High Carb Fueling For Performance
Good afternoon, people,
We just wanted to let you know that we are still operational and plan to post more frequent content soon. Life/family/newborns/school/work required more attention from us, so social media fell to the bottom of the list of priorities.
Anyways… today’s topic will be all about carb intake for performance during training/competition. We will not be brief on this one because it is a VERY important topic in the realm of performance, and it demands some nuance. Many trainers/coaches charge a lot of money for this free information. So, in our efforts to make our free content better than most paid content out there… here we go.
This topic WILL BE beneficial for:
Endurance athletes, military/LEO/fire athletes, strength training, and those at a healthy body weight who want to maximize performance.
This is especially for all of you military athletes who believe that a nutrition strategy is a crutch. You CAN carry the boats, stay hard, go one more, all while properly fueling yourself to get your best performance every time.
This topic WILL NOT BE helpful for:
Those who are focused on losing excess body fat or those who are not into endurance training.
There is a major difference between fueling for performance and fueling for fat loss or health. Know where your goals lie.
Carbs provide a direct fuel source for our bodies to meet our energetic demands. This is no surprise. However, most people could gain A HUGE performance boost during training/competition simply by consuming the right amount of carbs for YOU. Out of all the things you can do to improve performance, proper fueling should be ranked as high as sleep and hydration in terms of performance gains. This is easily seen in the far too common “bonking” sensation in a marathoner or endurance athlete.
“Bonking” is when the athlete simply runs out of fuel and is reduced to a much slower pace just to survive until the end of the race. Typically, once you have “bonked”, you do not come back from it unless you have ~2 hours left in your training/race. “Bonking” is surprisingly easy to do if you underestimate your energy needs by something as small as 20-ish grams of carbs per hour.
Luckily, we live in an era where questions such as “How many carbs do I need for my training/performance?” are not left to a guess. Since about 2014 (and likely earlier), we have known what amounts of carbs deliver the best performance and how to go about this fueling process. Fueling for the best performance needs to be a perfect mixture of primarily 2 things:
Consuming the proper amount of carbs for your demands.
Based on your training/competition duration AND intensity.
This is more than simply consuming enough carbs to survive.
We want to find the right amount that enables you to perform at your absolute best. There is a significant difference here, and many people have trouble distinguishing between the two (mainly our military guys because they are accustomed to doing a lot with very little fuel).
Doing so without causing GI upset (stomach cramps, diarrhea, etc.)
Too many carbs or too many of the wrong kinds of carbs will lead to GI upset.
Consuming fiber, protein, and fats (in surprisingly small amounts) during the workout/competition will do the same.
Keeping these things in mind, we need to develop a strategy for your individual needs on a given day for a given intensity and duration. Easy right?
Yes, it is that easy because, thankfully, we have very intelligent people who run studies based on these exact questions. Below is an infographic from a 2014 study about individualized carbohydrate needs during exercise (link to study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008807/). Please click the link and view Fig. 1 of the study.
At first glance there should be immediate questions that come to mind. Such as “What does multiple transportable carbohydrates mean?” and “What does nutritional training mean?”.
“What does multiple transportable carbohydrates mean?”:
Typically, carbs are thought of as just… carbs. There’s not much to it, and carb is a carb. Not necessarily. While carbs can be divided into many categories based on their structure, complexity, and size, in the performance world, we are only concerned with two types of carbs: Glucose and Fructose. Once you enter the realm of ~70 g/hr, a combination of glucose and fructose is critical for most people we have worked with.
Glucose is what most people think of when they think of carbs. It’s the most common type of carb found, and it has a relatively simple structure that allows for quick and easy absorption and metabolism for energy. When people consume gels or most carb supplements, glucose is the primary type of carb used. Maltodextrin is one of the more common ingredients in these supplements, made from branching glucose together. Now, there is really no problem here when supplementing carbs with ingredients that use primarily glucose for most purposes.
We run into an issue when you need to start consuming around 60+ grams/hour during training/competition. Refer to the image above again to see this. Your gut uses specific glucose transporters to shuttle the glucose into the bloodstream (SGLT 1 transporter) that typically tap out around 60 g/hr. If your intensity and exercise duration demand something more than 60 g/hr, you will almost be guaranteed to run into GI issues that hinder performance.
Need to push more carbs without the fear of GI upset? This is when fructose comes into play. By using a supplement that utilizes a mixture of glucose and fructose, we can consume MUCH more carbs without having GI issues, all while avoiding the dreaded “bonk”. Fructose uses an entirely separate transporter (GLUT 5 transporter) in the gut which literally opens up a new avenue for fueling. Putting GLUT 5 and SGLT 1 to work together is the only way you can reach a rate of 70-80+ g/hr.
Most products use a ratio of glucose:fructose around 1:0.8 or even 2:1. There are plenty out there that have these ratios, and they are absolutely essential for longer/more intense efforts.
“What does nutritional training mean?”:
Nutritional training means that you often need to train your gut to be able to absorb carbs at higher rates (usually 70+ g/hr). If you have never consumed carbs at a rate of around 70 g/hr before, you will almost be guaranteed to experience some stomach upset.
Take a gradual approach and start around 60 g/hr if your training is anything longer than ~1.5 hours just to experiment with it. If you handle that well, make incremental jumps by adding ~10 g/hr to your strategy and give it some time to adjust. The biggest danger here is rushing the process and suffering from adverse GI issues.
By now, you have hopefully gained some insight into how you can improve your nutritional strategy. Here are some final notes that we would like to leave you with:
Get ahead and stay ahead when you have a long training session or competition.
It is ALWAYS better to slightly over-fuel rather than under-fuel. It is very difficult to come back from an underfueling error. You can fight through it, but your performance will be suboptimal.
The upper limit for carbohydrate intake has been found to be around 120 g/hr (Tour de France cyclists are usually close to this after a lot of nutritional training and precise carb formulation).
Your personal rate of carb intake IS NOT determined by your bodyweight. It is determined by your transporter density due to genetics and/or intestinal length which is not necessarily correlated to your weight or height.
Not many people can reach these upper limits for an extended period without experiencing serious GI upset. Find your individual carbs/hour rate and settle into it. There is no need to try to reach 120 g/hr if you physically can’t get there, so don’t sweat it. Make this process of finding your perfect formula a scientific process and experiment through trial and error.
Your carb/hour rate is intended to be an intra workout rate ONLY. Fuel properly pre workout and post workout, but do not include those carbs in your calculations/strategy.
Gels, carb powder, and mechanisms to carry these things with you are necessary to properly fuel. Yes, we know it is inconvenient.
Vitargo (powder) - Primarily glucose for shorter workouts or strength training.
Carbs Fuel (gel or powder) - Great ratio of glucose:fructose at the lowest cost we’ve found.
If you feel like you can’t put out a proper effort and/or are not recovering fast enough, your carbs/hour rate is likely too low during the workout.
This can be remedied through:
More carbs during the workout (duh).
More carbs post workout. We typically recommend anywhere from 30-75 g of carbs post workout (depending on how soon your next workout is) along with protein (~20-30 grams).
There is far more to say about this topic, but this is more than enough to get you more than 95% of the way to optimal performance for you. If you would like to learn more about all of this and you like to nerd out on this, give this recent study a look: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9734239/
We hope you have gained a lot of information today. Feel free to contact us if you have more specific questions, and we will be more than happy to chat with you. You can also hire us for nutrition and fitness coaching for a more personalized approach.
Until next time,
Hormetic Training Group
