Catch the nutrition tips to increase your performance
In the life of an endurance athlete training and nutrition play a vital role in all the steps of adequate preparation.
Nullifying the efforts made during your training phase with a bad eating strategy is a mistake that an athlete should not allow. Nutrition is the most important aspect of preparation from the first training day to the competition’s day.
Be entirely ready for your race
An adequate nutritional strategy, which is aimed at short trials, or endurance for a Gran Fondo, marathon, and even 24H on mountain bike (MTB), should be traced in advance and represents the first step toward excellent performance.
It is always good to remember that food, in its different forms, can be defined as the fuel for our engine and dramatically affects the well-being of our organism, our balance and, as previously written, plays a fundamental role in performance but also in mental attitude.
Let’s start with the basics of sports nutrition: 3 main meals and 2 snacks
The calorie consumption of an endurance athlete is greater than that of a sedentary person, so the amount of food and calories to be consumed must also be greater and proportionate. The daily diet must be rich in carbohydrates from whole grains, proteins from lean meat or legumes, and fats.
Salmon, olive oil, avocado, and nuts or dried fruit are rich in good fats. As for fruit and vegetables, at least five servings a day, because an athlete consumes more vitamins and produces more free radicals than an inactive person [1], who still needs fruit and vegetables for their content of fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, water, and minerals useful for the body.
General instructions for every phase
On training days, the main meal before the training session should be rich in carbohydrates [2], but the following one requires a correct protein content [3].
On non-training days prefer proteins over carbohydrates [3].
Nutritional instructions for the race preparation
The night before a race, avoid fiber and favor non-whole carbohydrates but in the morning make sure you get a correct amount of them, a typical breakfast could be rusks with jam, porridge, white bread, rump or raw ham, liquids, and, depending on the weather and temperature conditions, a drink added of carbohydrates and mineral salts or one of carbohydrates only, such as maltodextrins or cyclodextrins [4].
Generally used as a thickener in processed food, maltodextrins are also used as a source of immediate energy. They are capable of rapidly increasing blood glucose levels.
Cyclodextrins dissolve more easily in water. Cyclodextrins require little water to dissolve because they are highly soluble. To absorb them, the athlete must therefore ingest less water than other types of carbohydrates and this decreases the gastric emptying time [5].
Slowing gastric emptying helps to make the athlete feel full during performance or training and reduces intestinal problems.
As regards breakfast, it could be useful to eat plain rice or carbohydrates with a low glycemic index at least two and a half / three hours before the competition. A teaspoon of olive oil or a nut of butter will give it a more intense taste and will enrich your meal without making it too heavy. Even if on the morning of the race you have the feeling that you need to increase the amount of fat to have a richer breakfast, remember that fats have a longer digestion time than other nutrients and you risk overloading your body by lengthening the digestion duration [4].
The essential advice in the race
- Drink every 15-20 minutes.
- After the first 90 minutes or so, take a gel or a bar.
- A gel or a bar every hour; if the gel is not isotonic, it should be taken together with water to avoid gastrointestinal discomfort [6].
In MTB races, consumption and caloric needs vary depending on the altitude, so before a demanding climb or halfway through a long test, a gel with the addition of caffeine is useful in terms of perception of fatigue, delaying its onset [6]. Always remember that the nutritional strategy must be studied and tested in advance.
Long-distance circuit races
In the tests lasting 6 or 24 hours, there are various situations to which we must pay particular attention [7]:
- The change of temperature between day and night: during the day it is good to have a solution of mineral salts in your bottle, while at night a solution of carbohydrates with branched amino acids protects the muscles subjected to intense physical exertion.
- Drink plain water with gels (unless it is isotonic gel) and with bars or other solid food.
- Train the intestine at the break with the evening meal, and in any case, alternate gels and bars with normal, easily digestible food; the classic ham sandwich can provide carbohydrates, and proteins and break the continuous intake of sweet foods [8].
- Eat often and avoid ingesting too much food or liquid at one time [9].
- Avoid exhaustion by anticipating the moment when you feel hungry and eating small amounts but constantly: this will also give you continuous energy.
- Evaluate the use of caffeine at night (test the products in training), preferably with resealable vials to divide the dosage [10, 11].
- Extra gel or bar can be useful in case of an emergency.
The recovery phase
All competitions need to set up a sufficient liquid, saline, fast carbohydrate replenishment (simple sugars), and above all to take at least 0.25 g of a high-quality protein per kg of body weight, or an absolute dose of 20-40 g of a high-quality protein to provide all the essential amino acids for restoring the plastic functionality of the stressed muscle [12]. After an hour, eat a solid and easy-to-digest meal, to reduce extra stress for the body. Don’t forget fruit: it contains sugars and antioxidants that also facilitate recovery and reduce damage from free radicals.
