Hi All
This topic was posted on the HUB a Cycle Forum in SA, and it seemed there was a lot of debate as to why, how, and what to do, around low and high GI products, I responded as best as I could and thought you might enjoy the read. If you want to track the debate then just go to http://www.thehubsa.co.za/forum/topic/81269-using-32gi-with-gu/
Please remember Energy drinks are not the Saviour of you all. most of us can easily do a 1 - 2 hour stint on water alone, nothing else needed, I mean our glycogen stores are there for that. Secondly, you are what you eat, lets face it what you take in a week, 72,48,24 hours before a race is the most crucial part of your race. I had a guy come to me the other day, top rider, said he performed dismally in his race, he just was not feeling well, we went through his nutrition. amazing, he had a fortune of red meat for 2 days before the race including the night before, and then for breakfast pre-race a load of sugar( Wheatbix and milk). The bottom line is that for most of us all, its our nutrition we should be looking at first and foremost, forget about the energy drink, you are and perform the way you eat. Its a fact that sugar free athletes perform better no comparison at all.
So let me ask you all a couple of questions to start:
- How long do you train for before you hit the wall, without anything. This you should know and under a variety of intensity and conditions. If you dont know this how can you assume its something you had during a race that caused it, highly unlikely.
- How many of you eat cleanly, avoid sugar and have tried training on water alone to see how your body responds.
- Do you all understand your bodies inside out, do you know what it feels like to feel really energetic every day and to have sustainable energy, do you wake up feeling on top of the world every morning and sleep soundly at night. Most people I ask say yes, but then I say well considering your lifestyle thats the best for you, but I tell them you dont know any better, until you actually feel better, and what I am trying to say, is we are what we eat, nutrition is the key factor to all our lives and we tend to push it aside, hoping for quick fixes.
So for someone who does a 2.5 hour ride and had a sugar breakfast and then decided to use 32Gi for his race, well the answer is right there, you spiked yourself from the word go, set your nutrition before the race, took in your gel too late and you were destined to hit the wall from the word go.
So now lets get a little deeper into some basic aspects of where we should be looking when racing and training:
There are 3 elements which I consider to be the performance hampers of sport, YES they all have a benefit the problem is most of us dont really see that because we abuse or incorrectly use them. What I am talking about are mentioned constantly in sports circles or just happen to be in every single fast moving consumer good on a shelf in a supermarket where clever marketing just blinds us of the poison they contain inside, there are more than these 3 but I will focus on this for now, as we are talking sports meals, energy, racing:
These 3 elements, sugar, milk, caffeine
SUGAR - Why, it hampers performance, your body needs to be effecient at using its own energy stores and not always relying on a quick fix. Someone who has a very high sugar diet does not perform as well athletically or in an endurance event as someone who has no sugar in their diet = FACT. No arguments there the performance testing and results speak for themselves.
So a person who has no sugar in their diets and then does take in sugar during the race, can expect a boost, a real boost, yes short lived but he will reap the benefits of it more than someone who already boosts themselves constantly.
MILK - Its a stomach irritant, believe it or not most people are lactose intolerant or have allergies to milk and wheat products, they just dont know it. Test and you can find out. Milk is a fast digesting food, why take it in before a race, it can bloat, produce excessive gas and make your day feel terrible. Rather afterward where for recovery it can be used.
CAFFEINE - Caffeine only benefits you in 2 ways during a race, mental focus and stimulant in the last hour or so, and if taken properly it has to be 3-4 hours before the race 2-3mg per a kg of body weight then it can slow down the rate of glycogen depletion. Not many of us get up 4 hours before a race and so this is not an option. Secondly you need to be caffeine free for at least 7 days prior to the event for this to have a proper impact. Seriously races start here at 7am not 11am, so the only caffeine option is for the kick to the finish ladies and gents, taking it constantly during or too close to an event you risk bladder requirements and dehydration with little benefit.
The night before a race you should have a complex carb with an easily digestible protein such as fish or chicken,a few veggies or salad wont hurt, and pre-race you should have low GI such as rolled raw oats, quinoa as a cereal, low GI toast with diabetic jam, if you want a light egg with it, or some sugar free peanut butter,thats also fine. Cereals I approve of are definitely the Future Life range, great range of low GI options and other pre-race meal options such as Low GI muffins etc, pro-nutro, but rather cereals with soya or rice milk. The NO's are cornflakes, wheatbix, rice crispies, cocoa pops, and not having a pre-race meal I think is detrimental to your race. Fruit, low GI and easily digestable, so a banana should go with something to bring down the glycemic load so adding into your oats, or putting it on low GI toast is better.
