How long is the PWO 'window'?

**latitude** · 08-22-2010, 10:54 PM

What is the latest evidence? How long does this highly metabolic period sustain for?

**dominick2417** · 08-23-2010, 02:13 PM

As soon as you are finished lifting you should eat what you need to. Why wait 30 mins or 45 mins? As soon as you can possible eat afterword, you should eat then. I believe it is up to 30 minutes after intense exercise that your body will absorb about anything eaten. Milos Sarcev lets his athletes eat stuff like oatmeal cookies after their lifting sessions. Milos does this because the insulin spike makes transport of protein and glycogen replenishment quicker.

You could eat some protein powder and simple carbs immediately after to try and restore everything you lost. Then 30 minutes later you could eat again. I always eat my post post workout meal about 1.5-2hrs after my postworkout meal.

**gbrice75** · 08-23-2010, 02:21 PM

It's widely accepted that the 'magic window' lasts 1 - 1.5 hours after your workout.

**phrenetic** · 08-24-2010, 07:08 AM

I've been eating a banana and a whey shake in the 15 minutes between resistance training and my fight training. Gives me a hell of an energy boost and keeps my focus and intensity up better far more then if I had nothing.

Try to get my meal in at the 30 minute mark also, certainly never more then an hr later after finishing up. Having something between the two different workouts has been a real boost, I used to do them both with nothing but water, but I'd have epic sugar cravings after it and smash heaps of ginger beer or something worse, these days I dont get that, the fruit really helps, not much of a cheat food though

***D7M*** · 08-24-2010, 07:27 AM

Guys you won't "miss" you anabolic window at all.

Complete body protein synthesis (and glycogen replenishment!) is increased for up to 24 hours+ after exercise.

**HawaiianPride.** · 08-24-2010, 08:22 AM

Agree, just eat as soon as you can.

**MuscleScience** · 08-24-2010, 11:30 AM

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...3/?tool=pubmed

• Ingestion of amino acids after resistance exercise has been shown at many different time points in several studies to stimulate increases in muscle protein synthesis, cause minimal changes in protein breakdown and increase overall protein balance. It has not been conclusively determined what time point is optimal. Similar changes have been found for studies that have administered amino acids alone or with carbohydrate immediately upon completion of an acute exercise bout, 1 h after completion, 2 h after completion and 3 h after completion. Interestingly, ingesting nutrients before the exercise bout may have the most benefit of all the time points.

Read this as well.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...9163/table/T2/