find recommendations in a range of 7–8 hours per night associated with better health outcomes (here and here). However, there’s some flexibility. For most people, something in the 6- to 9-hour range is likely fine, as long as it’s consistent and not chronically neglected. Additionally, what can be just as important as duration is regularity (how consistent your sleep is from day to day).

When it comes to sleep, most people have a pretty good sense of whether theirs is working. If you feel rested after 6.5 hours, you’re probably right to trust that. And if you need closer to 9 to feel human, that’s valid, too. I’m not a huge fan of rigid sleep trackers or hard rules like “you must get 8 hours.” In fact, subjective feelings (like tiredness, alertness, or feeling restored) are often ways people evaluate their sleep. So, don’t get caught up in a perfect number, just focus on how you feel and your goals.

How sleep can affect weight management and body composition 

Weight regulation tends to get harder when sleep duration drops below what works for you. In general, there’s a strong association between insufficient sleep and poor weight management. If we look at shorter sleep durations, we see small but consistent changes in appetite-regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin, and these hormonal shifts can become more pronounced as sleep loss intensifies. These effects can also be more pronounced in people with obesity, and can all culminate in a cycle of less sleep, more hunger, and ultimately harder weight management.

Additionally, if you’re not sleeping as much you’re likely spending more time feeling hungry while also having more eating opportunities. And if that extra food intake isn’t offset by increasing your energy expenditure, it can lead to gradual weight gain. To be clear, this doesn’t mean low sleep quality forces you to eat, but it can make food harder to resist. Sleep loss can also reduce your capacity for self-control, making it easier to give in to impulses and harder to stick to goals.

Lean mass retention is another angle when it comes to sleep and body composition. A classic crossover study by Nedeltcheva et al had participants trying to lose weight for 14 days, spending 5.5 hours in bed versus 8.5 hours in bed. Each participant went through both arms of the study, with a 3-month washout period between conditions. All meals were controlled, and their sleep took place in a lab setting.

While total weight loss was similar between the two conditions, the composition of that weight loss wasn’t. In the 8.5-hour sleep condition, participants lost about half fat mass and half lean mass. In the 5.5-hour condition, only about 20% of the lost weight was fat, with the rest coming from lean tissue. In other words, less sleep meant preserving less lean mass.

Longer-term data backs this up as well. A study from Song et al followed 19,770 adults and found that even when total sleep duration stayed the same, a decline in sleep quality showed more muscle loss and fat gain. This helps highlight that while sleep duration matters, sleep quality can play its own role in body composition over time.

To add one more layer, when we look at trying to maintain our weight, the sentiment seems to be the same. One study followed adults with obesity after losing some initial weight (everyone pretty much lost the same amount of weight) and followed them for a 1-year maintenance period. Those who averaged less than 6 hours of sleep per night regained almost 5 kilograms over the year. Those who slept 6 hours or more? They mostly kept the weight off. This suggests that sleep could influence the sustainability of weight loss. 

Take home? Whether you’re trying to lose weight or maintain it, your sleep plays a bigger role than you might give credit. 

How sleep affects performance

Shifting to performance, inadequate sleep also creates a hormonal environment that’s less favorable for recovery, muscle repair, or training outcomes. For instance, building up a “sleep debt” (consistently getting less sleep than your body needs) can increase your chance of poor muscle recovery. And in general, this ongoing state can reduce testosterone, IGF-1, and growth hormone levels, while also increasing cortisol (chronic cortisol increase is not something we really want). All of this can shift us toward a catabolic state that hinders ideal muscle repair, which is especially unideal for athletes.

Now, poor sleep will affect different types of training in different ways. A systematic review and meta-analysis from Craven et al examined acute sleep loss and its impact on physical performance. In this instance, sleep loss was defined as 6 hours or less (with the baseline being greater than 6 hours). Overall performance drops for all types of training was -7.56%, with the most affected performance being skill (-20.9%) and the least affected being strength (-2.85%). 

Looking at this practically, you’re likely to see that your top-end strength holds up okay, but the average amount of reps or sets feels harder than they probably should. Additionally, anything involving more precise skills could suffer the most (e.g., you might have a harder time putting a basketball in a hoop).  

The Craven study also discusses that as the day goes on, performance can decrease, and we are more affected by sleep loss. And that intuitively makes a lot of sense as we are running through resources as each hour passes from waking after less-than-ideal sleep. If it’s one instance here or there, it’s not likely to be an issue you can’t solve with a little caffeine or a nap. But if it’s ongoing, you’ll likely benefit from addressing your sleep schedule. 

One final thing to address: even with poor sleep, you still get benefits from training. Ideally, you’d have the best of both worlds (consistent sleep quality and consistent training), but it’s still worthwhile to train during periods when your sleep is less than ideal. For example, while sleep loss can reduce muscle protein synthesis, exercise helps restore it. We also see better glucose control, and even with 1–2 hours of sleep reduction, we can protect our gains in strength and muscle. 

The worst-case scenario is poor sleep and no exercise. However, if you’re keeping up with your training, you’ll blunt some of the negative effects of poor sleep (and as we’ll discuss in a moment, exercise may even help improve your sleep over time).

Take home? Different types of training have different responses to low sleep quality. Skill work and endurance take the biggest hit, while max strength holds up a little better. With that said, it’s still best to keep training as it protects us from many of the negative impacts of sleep loss.   

How training and nutrition impact sleep

So far, we’ve looked at how sleep affects body composition and performance, but the relationship goes both ways. Behaviors like exercise habits or being in a deficit can also shape how well you sleep. Here are a few ways that show up in the research, and where small changes might help you sleep better.  

