Almost everywhere you look these days, you see advertisements for sports nutrition products – from Powerbars and Clif bars to Gatorade and Accelerade to all sorts of Gu-type gels products and myriad powders and capsules. The US market for sports supplements is about $5 billion annually – that’s a LOT of Powerbars! The main problem with selecting a sports supplement, however, is that most people simply have no idea how to use them the right way. There are certainly some very useful products on the market – but using correctly means that you’ll have to do more than scarf down an energy bar while watching the Ironman on TV.
When it comes to sports nutrition, it’s quite helpful to break things down into 3 distinct periods of time – BEFORE exercise, DURING exercise and AFTER exercise. Another way is to categorize products by their main mode of action – such as General Nutrition, Muscle Building, Endurance or Recovery. Part 1 of this article will consider the before/during/after approach, while Part 2 will focus on the different benefits within each category.
For a lot of people, especially triathletes, sports nutrition may seem like a “no-brainer” – eat some carbs before your work out, drink some water during exercise and get a good night’s sleep to help your body recover – Right? WRONG! What to consume before, during and after an exercise bout is FAR from being an easy question to answer. As we dig into the complexity of sports nutrition, we see that there are many variables which affect what our bodies need. Is this a maximal effort exercise, a long endurance run, or a series of repetitive maximal bouts? Is our goal to sustain our speed/performance, or to reduce muscle soreness and improve recovery? Have we been training using a specific drink or food prior to the exercise bout? For each athletic event, training session and individual athlete, there will be unique nutrition needs which have to be satisfied in order to promote optimal performance. What follows is a breakdown of physiology, nutrient needs and “real world” recommendations to satisfy nutrient needs Before, During and After exercise.
Before Exercise
Your Body Physiology: If you’ve been training for awhile for a specific race, your body has gone through some adaptations which affect you both physiologically and nutritionally. With endurance training, your body now has increased mitochondria, myoglobin, vascularization and oxygen transport mechanisms among a long list of physiological changes. Due to these changes, your muscle cells are capable of holding more water and more glycogen than when you were untrained. Think about it, your body now has a larger fuel tank for its endurance workout – but realize that a larger fuel tank does you no good, unless you fill it to the top with premium fuel!
What your body needs: Starting 48 hours prior to your exercise bout, be sure to increase both your water intake and your carbohydrate ratio. Your body is capable of holding a lot of water, which is ultimately necessary for maximum performance. Your muscle cells also crave fuel! Carbohydrates are the preferred fuel for intense activity (protein is not, no matter what you read in the ads), whether aerobic or anaerobic, so an increase in the amount of carbs that you consume prior to an intense effort will give your muscles the fuel that they need. Note: You do not want to increase your total calories above what you are normally used to, or you will simply gain weight.
Recommendation: Starting 48 hours prior to your event, minimize the amount of fat and protein in your diet. In the same ratio, substitute carbohydrates for protein and fat into each meal. Be sure not to consume any carbohydrates or supplements which you are not used to digesting (stick to things that you’ve already had experience with in training) as this will only increase the risk of gastric distress. Your daily caloric intake should consist of at least 60% carbohydrates and more preferably up to 70-75% during these 48 hours). It is very hard to drink too much water! The more water you drink (up to 64-128 ounces daily for these 2 days) will also maximize your ability to store glycogen in your muscles. Minimize, or even better, eliminate any diuretics including caffeine.
Example: Let’s say your “standard” dinner includes a chicken breast with rice, salad, and a glass of wine. Before your big race, try adding a cup of pasta and 2 large glasses of water (keep the chicken, salad and rice, and feel free to salt your meals liberally for these 2 days).
During Exercise (and 2 hours prior)
Your Body Physiology: As you begin a long, low-intensity exercise bout, your heart rate increases and your body starts burning both carbohydrates and fat. As long as the intensity is low, you can expect your body to burn primarily fat as it conserves carbohydrates. When intensity increases (as in a race situation), the body looks for a more efficient fuel to keep up with demand, and begins burning more carbohydrates. If you go “too long,” your body will run out of stored carbohydrates (glycogen) and you’ll need to supply additional carbs orally in order to keep your “machine” running. Without ingesting carbohydrates, at the right time and in the right amounts, you can expect a drastic decrease in performance – a nasty situation referred to as “hitting the wall” (when you run out of muscle glycogen) or “bonking” (when you run out of liver glycogen) – certainly NOT a situation in which your want to be.
What your body needs: Hopefully you have taken the “BEFORE exercise” recommendations above and fueled your body properly with carbohydrates and water. If you did not, you can minimize your losses with the following recommendations, but realize that it is too late to optimize your fuel stores.
Prior to exercise your body is capable of storing, within the muscle cell, high levels of glycogen and water. Two hours prior to exercise you may want to ‘top off’ those levels to assure maximum performance (at this point be sure to only use carbohydrates with a Low Glycemic Index (LGI) - see definition of Glycemic Index below). Consuming LGI carbohydrates immediately before exercise will help stabilize blood sugar, so that your body burns
fat instead of glucose or glycogen. This allows your body to spare its carbohydrates so you can exercise longer before you bonk or hit the wall! Note: Antioxidants prior to exercise can also reduce delayed onset muscle soreness from exhaustive exercise (See the previous issue of TriHive for a discussion of antioxidants).
Recommendation: Two hours prior to exercise consume about 1 gram of LGI carbs per kilogram of body weight (1kg = 2.2 lbs., so about 0.45 grams are needed per pound of body weight). In addition consume 8oz water for every 50 pounds body weight. About 30 minutes prior to exercise, again consume LGI carbs and water – but only at about 1 gram of carbs and 1oz of water per 10 pounds of body weight. Some athletes like to snack on LGI foods and water for the entire 2 hours before the race.
