Fuelling Endurance Exercise

FITNESS · GLOBAL

Fuelling Endurance Exercise

Why carbohydrate matters, how much per hour, hydration and training your gut

Fuelling during long exercise is one of the few areas of sports nutrition with clear, practical and well-supported numbers behind it.

Why carbohydrate

Stored muscle glycogen runs low after roughly ninety minutes of hard effort, which is when performance falls sharply — the sensation cyclists call bonking. Taking carbohydrate in before that point prevents it.

How much per hour

For efforts over about an hour, around 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate an hour is the established guidance. Beyond two and a half hours, up to 90 grams is achievable using a mix of glucose and fructose.

The mix matters, because glucose and fructose use different intestinal transporters, so combining them allows more total absorption than glucose alone.

Real food and gels

Gels are concentrated and convenient and need water. Bars, dried fruit, bananas and rice cakes all work and digest more slowly, which suits steadier efforts.

Most people do best with a mix — real food early, gels late when chewing becomes unappealing.

Train your gut

Absorbing that much carbohydrate while exercising is a trainable skill. Practise your race fuelling in training rather than trying something new on the day, which is the commonest cause of stomach trouble.

Hydration and electrolytes

Drink to thirst rather than to a fixed schedule. Deliberately drinking far more than you need dilutes blood sodium, which is dangerous.

Sodium matters in long, hot efforts and heavy sweating rather than in an hour's ride.

Caffeine

Has good evidence for endurance performance at modest doses. It also affects sleep for hours afterwards.

Reading a label

Check grams of carbohydrate per serving rather than calories, since that is what you are dosing. Look at whether it uses a glucose and fructose mix if you need higher intakes.

Check the fibre and fat content, since both slow absorption and are better suited to before or after rather than during hard efforts.

Everyday eating

Energy products are for training and events rather than for snacking. For ordinary days a varied diet does the job, and these are concentrated sugar by design.

Before and after

Eat a carbohydrate-based meal two to three hours before a long effort, and something small and easy shortly before. Heavy, fatty or very high fibre food close to exercise causes most stomach problems.

Afterwards, ordinary meals do the job. Recovery products are convenience rather than necessity for most people.

Hot and cold conditions

In heat, sweat losses rise considerably and appetite falls, which makes liquid carbohydrate easier to take in than solid food. In cold, gels stiffen and bars become difficult to chew, so keep them in an inside pocket.

Afterwards

Carbohydrate and protein within a few hours, and a normal varied diet does most of the work.

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