Simple carbs, electrolytes, water. Same composition as you’ll have on the bike. Drink it ~15-20min prior to riding. Not 30min prior. Make it the night before, for ease of access in morning. Store in fridge or add ice in morning if temperature regulation may be challenged due to indoor riding.
Worry about getting a balanced meal after training with protein, fiber, fat, and of course more carbs and fluid.
The only goals in short-turnaround pre-workout consumption should be:
Elevate blood sugar
Top off hydration
Avoid gastrointestinal distress.
No special fueling the night before is necessary if you’re consuming carbs around the clock, as normal. Any consumption the night before just serves to top up glycogen stores, and there is no special need to do so at night, when training first thing the next morning. Feeding with carbs late at night won’t result in elevated blood sugar (goal number 1) pre-training for your first-thing session. That’s not to say “don’t do it,” but just to say that any focus on this nighttime feeding is unnecessary assuming normal dietary habits with sufficient carb consumption.
Yes, but it’s a 2-3 hour workout. Even the prescribed workout with nothing else would be a death march with no breakfast or fueling. That goes against everything we learn or have been taught. Why would you NOT fuel? No way I’m doing 24 minutes of 420 watts without fuel-thats just too many calories burned including the entire ride.
Again, short hour or less rides CAN be done without fuel, but unless it’s specifically a fasted ride or for serious weight loss, why would you say it’s good to not fuel? There is no reason NOT to fuel in those instances.
Ill be honest having now done this routine for over 6 months by body seems to of shifted and I am now ready to go as soon as I wake up, so the coffee comes afterwards
Glass of water, Make coffee, straight on bike. (within 15mins of waking)
Extend warmup 5 mins, after workout openers, drink coffee, take a gel and I’m ready to go.
I believe alot of it is physcological, I can feel really not up for it when waking but after going through this routine for 5+yrs, my body wakes up after the warm up and I’m usually successful in the workout
For me sometimes a banana maybe if it is a big session during the week otherwise it is straight on the bike 10 mins after waking with carb drink through the session. On the weekend for long rides I wil after some overnight oats before hitting the bike. I typically don’t bother with coffee etc I just get started.
Ah so 24 mins of high intensity and then some endurance work. So couple of different merged workouts rather than pure VO2 work. Bit different to fuelling a pure vo2 workout.
You are missing the point entirely here and steering the conversation somewhere pointless.
My point: unless you are SPECIFICALLY targeting the occasional fasted ride, doing a sub hour ride, or trying to lose a lot of weight, why would you choose to NOT fuel before or especially during? Your statement was that ALL v02 should be done without fueling. And I am saying that you cannot make such sweeping statements and showing how, in my case (which I’m assuming is not uncommon to throw more time on after a proper workout), fueling during is absolutely essential.
There might be the rare occasion to fast during v02, but there is literally no downside to fueling during if you are not doing one of those specific things.
You have not made any case or point why fasting would be better than fueling for your average, everyday v02.
I drink a pint of water as soon as I rise. Put the kettle on for a cup of tea (British ), brush my teeth and check the forum, whist drinking my tea.
Typically I’ll take one 600ml bottle with 80g of carbs on the trainer. I have a backup gel in my jersey pocket but I rarely have to reach for that.
For me, it’s the quality of the evening meal the night before a hard workout which makes the difference. Does it sit well in my stomach? Did it provide nutrients and fuel?
I’ve been training early morning for years and I have never been able to consume anything of note before a workout.
Because it’s completely unnecessary for such a short period of vo2 work and will in fact hamper your session. Better to focus on the vo2 work then replace what’s burnt when you are finished.
Im used to training in the mornings and I will always fuel my work-outs. Often overnight oats, or otherwise a banashake with frozen banana. And a double of espresso.
I’m lucky because I work from home at the moment, so I can take two hours between waking up and cycling (in between I get some work done). Before Covid, I ate slightly less and keep an hour in between waking up and cycling.
I have a notoriously fickle stomach, so I have a cup of coffee and a Clif Bar. I usually extend the warmup by 10 minutes as it takes me a while to get going in the morning. I usually down a gel and some pre-workout (C4) during the warmup. Just use mix throughout the rest of the workout.
I think eating an hour before bed is a bad idea from a recovery standpoint. Those of us with Whoops or Oura rings are repeatedly beaten by those devices being told that eating close to bed time affects your heart rate stabilization and heart rate variability, both of which factor into your recovery.
It took a few weeks, but I’ve been getting up at 4:20 for 2 years and on the bike by 4:45. I don’t have time to eat normally because I need to be done by 6:20. Recently I’ve been putting a scoop or two (depending on intensity) in my bottle, slamming a gel and adding 10 minutes to the warm up rather than the cool down.
I get up at 4:50am and aim to be on the bike by 5:05am. No problems completing most workouts including over/unders, threshold intervals, VO2max intervals and even stupid things like a 2x60min sweet spot at 90% FTP workout (~2460kJs). If you ate plenty of carbs the day before and your glycogen stores are topped off, its really not a problem. The hard part is dealing with VO2max intensity within 20min of waking up… lol.
For anything above threshold: stimulant only pre-workout and 150kcal of home brew sports drink.
For low-ish kJ burn and threshold intensity or below: coffee
For medium/high kJ burn (> ~1200kJ?) threshold intensity or below: maybe a clif bar or 1-2 100kcal granola bars.
For high kJ burn ( > ~1600kJ?) threshold intensity or below: clif bar or 1-2 100kcal granola bars and coffee with 150-200kcal of maltodextrin / fructose mixed in.
For stupid high kJ burn ( > ~2200kJ?): same as high kJ burn + stim-only pre-workout + bottle w/ 150-200kcal of malto/fructose homebrew.
Weekends are different as I have time to toss down some breakfast.
Edit: Looked up kJ burn for that workout and corrected the number down from my inflated memory.
Wait, are you saying you regularly do 2+ hour workouts and burn 2600kj (which is 1300 per hour…what is your ftp!!!) With no breakfast or nutrition during the ride? Or are those bar/drink mix figures just before, not during the ride?
I don’t want to imagine what consistently riding over two hours hard and fasted would feel like
No I don’t do 2x60 sweet spot workouts on a regular basis and was smoked for a couple of days. It is an example of workouts that I have done early in the morning on a weekday. The 2x60min was at 90% of 335w FTP and was 2460kJ, I misremembered that and will update the original post. With warmup / cooldown and mid-interval break it was 2.5hrs. I wouldn’t say I do that workout on a regular basis, but did work up from 2x40min at 90% by 5min over a number of weeks. Weekends I have a 400kcal breakfast 45min or so before hitting the road and have a different on-bike fueling strategy as those are usually 2400-3200kJs, but during the week its on the bike ASAP.
Those bar / drink figures are a combination of before / during. Since I try to be on the bike in 15min of waking there really isn’t much of a time gap for a real distinction. Is that optimal? No, or at least probably not. But I have constraints on my life other than cycling and I ride at that time of day during the week because I enjoy cycling enough to get up at 4:50am every day. I don’t like it enough to wake up at 2:30-3:00am to have breakfast and then go back to sleep and then get up again at 4:50am.
People on this forum act like you aren’t going to complete workouts or they are going to be horrible death marches if you don’t have a big breakfast and then stuff 90g carbs/hr while you’re riding and its just not true. If you’ve fueled up the previous day after your last workout there’s plenty of glycogen (and fat) to handle some pretty difficult workouts.
), brush my teeth and check the forum, whist drinking my tea.