For the first hour into the race be sure to consume at least 4oz of water every 15 minutes or so (a standard 20-ounce water bottle should last you for about an hour). If you can stomach it, and have been training like this, you can go ahead and use your carbohydrate drink (such as Cytomax, Gatorade, etc…) instead of plain water. After about an hour into the race, be sure to switch exclusively to a carbohydrate-based drink. At this point you are trying to spare your stored muscle glycogen, by offering your body some oral carbohydrates. A combination of high glycemic and low glycemic carbohydrates (50/50 split) works best at a concentration of less than 7%. Concentrations higher than 7% can delay gastric emptying. In other words, you cannot digest the carbohydrates and water quick enough, and it becomes a detriment to your performance – sitting in your stomach and leading to the dreaded “swish gut” where the fluid will not empty. Be sure that the sports drink that you consume contains adequate levels of sodium, calcium, potassium and chloride which help to replace electrolyte losses and provide energy, but they’ll also help your gut to absorb the fluid and carbs faster.
Example: 2 hours prior: Eat ½ cup blueberries, 1 cup of low fat yogurt, and ½ cup of granola or oatmeal with 24oz of water.
During your race, use the carb-drink that you have been training with! There are dozens of suitable drinks out there and the only way to find out which one is for you is to give them a try. See which one tastes best to you and which one you tolerate best in the late stages of your hardest workouts. There is no “best” sports nutrition product – but you can find the “best one for you” – and when you do, then stick with it.
After Exercise
Your Body Physiology: Congratulations! You have now depleted your body of glycogen, electrolytes, and water. In order to “survive,” your body has a built-in defense mechanism – a high affinity for each these nutrients. Your body also needs to repair all the torn muscle fibers and is seeking protein to do so. The good news is that your body is very sensitive to these nutrients for about 30 minutes following exercise and has a relatively high sensitivity for two hours after. As such, it is vitally important to feed your body’s needs as soon as possible after crossing the finish line or rolling up your driveway.
What your body needs: Upon completion of your exercise, you can expect your body to be depleted of glycogen, sodium, chloride, potassium, water and a whole lot more. As the body hungers for these nutrients, insulin sensitivity is increased and water and glycogen resynthesis is in demand! It could take 48 to 72 hours to replenish these stores optimally (if not done properly) so do what it takes to optimize nutrients after exercise. Adding protein to this mix also helps with the repair of muscle fibers and helps reduce muscle soreness.
Recommendation: Immediately following exercise, consume a drink containing High Glycemic Carbohydrates (HGI carbs rush sugar into the blood) with a little bit of added protein. It really does not matter much if you’re adhering to the popular “4:1 ratio” of carbs to protein – the important part is that a bit of protein added to your carbs will maximize glycogen re-synthesis more so than carbohydrates or protein alone. Make sure the drink contains high levels of sodium, chloride, and potassium. Added levels of specific amino acids such as, glutamine, leucine, valine, and isoleucine can work synergistically with the protein and glucose to improve recovery time even more.
Example: Within 20 minutes after exercise, consume a small meal comprised of HGI carbs and protein. A fast option might be some instant rice with a baked potato and some tuna fish (2 HGI carbs plus some protein) of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread (2 HGI carbs plus some protein and fat) – but many athletes prefer a “recovery-focused” post-exercise beverage which are formulated specifically with these recovery criteria in mind (there are many to choose from).
Factors to consider
There are a number of factors to keep in mind when choosing the specific nutrients to fuel your body and develop your BEFORE, DURING and AFTER exercise nutrition regimen, including:
• How long is my race or exercise bout? Races under an hour may not need any oral glucose or much water. This is also dependent on your training state.
• Will I be doing repeated bouts or only one? Repeated bouts of exercise throughout the day have entirely different needs than a long aerobic exercise bout. Consider a “mini-recovery regimen” between each workout if you’re doubling up.
• At what intensity will I be working out? Lower intensity burns a higher percentage of calories from fat and conserves carbohydrates, while high intensity exercise burns more calories from carbs and will necessitate a refueling strategy during exercise to avoid bonking.
• What is the purpose of the drink I am about to consume? Am I trying to increase carb intake or fluid/electrolyte intake or reduce muscle soreness?
• How well trained am I? A highly-trained athlete has more physiological adaptations to training than a poorly-trained individual and may be able to race for nearly two hours without ingesting glucose.
• Have I used any specific nutrients during my training? Do not attempt to use something foreign to your digestive system on the day of the race. Practice all these recommendations during training.
Summary
Trying to wade through all of the many sports nutrition choices can be a daunting task – but if you keep in mind that your objective should be a trial-and-error search to find out what works best for YOU, then
it can actually be a fun journey. Don’t worry too much about which product your favorite Tour rider or Kona finisher is supposedly using – but use the guidelines above to narrow down the choices that make the most sense for you and your unique physiology. When you are able to “dial in” the nutrition regimen that works best for you, your performance and enjoyment of triathlon will soar.
About the author: Shawn Talbott, PhD is a Nutritional Biochemist, author of 7 books about nutrition and health, and a 10-time Ironman finisher. He is Research Director at SupplementWatch (www.supplementwatch.com) and Chief Scientific Officer of Wicked Fast Sports Nutrition (www.wickedfastsportsnutrition.com). Dr. Talbott is continually tweaking his own nutrition regimen in Draper, Utah where he lives with his wife and 2 kids
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