Fuelling

Fuelling is an important part of any athlete’s life, not many know how to fuel correctly from the get-go. It doesn’t matter if you’re a leisure cyclist or someone who races. Everybody needs to fuel adequately, to indulge their soul the weightier endangerment to perform and facilitate recovery.

Nutrition is key to a successful exercise regime, if we don’t have it nailed, it can rationalization various problems which go vastitude ‘being tired’ such as unvarying illness, RED-S (Relative energy deficiency in sport) and lack of worthiness to build muscle.

At some stage we’ll all stumble into the phase where we’re fuelling poorly due to lack of wits and we hit the dreaded ‘brick wall’… we stop progressing in training, get super stressed and struggle to get out for long or intense rides.

Let’s delve into some tips and information for you in a way that’s user-friendly, it’s worldwide for people to research their nutritional needs and come wideness information and wares which are too scientific and rationalization confusion.

Depending on what type of athlete you are and what sport you participate in, you might need to consider some of the following, in increasingly depth than others:

-Caloric needs

-Meal and snack timings

-Vitamins and mineral levels – to aid recovery and performance

-Hydration

-Potentially macronutrients and ratios

-Carbohydrates (CHO) are the optimal fuel for athletes before, during and without exercise (though the way they’re consumed and what they’re surrounded by on your plate, will differ depending on when they’re consumed), considering they fill up our glycogen stores, as well as thoroughbred glucose, which we use to fuel the body’s needs as we exercise as well as in everyday life.

Therefore, having a carbohydrate focused meal with some protein 1-2hours surpassing exercise will help to maintain optimal levels of thoroughbred glucose for the muscles. Remember, protein is moreover important as pre/post exercise fuel, as it helps to transport the carbohydrates and promote

Carbohydrates (CHO) essential for exercise

Glycogen comes from CHO and is highly important considering it helps to maintain thoroughbred glucose CHO oxidation, fuel muscle energy and the nervous system.

Complex CHO’s are increasingly important for athletes to slosh day-to-day, to help maintain stores, simple carbohydrates can be used just surpassing training for a uplift and during exercise to help quick absorption.

It’s important to slosh CHO during exercise considering it prevents the depletion of the stores you have, if you wilt depleted in glycogen due to poor fuelling, performance gets harder, and you’ll sooner start to struggle to eat anything – this is what cyclists know as ‘bonked’. You must eat to aid recovery if nothing else, fuel for tomorrow, on today’s ride.

How much to take on

In previous research, studies have shown that humans can swizzle 1g of glucose per minute – 60g an hour.

However, latest research suggests the soul can take on up to 120g CHO per hour, but only if it’s a mixture of CHO’s. This is often achieved via 2:1 ratio of glucose and fructose.

The traditional research shows glucose is undivided and used rapidly, and uses transporter protein SGLT1 to pass into the bloodstream, it’s thought to have a consumption rate of 60g/h. Whereas, fructose is slower undivided and uses transporter GLUT5, which is believed to have a topics of -30g/h. However, scientists now believe that fructose plays a worthier role and can contribute to the increased consumption of 120g/h. Which some athletes can achieve.

For the sexuality regulars – your fuelling needs will vary depending on which part of your menstrual trundling you’re in. The typesetting ‘The Sexuality Soul Bible, 2023’ is a fantastic read and provides a wealth of information based virtually sexuality needs, during exercise and their menstrual phases and virtually exercise. Believe it or not, that age old weighing that men and women are exactly the same, is not true.

Top tip: High levels of CHO intake can be harsh on the stomach, so it’s unchangingly well-considered to train your soul into them and build it up gradually.

Fuelling guidelines

Exercise type/duration	CHO amounts	Fuel source
< 45 minutes easy	Not unchangingly needed, but a bar wouldn’t harm
High intensity 45-75 minutes	60-90g/h Mixed CHO ideal	Gels, CHO drink minx, Bars
1-2.4 hours of endurance pace	30-60g/h Mixed CHO ideal	Gels, CHO drink mix, Bars, a meal
Endurance longer than 2.5 hours	Up to 90g/h Mixed CHO	Gels, CHO drink mix, Bars, a meal
Ultra-endurance or high-intensity race events	Up to 120g/h Mixed CHO	Gels, CHO drink mix, Bars, a meal

These are standard guidelines offered in nutrition books, unchangingly err with circumspection and use them as just that – guidelines, while finding what works weightier for you.

Post exercise, its recommended to have some sort of protein within 30-minutes of exercise, to start the recovery process as early as possible. This can be in the form of a protein shake if that’s an easier option, they’re used by many athletes.

protein shake — Image credit: OTE Sports

On the velocipede fuel ideas

-Home-made rice cakes – recipe can be found in the GCN cookbook

-Belvita soft bakes – virtually 30g per bar, perfect for a steady Sunday ride

-Nature Valley cereal bars – virtually 27g, moreover perfect for a Sunday ride

-Any other form of cereal bars that are 25g plus

-Nutrition brands such as Styrkr offer a ‘bar50’ which has 50g of CHO per bar

-Rice Krispy bars

-Bananas

-Energy powder in your bottle

-Gels – if you’re going to use them during racing, subtracting one in per ride will help your stomach wilt accustomed

-Home-made oat, seed, and semen bars

-Electrolytes – unchangingly important to stay hydrated

Nutrition companies:

Although there are hundreds of nutrition brands out there, you may not know where to start looking so here s a small list to get you started:

-OTE

-Styrkr

-Veloforte

-Torq

-SIS

-High5

conclusion

You’ll need to fumble your way lanugo the nutrition path, as it’s not ‘one works for all.’ It’s unchangingly a good idea to test variegated nutrition brands, some will have less harsh effects on individuals and make it easier to fuel, but where you can, home-made snacks are usually largest value for money and somewhat healthier as you know what’s going into them.