Now the session or race. What is your nutrition plan, you cant just go in and decide to eat when you feel like it, you need to know how your body responds to different foods. So think of your energy level as a ratio from 1- 10 (just for ease not a blood sugar measurement), 1 being when you wake up 10 when you have a glucose injection. Its like a pond of water, you want to try and keep it as ripple free as possible, drop in a small stone it is more balanced with small ripples, drop in a rock it sends a wave. So put some low GI food into your system, a stone = a little ripple injection of energy into your body, little releases of glucose over a period of time. Throw a rock into the pond its like the tsunami hit your body, big rush short lived and some of the pond empties. Just an analogy to think about.
Its very difficult during a race to measure your peaks and troughs and to know exactly when to feed without a lot of practice, and if you peak and dont feed before the trough you will hit the wall.
So how does a maltodextrin product work. Simple you take it in, the glucose rushes into your blood stream, your muscles take up what they need and the rest is discarded. If anyone tells me ALL the glucose is utilised, I wont go with that, most of us are not performing at that rate of intensity constantly and glucose is an overflood to the system, most take in way more than they need, and finger prick testing has shown that. Once the flood has happened the effect wears off quite quickly, the energy levels dip quickly and you need to flood it again. See whats happening, roller coaster effect, we need to keep topping up, as an average rate in a race if you take in a gel in the beginning be prepared to carry one for every 35-40 minutes after that, yes you need to put those gels in constantly and not miss the feed. You have set your race nutrition, if its high GI its frequent and constant feeding, and you cannot miss a feed.
Now 32Gi, very different. It does not flood the body at all, but if you have a wheat bix breakfast and then use 32Gi to fuel you then good luck, because you have already set your race nutrition with your pre-race meal, wheat bix is a HIGH GI meal and you have spiked even before the race. Now you want to take in a low GI product to fuel you, not a chance. If you were one of those, by the time you took the gel in it was way too late, your pre-race meal is what caused the problem already.
As for 32Gi it releases glucose sufficiently and over a long period of time, it digests lower down, and because it releases the glucose slowly the body is forced in a way to tap its fat stores for the balance, so you want to know why you go long on 32Gi its not the pre-race meal, its the fact that you are metabolising the oxidized fat that the drink is allowing the body to take up, and lets face it even with 5% body fat, you can run 30 marathons on your fat stores alone. This is what makes 32Gi such a phenomenal training and racing drink, you are able to go further and tap into your fat stores, we have seen glycogen sparing as well, we are hoping to measure where this is preserved liver or muscle and to try and measure the effects of this. This testing is due to be carried out in the US soon, but from the feedback from our elite athletes, we can see this to be the case, especially because in stage races the recovery has been phenomenal from stage to stage. So we might not provide as many calories as what you would get from the sugar spiking drinks, but with the fat store tapping you can bet u wont need as much.
The drink can also be used for carbo loading. One more thing, if you are sparing gylcogen, what does that mean, simple it means you have the fuel to still kick butt in the last bit of a race. The testing we had done in Germany showed a 3% performance improvement over Maltodextrin users on a bike in a time trial session.
So maybe I have answered some of the questions already or given you some food for thought. But when you do a race, make sure you know what and how you are going to eat, because in all honesty some of our elite athletes go balls to the wall on water alone, and I can tell you the common thing amongst them is their nutrition is so so good. It really is. No stimulants, no sugar overdose and no irritants. When they take in an energy drink or booster their bodies metabolise it so well, because their systems are really efficient and thats really where you want to get to.
I have done many 5-7 hours of riding and 3 loops of Suikerbossie on a TT bike at a high intensity, with only 32GI and nothing else, and I was strong from beginning to end, BUT, sugar is my evil, my diet is very low GI and my energy levels are really stable.
So now the following:
If you are using 32Gi as race fuel, try keep to the low GI foods, Reds make a great low GI bar, a banana is borderline but also ok,try to keep the low to medium GI foods with you, and the 32GI chews are a nice boost which also tapers over time and very tasty.
If you want to use 32Gi with the GU's etc not a problem but save those for the kick to the finish, and know once you take it in, yes 32Gi might give you a longer taper on the GU, but you are going to have to still feed frequently and u should test this in training first.
I race with sugar as well, but in a 5-10 hour race, my sugar comes in at the last 15% of time, no earlier, I like to finish on the high and not hit it too early. I dont believe in sugar too early on.
As an example, Lindsay van Aswegen ran Comrades marathon, got Gold and beat her last years time by 22 minutes. She placed 8th in the womens division. Lindsay had a bottle of 32Gi before the comrades start, ran 70km only on water and then with 17km to go popped a coke and finished in a personal best time. Great strategy, she knew exactly what she was doing. We got 1st,3rd and 4th in the mens, all of them kept the sugar till the kick towards the finish whether taking in 32Gi constantly throughout or at the beginning the signs were the same, hold the energy levels, hold, hold, hold, kick, finish.
I hope this helps, much room for debate I am sure, don't shoot me I am only trying to help, remember eating right is the key to anything no matter what sport you do, its also the key to a more energetic life.
later
Me
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