cycling and diet

What is the best ' sports diet ' .......

It can often be just very easy and simple changes that can have a dramatic impact.

You need to:

1. Provide the right type of fuel for your muscles.

2. Repair muscle and tissue damage.

3. Replace lost electrolytes and other nutrients.

This means you should be aiming to get enough nutrients in your diet to sustain you while cycling and to recover afterwards.

You'd think that if you ate enough, and had enough sleep, you wouldn't have to worry about sports nutrition.

After all in most cases your body will contain about 1500 carbohydrate Calories stored in your liver and muscle tissue, and over 100,000 Calories of energy stored as fat.

That is enough carbohydrates for a few hours serious cycling, and enough fat (if you took it gently) to cycle for days!

Unfortunately it's not as simple as that !

There are 2 very important aspects to boosting your long term energy levels, as well as having enough in reserve for the 'sprint' at the end.

Different plan for different events

Your plan for what to eat, and when, has to reflect what you are going to be doing.

For example are you cycling for 1 hour, 2 hours, or longer?

In addition you also need to take into consideration what stage of training you are at - the muscle efficiency of a highly trained cyclist will be significantly better than a rank amateur.  This means that, given the same 'fuel', he/she will be able to cycle longer without getting tired.

But the key to selecting the right fuel is to focus on 3 main time periods :

1. Before

2. During

We'll come to the importance of fluid a bit later, but you will get much better results if you have the carbohydrates in a soluble form (a drink).  All exercise delays stomach emptying (although more applicable to runners it does affect cyclists) and if you have solid food you can end up with feelings of nausea. It also limits your intake of carbohydrates, especially important for longer events.

See below

Probably the most important element to your success will be what you do when you stop cycling.

If, before you start, you use the wrong 'fuel' the results are instant - you simply won't perform as well, get tired quicker and have shorter stamina and endurance.

However the results (of following the wrong diet plan) afterwards are not immediate - and you will only notice the difference the next day in soreness, stiffness and fatigue.

But if you select the right plan you can make significant improvement to your training and competition results!

We all know the importance of water - the body is mostly make up of water and even as little as 2 % fluid loss (mild dehydration) can significantly harm your performance.

Yes in extreme conditions you can lose a litre per hour, but even on cold days you will be 'burning' water in your muscles, and losing it with your breath and perspiration.

Which is why if you are just drinking water are missing out on a very easy way to boost your results.

Linked to this one of is the issue of Blood flow and circulation

It doesn't matter how good your diet is, and which super duper energy performance enhancing drinks you consume - if it can't get to the organs and muscles then it simply won't be as effective.

That is why - especially for sports like cycling  - we recommend adding a product like niteworks. 

It is a product you take which will help with the production of Nitric Oxide - a naturally occurring substance in your body which affects the dilation and elasticity of your blood vessels.  ( For those training for competitions the product is approved for Olympic levels)

(we'd mention alternatives but believe this product to be unique )

Summary

If you can combine all of the above into your training plan you will see dramatic improvements. Which is why we have shown the example from David below.