Less-Common Nutrition Tips: June ‘23
Hi there, it’s Tom and Emma with this month’s In-Form newsletter!
Musings
In line with the launch of our new guide Optimal Cycling Nutrition, in this month’s newsletter we’ve got four lesser-talked about nutrition tips to help optimise your training and racing:
Most cyclists are aware that consuming carbohydrates in a longer ride or race is performance-enhancing, because it helps replenish carbohydrates that are being used during the ride. However, fewer people know that carbohydrates can also provide an instant boost to the central nervous system, helping enhance performance in a similar way to caffeine. Even just rinsing some carbohydrate drink around your mouth for 5-10 seconds and spitting it out will do the trick! Taking a small amount of carbohydrate a few minutes before starting a race can therefore be a good strategy for most types of race, and even helps boost performance in shorter events such as hill climbs, time trials, cyclocross or circuit races, which are so short that they don’t challenge the body’s internal carbohydrate stores. Rinsing your mouth with a carbohydrate drink can also be helpful if you experience stomach issues.
If you struggle with stomach issues when riding in the heat, another good tip is to avoid energy drinks. That’s because, in the heat, we generally need to drink a lot of volume, and if you’re hydrating using energy drinks, then you can end up taking on a large amount of carbohydrates too. The gut has an upper limit on the rate at which carbohydrate can be absorbed during exercise, and if you consume more than this (because you need to drink lots), you can end up with some uncomfortable, and in some cases race-jeopardising digestive problems. A safer bet is to stick to sugar-free or low-sugar electrolyte drinks, and take in your energy through gels, bars or other foods.
Another tip when it comes to hydration is to be aware of environments that are more likely to dehydrate you. We all know that sweat rates are higher in hotter weather. However, many people don’t appreciate how much sweat is lost in cold/wet weather too, when wearing lots of layers that often aren’t very breathable. Altitude is another environment where fluid losses are higher. This is because altitude causes increased fluid loss in the breath, and also an increased rate of ‘diuresis’ (i.e. urine production).
Finally, if you’re looking to accurately estimate how many calories you’ve burnt during a ride and you ride with a power meter, this is super easy if you know one little hack… The work done in a ride equates almost exactly to the number of calories burnt. So if you’ve done 1000kJ of work, then you’ve burnt 1000kcal! This is because 1 kcal = 4.18 kJ. At the same time, the human body is roughly 25% efficient in converting kcal burnt into watts on the bike. So for every 4kJ of energy burnt (roughly 1kcal), there is 1kJ of work done in turning the cranks on the bike. Knowing this trick makes it very easy to spot the days where you might need to eat a bit more, and the days you can eat a bit less.
News
With the main hill climb season in the UK rapidly approaching in September, we’ve been hard at work producing some hill-climb specific plans, for use in the lead-up to and during the season. These come with a free chapter from our popular Hill Climb Handbook, providing guidance on how to pace a hill climb effort, as well as 30% off the full guide. For those looking for something more bespoke, we also have custom plan availability, where we’ll build you a plan from the ground-up to suit your specific physiology and needs.
We have a new article on our website, which gives a detailed review of the different approaches to power profile testing, the pros and cons, and some real-world examples using actual data from athletes. If you’ve ever wanted to understand your own strengths and limiters in more detail, without the need to list a lab, this article is for you!
And as mentioned above, our biggest news this month is our new guide “Optimal Cycling Nutrition”, which aims to provide all the need-to-knows to help you optimise training adaptations and enhance performance. If you’d like to learn more about any of the subjects above, as well as many other topics, you can get our guide here.
That’s it for this month! We really appreciate you checking in.
Tom and Emma
