Get Fast! by Selene Yeager

Author:Selene Yeager
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2013-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Though there’s a ceiling to how many carbs your body can absorb per minute (scientists used to think it was just 1 gram per minute; we now know it’s quite a bit higher), the more you can tolerate, the better you’ll do. The key is feeding your body from a variety of carb sources. There are different types of simple sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose. You have individual transporters in your gut that break down each type and shuttle it into your bloodstream. But they can absorb only a fixed amount in any given time period. So if your glucose transporters are maxed out at 60 grams, others, like those for fructose, are still available.

In his lab, Asker Jeukendrup, PhD, the global senior director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute in Barrington, Illinois, found that by using a drink blend that included fructose, he could get athletes to absorb a whopping 1.75 grams per minute—more than 100 grams or 400 calories an hour.

But you have to train your gut to handle that amount of fuel. That’s right, train your gut, and it’s something far too many riders neglect, according to experts like Jeukendrup. “Your gut is every bit as trainable, if not more trainable, than your legs. And every bit as important,” he told me as we were chatting about what separates endurance champions from the rest of us. “If you only eat two hundred or two hundred fifty calories an hour in training, your gut won’t suddenly accept twice that much during a race,” he said. You need to gradually increase your carb intake during training to hit those high amounts.

As your gut becomes better at tolerating and absorbing calories during activity, your performance can improve exponentially. Even if you don’t hit 400 calories an hour, if you keep a steady stream coming in (again, not dumping the whole load into your system at once), chances are you can absorb more than you imagine—and keep a faster, steadier pace as well.

Experiment with foods that you like and can tolerate. The sports nutrition market is saturated with energy bars of every variety, but real food works just as well, if not better. If you’re heading out for a long ride of 3 or more hours, it’s even more important to pack real food. In fact, it’s usually better to start with real food such as peanut butter sandwich bits, fig bars, bananas, and the like before moving to energy bars, since consuming too many sugary sports foods (like bars and especially gels, blocks, and beans) can lead to gastrointestinal distress, or “gut rot” (see “Avoid Gut Rot”) during long endurance events.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.