Now I’ve resolved my gastro issues (a year of recovery with a month of low fodmaps to get going) I’m ok now with plenty of sugar on the bike. This is really giving my performance a boost, especially when using simple sugars for high intensity and fruits for lower ranges.
Recently though, given I don’t eat dairy or meat, I’ve tended to go to bakery mid ride for a snack and get simply some white bread rolls (Kaisersemmel/Laugenstange/Brezn, here in Austria at least) and it works really well. Adds a little bulk but also digests quick and then used up too. If I opt for this off the bike and it settles on my stomach, not so good
This just gave me a great idea! I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to fit my Easter egg into today’s calorie budget (fairly big restriction), and suddenly the answer is obvious…
I’ll be taking my Easter egg into the pain cave, and it’ll be replacing my normal in-ride carb source! I reckon one quarter of the egg each interval should do nicely.
Cant.t read all the comments, but I seem to gain weight when I “fuel” properly!!
Hoping it is muscle.
I am also over all less fatigued for the rest of the day after the workouts.
You might be getting more carb replete with better carb timing around your training. Carbs are stored with water when they’re stored in the muscle and liver as glycogen so it’s quite common for folks to gain weight when their carb timing improves around their training. This is a good thing! Common times it happens: starting a higher carb diet & the week after returning from vacation where carb timing was suboptimal or nonexistent. Not to mention carbs tend to attract water in the gastrointestinal tract, so if ever you increase carb content of a diet, that can also cause a bump up in weight.
Ok… I know this question is asked a million times, but hear me out.
I just tried 60g/hr during a workout (Gatorade + maltodextrin) and it was great. Taste was good and easy to drink. Am I still supposed to carb down post-workout too? It feels so wrong to me. Seems like an absurd amount of quick carbs. I just want someone to slap me and tell me what’s what.
Also, say you’re doing a 1hr workout, when should I finish ingesting carbs? Should I finish my bottle like 10-15 mins before the end?
No need to use high GI carbs post-workout. Definitely DO consume carbs post-workout though. Just get them from whatever you want. Colorful nutrient dense foods are always good, but ironically not all that necessary for performance. Mostly for living longer… maybe.
I would bet if we did a cadaver study (impossible without killing you lol) it would NOT be inflammation that causes the increase in weight that you’re likely to see after a training day, compared to a rest day. I’d bet it would be an increase of carbs and water storage in your gut (literal food waste holding water inside the lumen of your intestines) and increased water within your muscle cells and liver due to slightly increased glycogen storage. Water is stored with glycogen, FYI. I would bet that 20% might be inflammatory swelling, tops. Might actually be more like 5% of the variation in weight unless you’re extremely sore in every muscle group in your whole body.
I used to work with Cadavers for an old job, but never thought of doing this haha.
Reason I mentioned it is because I retain a lot of water/inflammation at certain points. My racing weight is say 66kg. After a block, this can rise up to 69kg and drop after two days, and I am experimenting with carb consumption and this recovery period. I noted also George Bennett said a similar thing in the Fast Labs pod too. Being a meagre physicist I have such a crappy understanding of this biology it makes me sad!
So @Nate_Pearson, I’ve heard you talk about fueling all workouts on the podcast and sometimes it sounded like you take in 90g of carbs/h on the bike irrespective of the kind of ride. Then again, y’all repeat the mantra fuel for the work. Somehow my brain is resistant to the idea of fueling zone 2 work (or do we all call it zone 1 now :)) with 90g of carbs per hour. Would the really be your fueling strategy for pettit?
That’s what I sometimes think. I definitely fuel z2 with carbs , but more like 40ish grams per hour instead of that upper end. Prefer to have a bit more oatmeal or pasta instead (pre or post).
Edit: but for threshold work or higher, definitely the upper end
One reason to still target >40g/hr is that your gut will become more tolerant of the higher intakes at higher intensities and you’ll have more room for error where margins for error are typically thin (ie. harder efforts, races, dehydration, very high carb intake rates, etc).
Training the gut isn’t critical… but it is helpful. And it’s best done at lower intensities.
Always calculating tradeoffs though!
For me, sometimes ease of weight maintenance or loss is in favor of reducing fueling rate from my typical 100-130g/hr down to 60-80g/hr for longer very easy rides. For short very easy rides I’ll typically use Table of Intra-workout Carb Needs Per Hour of Training as my guide and err on the low side if I foresee hunger being an issue later.
If I had a race coming up in the next 1-2 months though, I’d be on the very high end of those recommendations without fail.
Yes, that makes sense.
But would that be the only reason? I would think that doing it during the 2-3 higher intensity sessions (per week) is quite some gut training in itself already.
Might just be a psychological thing. I’ve done it before during z2 rides and finished those rides every time thinking that it just wasn’t necessary
No, the other bigger reason is that there is enhancement of carbohydrate oxidation ability with chronic high-carb fueling. Peak exogenous carb oxidation rates are improved chronically. That’s part of what played into me saying
but I clearly failed to mention that rationale there. Kind of an important one!
Other benefits include probably higher glycogen storage than could otherwise be achieved over a training phase with high volumes of training. Muscle damage and fatigue tend to prevent max glycogen storage rates post-exercise, so getting it in when you can, if your performance is a primary focus, is probably a great idea.
I don’t race seriously. I don’t care if I have a 3.2 W/kg or 3.3W/kg FTP. If I did care, I’d already have a 4.5 W/kg FTP because I’d train more.
So, what I mention about doing myself, applies more to the crowd for whom performance is kind of important, but also body composition maintenance, and also life in general.
For purely performance: high-carb fueling is almost always the ideal. If I cared for my own performance, I’d probably be running loads of n=1 experiments trying to push into the 140-170g/hr range.
