Muscle Glycogen 101 - Q & A

Question: I have a question for you in regards to muscle glycogen depletion during strenuous weight training. Say I’m working back and biceps (to failure) during a particular workout. Is muscle glycogen depleted from primarily those working muscles, or is it also pulled from other muscles in the body?  Scarlett H. / Birmingham, AL

Answer: Wow, someone has their thinking cap on!  Cool, I love technical questions like this!

Muscle glycogen (stored glucose) is used locally within the working muscle.  So, if you’re doing biceps curls, the glycogen used to fuel the curls would come from the biceps.

So, as Scarlett pointed out (in deleted text), you should eat to refuel your muscles from what they’ve just done.  If you just trained arms, then it won’t take as many carbs to replenish the glycogen as it would if you’d just done a high volume leg workout. 

This is why I typically have my clients do high-carb days on days they trained larger body parts (if they’re doing a body part split).

Great question, Scarlett!

~ Dr Clay

Posted on July 2, 2008 by drclay

Filed under Nutrition Q & A | |



2 Responses to “Muscle Glycogen 101 - Q & A”

  1. vawayne Says:
    July 24th, 2008 at 6:47 am

    Hello doctor clay
    sorry if this is in the wrong place.
    I was looking at your Blending Size and Strength
    routine.I would like to try this but I workout
    at home.My job makes it hard to go to a gym.

    I have just a 300lb oly set only and power rack with pullup bar and parallel dip station thats it.
    I was wondering if you can give me a Blending Size and Strength routine for what I have.

    Thank you very much…

  2. drclay Says:
    July 30th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

    You’re right, your request is not in the right place, but we’ll still let you hang out around here:)

    While I can’t simply whip out a “Blending Size and Strength” routine for you to do at home - I have put that on my “to-do” list.

    I think that’s something many people could benefit from.

    For those of you who don’t know, Blending Size and Strength is a training routine I designed that has been VERY popular. I know it sounds like hype, but people from around the world have tried and loved the routine and the results it produced. Actually, it’s been the most popular thing I’ve published to date.

    Best,

    Dr Clay

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.