People generally don’t associate nutrition advice with chiropractors. Chiropractors, traditionally, perform chiropractic adjustments to the spine and don’t do much more than that. When it comes to nutrition professionals, we have nutritionists and dietitians. With these in view, it does suggest that providing (basic) nutrition advice is what is required of a chiropractor.
Yet in my work at Square One Active Recovery, I have seen firsthand how inadequate nutrition can sabotage recovery and even training efforts. Today, I want to share a real case study of why having good nutrition is non-negotiable for exercise recovery and performance.
Muscle building requires protein
There is no other way to put this: muscle building requires protein. It does not matter if you are a professional bodybuilder or a sedentary individual with sarcopenia. If you want more muscle, you need more protein. This is hard science.
Just as I write this, I thought of a new client I just saw last week. Before they left, I already advised for increased protein supplementation.
Why?
Because their muscle strength is significantly lower than population average, and there is some signs of muscle atrophy. If we want to reverse muscle atrophy, muscle strengthening exercises can indeed help. To get the best results, we will need to consider protein supplementation.
This stance is well acknowledged and accepted by Health Promotion Board. In their protein intake recommendations, they do acknowledge that higher protein intake can help minimise muscle and strength loss. Higher protein intake is also recommended for people recovering from illness or surgery.
Nutrition when training for IPPT
The case I want to discuss today is a client who is training for his IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test). For those unfamiliar, IPPT is compulsory for physically fit Singaporean males until the age of 40 or 45 years old. It consists of three components:
- Sit-ups
- Push-ups
- 2.4km run.
Each component is scored based on age and performance. The total score will determine whether you pass, achieve incentive cash awards, or fail.
If you fail, you need to attend ten NS FIT sessions in the following year and also re-take your IPPT again for one of these ten sessions. While NS Fit can be done at home through a virtual workout, it can still be inconvenient.
When we want to increase strength in a very short period of time, it does help if protein intake is optimal. According to a review of 74 clinical studies, researchers found that higher protein intake does promote strength gain. This is most observable in people who consume more than 1.5g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.
Unexpected accidents can derail IPPT progress
For this client, we have been working on this IPPT for over two months now. The results are slightly slow because of an ankle sprain he sustained during a previous fall. As a result of this fall, he had ankle pain and we weren’t able to work on lower body exercises as well as push ups.
To a large extent, this is a setback for our IPPT training.
Once his ankle has recovered and we are able to load on it, we started to see tremendous improvements. There was week-on-week progress. While every session felt extremely challenging, recovery was good and we are able to stick with our plan.
If you have an IPPT to train for, it’s highly recommended that you allocate more than enough time. Starting early is always better than starting on time or late. Unforeseeable accidents are usually the ones that throw us off the most. While we cannot prepare for unforeseeable circumstances, starting training will give you a buffer for them.
Can you meet your nutritional needs with one meal a day?
When my client recovered sufficiently to resume training, we implemented a twice-weekly programme and began seeing promising improvements. However, there was a critical issue. His nutrition habits were working against his recovery.
Previously focused on weight loss, he had adopted a one-meal-a-day (OMAD) approach. For people looking to lose weight, one meal a day may seem like an effective way to lose weight. This is not always the case.
Whilst OMAD can work for some people when meticulously planned and calculated, it requires exceptional discipline and nutritional knowledge to meet all daily requirements in a single meal. For most people, particularly those engaged in regular exercise, this approach presents several challenges.
Inadequate Protein Distribution
Muscle protein synthesis is the process by which your body builds and repairs muscle tissue. It is optimised when protein intake is distributed through the day rather than consuming all your daily protein in one sitting.
Research specific to muscle building has determined that consuming 0.4g of protein per kg of body weight per meal for four meals per day is a good start. This will tally to 1.6kg of protein per kg of body weight per day.
While 1.6g may sound high, multiple studies have shown that the benefits of a high protein diet for muscle building continues to at least 2.2g per kg of body weight per day. In other words, 1.6g per kg of body weight per day is fairly moderated!
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Eating less calories doesn’t mean successful weight loss
In the short term, eating less (i.e., calorie deficit) can lead to weight loss. However, our metabolism rate can slow down with reduced calorie intake. This is well reported in academic literature. What happens then is weight regain.
