CARB BOMBING | Controversial New Fueling Strategy in Pro Cycling | Dr. Will Girling | Ask a Cycling Coach 536

Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast
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Was great to talk to Will Girling, a Team Nutritionist for Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe and doctorate student at LMJU about what he sees on the frontlines of world tour cycling nutrition.

We discussed sweat testing and how he has seen sodium loss rates not be hard-coded and instead evolve over time, his thoughts on ketones, and this new approach dubbed “carb bombing” that we’ve heard of from the pro peloton.

The theory is that you take in extremely high amounts of carbohydrate and caffeine at a specific point in a race. We still don’t know a lot about this in terms of whether taking in all of those carbs is even helpful to performance, but it is interesting to see it on the rise. At the very least, that much caffeine will certainly have an effect, hehe.

Let us know if you have any questions, and I hope you enjoy the episode!

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(00:00) Welcome!

(00:27) Meet Will Gerling: Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe Team Nutritionist

(01:42) Pro Cycling Nutrition Insights

(04:27) Sodium Bicarbonate in Racing

(07:24) Heat and Hydration Strategies

(14:08) Sweat Testing and Practical Applications

(23:07) Evolving Perspectives on Sodium Intake

(26:05) Introduction to Carb Bombing

(28:18) Cam Jones’ Unbound Nutrition Strategy

(30:21) Carbohydrate Oxidation and Testing

(34:43) Practical Considerations for High Carb Intake

(39:24 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

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Carb bombing? That sounds like a recipe for very urgent toilet breaks to me.

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Not really, maybe if you don’t consume many carbs in training before trying it but with prep you will be fine. It is much different than something like bicarbonate of soda.

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Carb bombing sounds like what you do when having a meal.

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Why? Creating a hyper osmotic environment in your gut will lead to gastric discomfort.

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Strange how hDrop didn’t get mentioned for hydration/sodium monitoring.

I’ve found the sodium can be off until you get a good sweat going, or unless you wipe down the sensor and skin under it prior to working out.

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Good episode, but can we please stop the misinformation regarding sugar not dissolving in water? It’s getting tiresome, you need to review the solubility limit of sugar :slightly_smiling_face:

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If sugar can’t dissolve then make a simple syrup in a sauce pot. 1:1 ratio water to sugar. Low heat and whisk/ stir frequently, Then add more water. :man_shrugging:

I’ve done this a night before a race, so I could fit 400g of table sugar in a 2 liter hydration pack.

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I can’t stand the name. Every time I log in I see “car bombing”.

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When I read the title “carb bombing” I thought it was about throwing ~100g of carbs straight down the hatch before a workout or race, which is what I sometimes do. Might as well have those transporters working from the outset rather than having to wait until after that initial surge. :person_shrugging:

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Well this is interesting: “ what chemicals are in white sugar? 15 white sugar chemicals”

Probably okay if you’re having a few grams a day in your coffee or tea, but serious question marks over consuming a kilogram of the stuff on the bike every week, in addition to what’s already in our diets. :disappointed_face: Definitely deserves further investigation.

Disappointing for me because I’ve so far managed to adjust myself to about 120g per hour. Disappointing because it’s a much cheaper alternative to commercial drink mixes & homemade combos of glucose & fructose.

Speaking of the solubility of sugar, sure if you pour a bunch of sugar crystals into a bottle they’ll take more effort to dissolve. But mill it to a fine powder & it dissolves just as well as drink mixes do. But yeah, fully-dissolving the 550g in a 660mL bottle that I took on my last big ride required some sorcery. :mage:

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For a sedentary individual consuming such contaminants as a result of consuming the host product at or below the dose recommended by health authorities &/or professionals, it’s probably not a concern. For an active person consuming the host product at a dose several orders of magnitude larger than recommendations, I’d say yes those contaminants should be very interesting if they’re concerned for their long-term health. Maybe they’re absent from a particular brand, maybe they’re present. Hence why I said further investigation.

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I know - I was scratching my head listening to this - it’s this crazy new trend where you eat a large amount of carbs in quick succession in advance of a later effort. Havent we done that for millions of years - its called having breakfast??
They even talk of a training camp and a 1000 calorie breakfast…which is same as 250 gms of carbs.

“I had breakfast before my ride” - ‘And?!?!?’
vs

“Watch out boys and prepare for some pain, I just carb bombed before our ride today” - 'oh sh*t, Bob’s using the Pro Tour tricks…

Feels like a total metaphor for us cyclists being sold old things In a new way
(just like that drink mix they referenced which was 1:1 aka sugar)

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You could switch to something like organic natural cane sugar, that would eliminate some processing chemicals.

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I smell BS.
From another source: White sugar - Wikipedia
White sugar , also called table sugar , granulated sugar , or regular sugar , is a commonly used type of sugar, made either of beet sugar or cane sugar, which has undergone a refining process. It is nearly pure sucrose.
Anyhow, an enjoyable listen.

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I’m not going to have a debate over table sugar (I guess I am lol) , but you do have to get rid of the natural molasses coloring in sugar cane in order to make it that white color.

Which is why I recommended natural cane sugar which eliminates that process.

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Sounds faffy. I got 500g into a litre bottle just by putting it in the bottle and then adding from a kettle that had boiled 10 minutes earlier. Bit of a stir, job done.

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The only magic needed is heat :grin:. 1:1 water and sugar, dissolved in warm water is very easy. Make a few gallons and stick it in the fridge to use as needed.

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@Jonathan Regarding your anecdote about Lance not having salt stains. Isn’t it possible that the peloton at this time mostly rewarded athletes that had a low sodium loss rate, as there wasn’t the insight and product available for high sodium loss rate riders to perform at their best? There has to be a scientific term for this “selectiveness” in a group.