Because bodybuilding places high energy demands on the body to achieve an aesthetic goal, rice cakes, a source of refined carbohydrates, may play a functional role in the diets of some bodybuilders.
In the world of bodybuilding, achieving a lean and muscular physique tends to be a higher priority than optimizing nutrition just for the sake of health. Rice cakes are not a superfood, but they can provide quick energy in the form of quickly digestible carbohydrates and help you fuel up in time for your next training session.
Why are carbohydrates so important for bodybuilders?
When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks them down into glucose or sugar, you notice Cleveland Clinic. It then uses what it needs immediately for energy and converts the rest into a storage form called glycogen. That glycogen is stored in the liver or skeletal muscles, which it uses during exercise.
When you do any type of exercise, especially when it’s high intensity, your body breaks down glycogen and converts it into a compound called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which the body uses for energy and muscle contraction, according to investigation.
If you don’t have enough glycogen stored in your muscles, this can lead to lower endurance (which translates to shorter, less intense workouts) and reduced muscle contraction, notes a study.
High-intensity strength training is the foundation of most bodybuilding regimens, and many bodybuilders hit the gym twice a day to optimize muscle gain and fat loss. Performing these workouts is much more difficult if there is not enough glycogen in the muscles.
Because carbohydrates are critical for muscle function, according to a study in the International Journal of Exercise Science and others investigation, They play a key role in both phases (bulking, muscle building, and cutting, losing excess mass) of most bodybuilders’ diets.
In addition to ensuring glycogen stores are full, carbohydrates provide immediate energy, prevent the breakdown of proteins needed to build muscle, and support protein synthesis, or the creation of new proteins that the body uses to build muscle, notes a study published in Current research in physiology.
Low Glycemic Index Carbs vs. High Glycemic Index Carbs
Carbohydrates can be low or high on the glycemic index (GI), a system for measuring a food’s impact on blood glucose. While low GI carbohydrates are full of fiber and digest slowly, providing a more sustained release of glucose and consistent energy, high GI carbohydrates are low in fiber and digest quickly, providing a quick boost of energy.
Like most refined carbohydrates, rice cakes are a high GI food. In other words, they cause a faster and more significant rise in blood glucose and often provide additional carbohydrates that are converted to glycogen and stored in the muscles and liver.
High-GI, high-carbohydrate foods, such as rice cakes, may be an effective way for bodybuilders to quickly replenish muscle glycogen between high-intensity training sessions, notes investigation. Because rice cakes are low in fiber, they are also less likely to cause gastrointestinal symptoms like bloating, which aren’t ideal when preparing for a bodybuilding competition.
One study He also found that high-GI carbohydrates could help athletes who exercise at high intensity (particularly endurance runners) optimize muscle glycogen storage, meaning more energy stored in the muscles.
Benefits of rice cakes for bodybuilders
When looking for quick digestion, bodybuilders can opt for carbohydrate-rich foods that are not high in protein or fat. Rice cakes, with their high carbohydrate and low fiber content, can serve as a useful tool for reaching weight goals while maintaining enough energy for training.
According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)A single rice cake provides approximately:
- 7.5 grams (g) of carbohydrates
- 0.75 g of protein
- 0.25 g fat
Rice cakes are also low in calories, with only 35 calories per cake.
Investigation reports mixed results when it comes to how many carbs you really need to fuel an intense strength training session and whether the exact amount makes a big difference in performance.
However, one systemic review recommends eating 15g of carbs within three hours of training and increasing that amount if you do more than 10 sets per muscle group, or more than one workout in a day.
Since rice cakes contain only 0.4 g of fiber per cake, they are quickly digested and absorbed, so they can provide a good source of pre-workout energy. Eating two rice cakes within three hours of a workout could help a bodybuilder meet their energy needs without providing an excessive amount of calories or other macronutrients.
When to eat rice cakes
Rice cakes may serve different purposes for bodybuilders depending on whether they are in a muscle-building and bulking phase where they consume more calories and protein versus a phase of reducing carbs and calories while maintaining protein, according to a study.
During the bulking phase, rice cakes can serve as an easy source of fuel for your workouts. You could even follow the advice of some. investigation and combine them with protein to potentially optimize glycogen resynthesis, or the post-workout process of replenishing energy in your muscles.
On the other hand, if you’re losing body mass to prepare for a competition, rice cakes might be just the snack that will give you smaller doses of the necessary carbohydrates without any extra calories or fat.
