In our previous blogs you have been able to read about what carbohydrates are and what you should eat before a competition or event. But now imagine: you've eaten in time and you're ready for the race or event. The starting shot is given and you bang away. After a good start in the first hour you start to get hungry. After 2 hours, your appetite turns into hunger and you notice that your energy level drops. Suddenly you fall silent; you have no more power to maintain the same pace and the finish seems only further away. You ask yourself: ?
?What have I done wrong now?
I ate well 3 hours before the event, took in enough carbohydrates, but I still stagnate. Many athletes know this phenomenon, that the energy slowly seeps out of your body or? that it is just acutely gone. We also call this phenomenon a hunger knock. Your body has no more fuel to perform. During the hunger knock, all the sugars/carbohydrates in your muscles and kidneys are used up and your body switches to burning fat and protein. This fat is pulled from the entire body and the protein is pulled from the muscle. The latter causes muscle breakdown.
Just those muscles you've been training hard for all year, you're going to break them down now and use them as fuel.
In addition, both fats and proteins are very slow fuels, so you can't go as hard as you would with carbohydrates.
It has been scientifically proven that when exercising for 45 minutes or longer, sports nutrition improves endurance sports performance (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2010). So what should you do to prevent the hunger knock or even improve your performance with the help of the right nutrition? To prevent the hunger knock, it is important that you take at least 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour (Smith et al.,2013). If you want to make sure your performance improves take 78 ?grams of carbohydrates per hour (Smith et al.,2013). This is easiest to do using sports nutrition. In terms of solid food, choose our Endurance bars (25g of carbohydrate) at the beginning of the event and towards the last 2 hours choose our Pro Isotonic gel (25g of carbohydrate). In terms of liquid food, you can choose our Isotonic sports drink (33g of carbohydrate) or our Endurance booster (55g of carbohydrate).
For example, an example schedule at 4 hours of exertion is:
In the first hour:
2 endurance bar (50 grams)
500ml isotonic sports drink (33 grams)
Total: 83 grams of carbohydrates ?
In the second hour:
2 endurance bar (50 grams)
500ml isotonic sports drink (33 grams)
Total: 83 grams of carbohydrates ?
In the third hour:
1 Pro isotonic gel (25 grams)
500ml Endurance booster (55 grams)
Total: 80 grams of carbohydrates ?
And the fourth and final hour:
1 Pro isotonic gel (25 grams)
500ml Endurance booster (55 grams)
Total: 80 grams of carbohydrates ?
Lastly, it's important that you train with handling sports nutrition, so never start the race or event without trying it on a training session. So also experiment with the right adjusted amounts. In this way you will train your body to handle sports nutrition and -even better- you will get more out of your workouts! We advise you to keep to this schedule in addition to competitions/events when training.
Next week, we'll talk about what you need after a game or workout for ultimate recovery. See you next week!
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References:
Jeukendrup, A. & Gleeson, M., (2010). Sport Nutrition ? 2nd edition, Human Kinetics PublishersSmith
, J.W., Pascoe, D.D., Passe, D.H., Ruby, B.C., Stewart, L.K., Baker, L.B. & Zachwieja, J.J. (2013).
??????????????? Curvilinear dose-response relationship of carbohydrate (0-120 g?h(-1)) and performance,
??????????????? Pubmed
. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31827205d1
