Should You Workout After Fasting?

This niche combination of training on an empty stomach leaves scientists divided and people wondering.

Photo by Nathan Cowley.

Water fasting is a boon for both body and mind. The science is pretty settled. An open topic is if having a workout fasted, so before having any food, is healthy or not and if it improves gains or not.

This topic is a niche in the already niche water fasting topic. Personally, I think that intermittent fasting would not put anybody at risk because 12-hours without food is really not that much and digestion of complex carbs takes at least a few hours, if not longer, leaving a very small window of no direct energy intake. But fair enough, one does not know until science sheds some light on it.

To be clear, what I am talking about isif it is advisable or not to have a training session after 12 or 24 hours of having had water only. By training I do not mean a brisk walk, I mean a proper physical activity session in whatever sport or activity, such as weightlifting, running, boxing, and so on.

First of all, I do not advise trying this if you have any medical condition at all, no matter how superficial or seemingly innocuous. Then, one should always be very careful to even try anything like that even as a healthy person. Lastly, water intake is not…