A lot of personal trainers simplify weight loss to just keep a calorie deficit. However, few trainers take into considerations the reduction in energy expenditure that accompanies calorie restriction.
What is most important is eating a balanced diet and making sure that you are getting all your nutrition needs. Just blinding calories alone is not a tenable long-term solution.
Angus Barbieri’s 382-day fast
Of course with everything in science, exceptions do exist. Angus Barbieri is probably the most successful dieter in the world. He famously fasted for 382 days in the 1960s. Zero food intake. Just water, black coffee, tea, and other zero calorie beverages.
His weight loss was incredibly successful. He lost a total of 125kg, from 207kg to 82kg.
Sounds impressive right? But it is not easy feat to effectively starve yourself for over a year! His weight loss was successful and was under extreme medical supervision. He had regular blood tests and even overnight hospital observations. Supplementation such as multivitamin, potassium, sodium was necessary as well. Such an extreme diet is neither practical nor safe for the average person today.
There are profound effects to the body when we stop eating or go into extreme diet. When done correctly, fasting (e.g., intermittent fasting) can have some health benefits. It is, however, never done at the expense of not meeting the required daily nutritional needs.
For Angus Barbieri, one of the most shocking, yet not quite surprising, change was that he only needed to go to the toilet every 40-50 days during his fast.
Poor nutrition can impede IPPT training results
I gave this specific client early recommendations to start eating more and making sure that he is meeting his daily nutrition requirements. However, my advice fell on deaf ears. This became very evident in today’s session.
When we were working on his push ups, as with previous session, he started to show very early signs of fatigue. The fatigue was disproportionate to the exercise demand:
- It was the first exercise of the day, he should have been fresh
- We just removed pushups from his daily home exercises, he should have more been more well rested
- During our last session, I programmed for isometric push ups – this is less strenuously and he should have been able to perform better
As a chiropractor, it is not my position to dictate what you should or should not do. I provide advice only with the best intentions so you can have the best long-term success. When advice falls on deaf ears, there are consequences. These adverse outcomes are almost entirely borne by the client.
IPPT training reality check
We are only a month out from his IPPT. There is not much buffer. We are still a couple of push ups shy, and need to work on having more explosive power so he can get more repetitions in within his minute.
Having poor recovery between sessions is not an option because there is simply not enough time left for us to crank those additional reps.
Our target for push ups is 28 reps but we are currently only at 23 reps with three or four no-count reps. If he was less fatigue, we could potentially hit 27 reps during today’s session.
If he continues with his current eating plan, we will probably see further reduction in performance which will almost guarantee an IPPT fail.
2.4km run
We are most behind with his 2.4km. This is inevitable because of his ankle injury. We only just started working with his running, which is very late, but I am thankfully that his ankles are holding up okay.
His current timing is 16:32. It is his first exertional run and his second 2.4km run so far. Previously we did two to three fast walks just to make sure his ankles are holding up.
It will take a little time to get his body settled into running. Given that we only have a month to train, we wouldn’t be aiming for any true improvements in cardiovascular fitness. Most of what we would do is to work on running technique. And getting the body more and more comfortable with running 2.4km.
I am hoping to shave a minute off his current time. It is going to be extremely challenging but not impossible. His timing last year was 14:23. He is physically more fit this year so I have high hopes.
Be clear with your goals and objectives
I understand that weight loss is important to many people. Maintaining a healthy body weight does offer numerous benefits. However, weight loss cannot come at the expense of your body’s nutritional needs. Such an approach inevitably leads to:
- Decreased performance capacity
- Increased injury risk
- Compromised immune function
- Poor exercise recovery
- Potential long-term health consequences
A sustainable fitness progress requires a holistic approach that doesn’t sacrifice one aspect of health for another.
Whether you’re preparing for IPPT, remember:
- Plan your nutrition strategically rather than restricting for convenience or weight loss
- Distribute protein intake throughout the day for optimal muscle protein synthesis
- Don’t mistake extreme restriction for effective weight management
- Listen to your body’s recovery signals – persistent fatigue despite adequate rest often indicates nutritional inadequacy
Don’t let poor nutritional choices undermine your hard work in the gym and mess with your IPPT.
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