Coconut Oil! - 7 February 2012

Much better today! Up two reps on Squats and Dips, up one on Shoulder Press and Pullups. Plus I added the last ten pounds of plates to the Curls, which pleases me greatly. Now I go directly from Squats to Curls, then take the weight off immediately so as not to dimple the plastic rollers.

But today's big deal was that I swallowed a couple spoonfuls of coconut oil before the workout. Coconut oil is mostly saturated and mono-unsaturated, and has lots of medium chain triglycerides. Before you worry about those triges, I should point out that these aren't the same as what gets measured in blood work -- the ones we want to keep fairly low. MCTs are a type that can be used directly for fuel by muscles, making them a great alternative to "carbing up" before strength training -- which a lot of lifters do, but I never have. Further, these triges hate to be stored as fat.

Was the coconut oil responsible for my improvement today? Hard to tell. It was a single instance (so far), and remember that my performance sucked last time. But you can bet I'll be trying it again.