What is better - fuel more 3h before workout or more during workout

Let’s question this assumption first - why do you feel you need to take in an additional 300 kcal?

because i need to to not lose weight

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2 medium-to-large bananas while walking into garage is roughly 200 calories and 50-65g carbs. Thats what I do to pre-load. Thats 10 bananas a week when riding 5 days/week. Plus my wife eats some. Costco $1.59 for 8-12 bananas. Cheap carbs.

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Some relevant, practical advice from Alex Dowsett:

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Well, if you fuel a 3 hr ride with 150 grams of carbohydrate, that would be 50g/hr, which is very little. Even if you added 300 kcal of pure carbohydrate to your ride fuel, that only gets you to 75g/hr, which is still quite a small amount. Therefore, I would definitely add as much as possible to your intra workout.

How come you only consume 50g/hr at the moment? Personally, I also have a breakfast similar to yours totalling 900-1100 kcal about 2.5 hrs before I ride. 5 mins before I get on the bike I’ll have a banana, and during the ride I’ll consume 90g/hr at minimum. The harder/longer the ride, the higher I try to go, but even for pure z2 endurance I get 90g/hr. I’ve experienced substantial performance benefits from consuming more sugar during the workouts, and I’m yet to hit any limit in terms of absorption.

You mention later in the thread that you need to consume more not to lose weight, so why not consume even more on the bike? It’s only going to improve your performance if your gut can tolerate it, and if unwanted weight loss is a concern, it also takes pressure of having to “make up” for the workout later in the day. If I didn’t consume 90-110g/hr when riding, there is no way I’d be able to eat enough during the rest of the day to equal my expenditure. Obviously this is dependent on bodyweight, activity level, and FTP, but you mention that you burn 4,000-4,500 kcal per day, which is quite a lot. My tip would be to eat the same breakfast, double the intake on the bike, the same lunch, a much smaller snack, and a slightly larger dinner. This is all personal anecdote, but that is what works best for me!

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I never felt that the amount of sugar I was consuming during a workout was holding me back. I have to say though that according to a muscle biopsy I’m almost all slow twitch and probably utilize a lot of fat.
I’ll give 75 g/h a go next week and 90g/h the week after and see how it goes!

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Sounds like a plan! Regardless of type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers, you won’t be metabolising that much fat as the intensity increases. A respiratory exchange test is more accurate to determine substrate utilisation than a muscle biopsy. Carbohydrate consumption also stimulates the neurological pathways that allow you to continue working at a high rate for long durations. My guess is that you’ll see a massive decrease in RPE when you go from 50 to 90g/hr :slight_smile:

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From Tim Podlogar on Scientific Triathlon regarding carbs for competition (transcript):

”For events less than three hours, if you have full glycogen stores, you do not need much additional energy because you will only need it for the last 45 min. So, going between 45-90 g/h would work well.”

And he focuses on energy balance from the start of a workout today, to the start of tomorrow’s workout.

The amount of time to muscle glycogen depletion varies, in the lab it’s 1.5 to 2.5 hours.

Time of day when you workout matters too.

All of this assumes you are winning in the kitchen and start a workout with full glycogen stores.

Your FTP and energy demands matter too.

In short, it’s more complex than “slam 90 or 120g/hr” and why some of us see no RPE reduction or performance increases on 1.5 to 2.5 hour workouts and drop rides when going from 40g/hr to 60 to 80 to 100.

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That’s all correct, but there is no harm in trying to fuel more as some do experience a decrease in RPE. Pnzr doesn’t seem to have any weight loss concerns, so experimenting could literally only result in better or equal outcomes.

If you eat 3h before a workout, I would suggest to add some healthy fats.
You could also use your “budget” for some extra carbsand protein after your ride.

But a 3h ride could certainly use some extra carbs during the ride

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I would take it one step further, eat more the day before (carbs), lower the protein a bit in the morning and have even more carbs, and then do 60g/hr of carbs on the bike.

Way way more important to come in glycogen loaded than it is to try to cram carbs the meal right before or on the bike.

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Which very very few are since many still believe that a bowl of pasta and some porrige is enough, when its more realistically only maybe half of what they should be eating actually (carb wise) :slight_smile:

And then we try to save it with 100g/hr on the bike, but uptake is too slow (especially during high intensity), and then we blame the session or the legs for the low performance.

Just to make it easy, if you have Petit on a Friday, and then longer ride and / or hard ride on Saturday, after you’re done with Petit try to take in 400g of carbs for the rest of the day, and that should give you a good start on how much carbs are actually needed.

For context, and whole pizza is only about 160-180g of carbs.

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