Post-Workout Replenishment for Weight Training

To Create a Herculean Body, You Cannot Eat Like a Chain-Smoking Supermodel

To create a herculean body, you cannot eat like a chain-smoking supermodel.

Kaz and Jon Pall, OG buffet terrorists. “Hi! We’re here for the all-you-can-eat buffet. We’ll need a table for ten!” Buffet owners didn’t want these two and their friends as regulars. Kaz weighs 320, Jon Pall 305. You can bet it took a mountain of food to keep these two fed. Kaz once said, “Milk is everything!”

Post-Workout Replenishment Before Shakes and Supplements

There is an interesting history behind the theory and practice of post-workout replenishment for weight training. Nowadays post-workout replenishment is often reduced to neat little shakes and supplements. That is not how it started out. No one gave a lot of thought to the idea of using calories to accelerate recovery and fuel muscle growth before the early iron pioneers, the powerlifting champions of the 60s, 70s and 80s, blazed the replenishment trail.

Powerlifting was formalized in the mid-1960s. Participants became aware that the lifters who were dominating were extremely thick and dense in relation to their height. Olympic weightlifters like Yurik Vardanyan had whippet-lean physiques and dominated the world. In powerlifting, size and power were everything. Tall, thin people did not become powerlifting champions. Everyone seriously into powerlifting was trying to push bodyweight upward, seeking more thickness, more muscle size, better leverage. It all equated to big lifts.

Why Powerlifters Ate Like Wild Bears

After a bar-bending, ball-busting, record-setting, endorphin-releasing, emotionally crazed training session where the lifter gives 102% and is, post-session, physically shattered, the natural post-workout inclination is to head to a nearby restaurant, preferably an all-you-can-eat buffet, and stuff your face.

Experience teaches that the only way to cope with twice-weekly session pounding is to slam calories and rest like a hibernating bear. Because they worked at it, these men, the early power pioneers, had awe-inspiring culinary capacities. Their motto: “To beat the man, you must out-eat the man.”

Keep in mind, as you are titillated or disgusted by these routine feats of gluttony, that these men were routinely blasting their bodies to smithereens, several times a week, with poundage normal humans have no frame of reference for. Without a massive influx of post-workout calories, these men could not recover in time for the next body-shattering session. The mind-boggling weights these men were routinely handling in training put stresses on their bodies beyond the imaginings of normal humans.

Mark Chaillet told me the greatest powerlifter of the 1970s, Larry Pacifico, would routinely order three steak dinners for lunch every day at the Sizzler chain steak house in Dayton. Larry was a shapeshifter, able to set world records at 198, 220 or 242 pounds. Pacifico stood all of 5-5. The classic elite powerlifting scenario was to train together — then go eat together.

Naturally, when a group of high-level lifters want post-workout replenishment, they need volume. Ergo, a good all-you-can-eat buffet is the eternal top choice of the iron elite. There exists a symbiotic relationship between intense exercise and copious caloric consumption. The old-timers called the end result “supercompensation.” Here are a few acts of heroic supercompensation I have witnessed.

Heroic Replenishment Stories From the Old Iron Game

• The one-man plague of locusts: Joey was intent on pushing his bodyweight ever upward. At six-foot-even he weighed 340 and was tight and athletic, not fat or sloppy. Seven days a week he would eat lunch or dinner, and some days both, at the same local buffet. This was a high-volume, super-busy buffet with excellent, for a buffet, food. Nobody paid attention to the massive 24-year-old on his endless trips for more food-fuel. No one noticed or cared when he slipped on sunglasses and, with a cup of coffee sitting to his right, appeared to be reading the newspaper when in fact he was taking a 40-minute nap, a respite before reawakening and hitting the buffet a few more times.
• “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!” We found an excellent Chinese buffet less than ten minutes from Mark Chaillet’s Temple Hills gym. A group of us would make our way over there after the Monday or Thursday training sessions. This buffet had excellent Szechuan cooking, the first we’d ever experienced. The owner was a skinny, dour-looking dude that chain-smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes while his daughters and wife did all the work. Into our third week he wandered over to the table and addressed us, “You guys no come back no more.” One of the boys took offense. “It says ‘all you can eat!’” he yelled, pointing at the menu. The owner flicked his cigarette ash on our table and said, “And THAT is ALL YOU CAN EAT!” We left in a disgruntled huff. I immediately wondered if he’d let me back in if I came back alone.
• Balancing the van: In 1989 I lifted in a competition in Scranton and my four training partners, 360-pound Ken Fantano, 420-pound Jean Donat, 280-pound Danny D’Arrico — all three 600-pound raw benchers and 900-pound squatters — and 220-pound Marty drove from West Haven to Scranton in my company van: a 4-cylinder, 120-horsepower Dodge Caravan. Ken insisted on driving. “Jean and I have to sit on opposite sides. If he sits behind me and we hit a sharp turn, this thing will tip over.” We ate at a buffet at the end of a long trip. Fantano took two trays and loaded them to the max. I had never seen a man take four giant baked potatoes. It was rib night, and they were excellent. By meal’s end the table was a small animal boneyard. As I surveyed the carnage, I thought: what fool would offer us all-you-can-eat ribs for $9.95?
• The big fish: I trained at Mark’s for six years. At various times we would get on extended kicks. For example, I discovered the most incredible Hunan whole crispy fish at the Szechuan Palace in Chinatown. Mark loved the crispy, spicy fish in brown sauce as much as I did. We would travel over together, as many as six lifters, all ordering their own fish. Post-workout the food and beer tasted incredible. On one occasion, somehow, I spilled a flaming 120-proof rum drink on Mark’s arm. He began waving his arm, making the flames worse. I doused his arm with water from my glass. All I could think was Mark as “FIRE BAD!” Frankenstein. If pushed for time, after training we would get triple orders of fish and chips with the excellent Velveeta-like cheese sauce at Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips, three blocks from the gym.
• Got Milk? Post-workout at Hugh Cassidy’s power gym, and in later years after training sessions with Kirk Karwoski and Bobby Myers at Maryland Athletic Club, it was standard operating procedure to sit together and drink cold whole milk. After a slaughter-fest session at Hugh’s, we’d stumble to our parked cars and open the coolers we all had. We would extract our quarts or half gallons of milk and lounge and bullshit until the cold whole milk stopped our bodies from shaking. Maryland Athletic Club was located in a strip mall with a convenience store thirty feet from the gym. There was a picnic table under an awning. After every training session, Bobby and I drank our post-workout milk and held court. Mr. Maryland, Frank Nicter, would hang out, or Kirk, or a half-dozen other lifters, all dropping by to down milk and gossip.
• Chuck’s steaks: Chuck was on unemployment and wanted to make the most of it by training every day and building his bronze tan poolside at his above-ground pool. I like to train early. He would roll by, and we would crack it hard and long early, trying to beat the summer heat. Sweat-drenched and exhausted, we would wobble from the oven-like garage to my kitchen where I made incredible-tasting protein powder and whole-milk shakes, ice-cold monsters containing 60 grams of protein, 80 grams of carbohydrate, and 40 grams of raw milk fat. That was for starters. Before the end of the training session, I had fired up the Weber grill. While he finished his shake on the deck, I threw two seasoned pound-plus rib steaks, $3.99 a pound and superb quality, on the 600-degree coals. Two perfectly cooked and rested steaks were ready within 15 minutes. For me, this was my favorite and, coupled with a post-meal power nap, the single most effective replenishment strategy I have ever experienced.