References
[1] Powers SK, Deminice R, Ozdemir M, Yoshihara T, Bomkamp MP, Hyatt H. Exercise-induced oxidative stress: Friend or foe? J Sport Health Sci. 2020 Sep;9(5):415-425. doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2020.04.001. Epub 2020 May 4. PMID: 32380253; PMCID: PMC7498668.
[2] Rothschild JA, Kilding AE, Plews DJ. What Should I Eat Before Exercise? Pre-Exercise Nutrition and the Response to Endurance Exercise: Current Prospective and Future Directions. Nutrients. 2020 Nov 12;12(11):3473. doi: 10.3390/nu12113473. PMID: 33198277; PMCID: PMC7696145.
[3] Kerksick CM, Arent S, Schoenfeld BJ, Stout JR, Campbell B, Wilborn CD, Taylor L, Kalman D, Smith-Ryan AE, Kreider RB, Willoughby D, Arciero PJ, VanDusseldorp TA, Ormsbee MJ, Wildman R, Greenwood M, Ziegenfuss TN, Aragon AA, Antonio J. International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrient timing. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Aug 29;14:33. doi: 10.1186/s12970-017-0189-4. PMID: 28919842; PMCID: PMC5596471.
[4] Tiller NB, Roberts JD, Beasley L, Chapman S, Pinto JM, Smith L, Wiffin M, Russell M, Sparks SA, Duckworth L, O’Hara J, Sutton L, Antonio J, Willoughby DS, Tarpey MD, Smith-Ryan AE, Ormsbee MJ, Astorino TA, Kreider RB, McGinnis GR, Stout JR, Smith JW, Arent SM, Campbell BI, Bannock L. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: nutritional considerations for single-stage ultra-marathon training and racing. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2019 Nov 7;16(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s12970-019-0312-9. PMID: 31699159; PMCID: PMC6839090.
[5] TAKII, Hiroshi & Kometani, Takashi & NISHIMURA, Takahisa & Kuriki, Takashi & FUSHIKI, Tohru. (2004). A Sports Drink Based on Highly Branched Cyclic Dextrin Generates Few Gastrointestinal Disorders in Untrained Men during Bicycle Exercise. Food Science and Technology Research – FOOD SCI TECHNOL RES. 10. 428-431. 10.3136/fstr.10.428.
[6] Costa RJS, Knechtle B, Tarnopolsky M, Hoffman MD. Nutrition for Ultramarathon Running: Trail, Track, and Road. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2019 Mar 1;29(2):130-140. doi: 10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0255. Epub 2019 Apr 3. PMID: 30943823.
[7] Casazza GA, Tovar AP, Richardson CE, Cortez AN, Davis BA. Energy Availability, Macronutrient Intake, and Nutritional Supplementation for Improving Exercise Performance in Endurance Athletes. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2018 Jun;17(6):215-223. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000494. PMID: 29889151.
[8] Rosset R, Lecoultre V, Egli L, Cros J, Dokumaci AS, Zwygart K, Boesch C, Kreis R, Schneiter P, Tappy L. Postexercise repletion of muscle energy stores with fructose or glucose in mixed meals. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017 Mar;105(3):609-617. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.116.138214. Epub 2017 Jan 18. PMID: 28100512.
[9] Alghannam AF, Ghaith MM, Alhussain MH. Regulation of Energy Substrate Metabolism in Endurance Exercise. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 May 7;18(9):4963. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18094963. PMID: 34066984; PMCID: PMC8124511.
[10] Guest NS, VanDusseldorp TA, Nelson MT, Grgic J, Schoenfeld BJ, Jenkins NDM, Arent SM, Antonio J, Stout JR, Trexler ET, Smith-Ryan AE, Goldstein ER, Kalman DS, Campbell BI. International society of sports nutrition position stand: caffeine and exercise performance. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2021 Jan 2;18(1):1. doi: 10.1186/s12970-020-00383-4. PMID: 33388079; PMCID: PMC7777221.
[11] Southward K, Rutherfurd-Markwick KJ, Ali A. The Effect of Acute Caffeine Ingestion on Endurance Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2018 Aug;48(8):1913-1928. doi: 10.1007/s40279-018-0939-8. Erratum in: Sports Med. 2018 Aug 9;: PMID: 29876876.
[12] Jäger R, Kerksick CM, Campbell BI, Cribb PJ, Wells SD, Skwiat TM, Purpura M, Ziegenfuss TN, Ferrando AA, Arent SM, Smith-Ryan AE, Stout JR, Arciero PJ, Ormsbee MJ, Taylor LW, Wilborn CD, Kalman DS, Kreider RB, Willoughby DS, Hoffman JR, Krzykowski JL, Antonio J. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Jun 20;14:20. doi: 10.1186/s12970-017-0177-8. PMID: 28642676; PMCID: PMC5477153.
Disclaimer
The information contained herein is not and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Before making any changes to your diet, exercise or treatment, always consult your doctor or a qualified health professional.
The guidance provided may not be appropriate for your specific situation. Never make any decisions about your health based solely on the information provided in this article.
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