Impact of meal’s glycemic index pre-exercise in the performance

Abstract

This study reviewed the effects of pre-exercise ingestion of high, moderate and low glycemic index (GI) meals on physical performance. Some studies have indicated the use of GI as a nutritional strategy to provide adequate metabolic state in the exercise, which constitutes an additional tool to optimize the availability of carbohydrate for exercise. The consumption of low glycemic index (LGI) meal has been recommended in the pre-exercise, so as result in lower glycemic response, in addition to spare glycogen stores during the exercise, increasing the performance. However, the results of the studies that examined the effect of GI of the meals ingested pre-exercise on physical performance are contradictory. Some studies revealed a positive association between ingestion of LGI or moderate GI meal and the improvement on performance, others observed no significant differences after consumption of meals differing in GI. However, it is worth mentioning that was not reported cases of performance decrease with the consumption of low or moderate GI diets before the exercise.