What the Old-Timers Got Right

What could be more logical, more appealing, more deserved and comforting than a fine giant meal with your iron comrades after a body-shattering workout? Who could argue with the front-end logic or the back-end empiricism? Results obtained from a truly herculean workout are supported by post-workout replenishment. The exhausted organism needs calories, protein, carbohydrate, fluid, sodium, rest, and time.

Powerlifters paved the way. Bodybuilders refined and streamlined post-workout replenishment. Whereas powerlifters ate like wild bears, bodybuilders asked, “What’s the least we can get by with?” The harder you train, the more important replenishment becomes.

Where Modern Nutrition Adds Nuance

The old powerlifters were right about the big principle: hard training must be supported by serious food and serious recovery. The modern addition is nuance. A 320-pound elite lifter after a limit squat and deadlift session has different needs than a 165-pound novice after a moderate workout. The lifter’s size, training load, bodyweight goal, body-fat level, medical status, digestion, and total daily nutrition all matter.

Post-workout replenishment is not magic and not permission to eat like a lunatic after every workout. A giant buffet meal can be a hilarious strength-culture story and still be a bad fit for many readers. The useful lesson is simple: if you want to build muscle, push strength upward and recover from legitimate high-intensity training, you must eat enough of the right food and rest enough to turn punishment into progress.

Protein matters. Carbohydrate matters. Total calories matter. Food quality matters. Sleep matters. Consistency matters. The post-workout meal is one piece of the daily recovery picture, not the entire picture.

Equipment Notes for the Training That Earns Replenishment

Post-workout replenishment only makes sense when there is real work to replenish from. For strength work, lifters and facilities can compare barbells and dumbbells. Specific options such as the IRON COMPANY urethane barbell set and IRON COMPANY urethane dumbbells can support the kind of progressive resistance training that creates a real recovery demand.

For the conditioning side of the broader training week, compare exercise bikes and treadmills. A commercial treadmill such as the Spirit Fitness CT800 commercial treadmill or an indoor cycling bike such as the Schwinn AC Sport Bike can support cardio work when the mode matches the lifter, facility, and goal.

The equipment does not create replenishment. The hard training creates the need. The athlete, food, rest, and recovery complete the process.

Safety Note for Extreme Replenishment, Bulking, and Recovery Meals

This article preserves old-school strength-culture history and Marty Gallagher’s firsthand experience. It is not a recommendation that normal trainees copy elite heavyweight buffet eating, gallon-level milk drinking, uncontrolled bulking or very high-fat post-workout meals.

Very large meals, aggressive weight gain, high-protein diets, high-fat meals, high-carbohydrate shakes, whole-milk loading and supplement use may be inappropriate for people with diabetes, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders, eating-disorder history, underweight status, medication concerns, food allergies, lactose intolerance, or significant medical conditions.

Post-workout replenishment should match the lifter’s body size, training load, digestion, recovery needs, and bodyweight goal. Seek qualified medical or nutrition guidance when needed. This article is not individualized medical, nutrition, dietetic, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Related Nutrition and Power Training Reading

For a broader Marty Gallagher article on eating for strength performance, read Performance Eating for Power Training. For another old-school food-and-strength story, read The Steak Dinner Caper.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.