Exercise and its effect on sleep

One of the cleaner relationships we see is between physical activity and sleep quality. For instance, low daily activity is often linked to worse sleep quality, and generally, people who engage in regular moderate-to-vigorous physical activity tend to report better sleep. A 2025 meta-analysis by Zhou et al looked at 81 randomized controlled trials and 6,193 participants and found exercise improved both subjective sleep scores and objective sleep efficiency. It was also noted that the longer someone kept to a consistent exercise schedule, the more it seemed to benefit their sleep.

Another 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis looked at adults with obesity and also found that exercise improved both sleep quality (and not so surprisingly helped with weight loss). In short, exercise does seem to help with sleep. That said, one thing to consider is timing. A recent review looked at the effects of evening workouts at different intensities and found that high-intensity workouts in the later evening could reduce REM sleep and possibly contribute to less sleep quality for some individuals. Note: More moderate or low-intensity exercise in the evening did not have the same effect. 

Weight loss and its effect on sleep

When it comes to weight loss and sleep, the relationship isn’t always straightforward. As we’ve discussed, there’s strong evidence that low sleep quality can make it harder to manage your weight. The reverse (whether losing weight helps you sleep better) can be slightly mixed.

People with obesity or obstructive sleep apnea often see improvements in sleep after losing weight, especially when excess weight contributes to airway obstruction. We can literally lose fat in our neck, tongue, or surrounding airway structures. A recent review found that weight reductions were linked with improvements in the apnea-hypopnea index. So, if someone’s weight physically interferes with breathing during sleep, weight loss is a realistic aid.

For healthy individuals, it can get a little more complicated. Some studies have found that caloric restriction can improve sleep quality, but for others, it might actually disrupt sleep, especially if it leads to weight cycling. In short, you should consider the effect your weight loss could have on your sleep.

Take home? Losing weight could make a big difference for something like sleep apnea. However, caloric restriction itself is a mixed bag and seems to depend on more variables. 

How to improve sleep (and make it work for you)

Sleep advice is a lot like fat loss advice in that it’s usually the boring stuff that works best. The goal here is to put together the pieces so you can take what’s useful, and apply it where it fits.

Decreasing sedentary behavior: As discussed, exercise is pretty beneficial for helping overall sleep quality. But even if you’re not participating in a formal training program, you’d likely benefit from decreasing too much consistent sedentary behavior and too long sitting stints. Try to do what you can to break up the day with walks outside and at least have some general step goals, as even low-impact physical activity could help sleep quality.

Sleeping extension: You could say a secret ingredient to sleep health is more sleep. Sleep extension is about creating a larger window of possibility for sleep, especially if you’re habitually getting fewer than your ideal hours at night. For most people, this involves going to bed earlier versus sleeping later, but either way works. Sleep extension can help with weight management and performance, so it’s a pretty solid choice. 

I should note that sleep extension is not the same as “catching up” on sleep, where you use the weekend or a varied day of the week to catch up on sleep. While it’s better to get extra sleep where you can, that style of catching up on sleep isn’t the best choice for overall sleep health. It’s better to work on a consistent schedule.

Avoiding caffeine too late in the day: The tricky thing about caffeine is that everyone responds very differently. With caffeine, there is a range of half-life and periods that can affect sleep. For some, this can mean no caffeine, even 12 hours before bedtime. For others, they have way more leniency. It’s also good to test things for yourself because even if caffeine doesn’t affect sleep onset, it could still affect overall sleep quality. In short, test out your intake windows so you can find the best fit.

Naps: Like caffeine, naps affect people differently. For some, short naps (especially in the early to midafternoon) can boost performance, even if you’ve had a full night of sleep. For others, naps might interfere with nighttime sleep or leave you feeling groggy. The timing and length of naps seem to matter, with longer naps sometimes offering more benefit but also increasing the chance of sleep inertia. If you’re experimenting, starting with shorter naps (around 20–30 minutes) and leaving enough time between your nap and training session is a good place to start.

Constructive habits: While evidence is a little mixed across the board on the topic of sleep hygiene, there are some ideas (creating a repetitive bedtime schedule and reducing too much evening stimulation) that seem to work, especially when approached through the lens of habit formation. If you checked out our habit series, you know that triggers or environments can help you initiate behaviors without having to consciously act on them every time. What this means is something as simple as turning down the lights in your bedroom before you go to brush your teeth can start the process of getting you ready for bed. The more these cues occur in the same order and context, the more they become automatic and help you fall asleep. 

Take home

I’m one of those who really believes your bed (and the whole vibe of your bedroom) is worth the effort. And to be clear, you’ve got to test what works for you, but if you’re making an active effort to make sleep a priority, you’re probably going to see some small benefit from that alone. 

Lastly, a few tips: 

Stick to a sleep schedule. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just consistent. 

Watch the timing of your caffeine intake. For some people, that’s stopping at noon, and for others, it’s earlier.

Move more during the day. And if you can, walk outside during the daytime. 

During your normal sleep hours, try adding a little more time (sleep extension). Even if it’s going to bed 30 minutes earlier, it can make a difference. 

Use repeatable “winding down” cues. Start a bedtime routine of dimming the lights, brushing your teeth, opening up a book, or putting your sleep mask on your nightstand. Your body will start to notice. 

Go for the tried-and-true “boring” solutions: Give an honest shot at the basic stuff before experimenting with less research-supported methods. 

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