Carbohydrates for training and competition

Abstract

An athlete's carbohydrate intake can be judged by whether total daily intake and the timing of consumption in relation to exercise maintain adequate carbohydrate substrate for the muscle and central nervous system (''high carbohydrate availability'') or whether carbohydrate fuel sources are limiting for the daily exercise programme (''low carbohydrate availability''). Carbohydrate availability is increased by consuming carbohydrate in the hours or days prior to the session, intake during exercise, and refuelling during recovery between sessions. This is important for the competition setting or for high-intensity training where optimal performance is desired. Carbohydrate intake during exercise should be scaled according to the characteristics of the event. During sustained high-intensity sports lasting *1 h, small amounts of carbohydrate, including even mouth-rinsing, enhance performance via central nervous system effects. While 30-60 g Á h 71 is an appropriate target for sports of longer duration, events 42.5 h may benefit from higher intakes of up to 90 g Á h 71 . Products containing special blends of different carbohydrates may maximize absorption of carbohydrate at such high rates. In real life, athletes undertake training sessions with varying carbohydrate availability. Whether implementing additional ''train-low'' strategies to increase the training adaptation leads to enhanced performance in well-trained individuals is unclear.

New strategies in sport nutrition to increase exercise performance

“…>500 mmol.kg -1 dw) can improve endurance and team sport performance in those instances where exercise duration is >60-90 minutes [35]. As such, elite athletes are now advised to consume at least 6-12 g/kg body mass of CHO in the 24-36 h prior to competition so as to adequately "CHO load" for competition day [36].…”

Gut-training: the impact of two weeks repetitive gut-challenge during exercise on gastrointestinal status, glucose availability, fuel kinetics, and running performance

“…Recently, the role of implementing multiple-transportable carbohydrates (e.g., 2:1 glucose to fructose ratio), up to 90 g·h -1 , during exercise bouts lasting ≥3 h, has been advocated and shown to enhance exogenous carbohydrate oxidation rates, postpone fatigue, and improve endurance performance compared with singular carbohydrate sources (e.g., glucose) (Burke et al 2011;Jeukendrup 2010). However, the majority of original investigations used to establish recommendations for multiple-transportable carbohydrate intake during exercise have been predominantly performed on small numbers of highly-trained male cyclists (Jentjens et al 2004;Jentjens et al 2006;Jentjens and Jeukendrup 2005), which constitutes a minor proportion of the overall endurance sports population.…”

Comparative Evaluation of Actual Nutrition and Micronutrients Provision of Judo Wrestlers of Various Sport Performance Levels / Įvairaus meistriškumo dziudo imtynininkų faktinės mitybos ir aprūpinimo maisto medžiagomis lyginamoji charakteristika

“…As for the total carbohydrates, 313.57 ± 22.29 consumed by highly trained judokas, mono-and disaccharides were predominant and reached 57.88 ± 2.99 % of carbohydrates. According to Burke et al (2011), Phillips, van Loon (2011), the recommended norm of carbohydrates should be 60-70% of the total amount of energy, received from food.…”