Sports Nutrition

Food is fuel. Without it we go nowhere. Whether you are an elite athlete looking to get every bit out of your performance, or a low key fitness-seeker who just wants to feel good about yourself, what you put in your tank will have a significant affect on what you get out of your workout or race.

Water

It all starts and ends here. For competition as well as health, water is essential and, too often, under consumed. As much as 60% of our bodies are composed of water. Sweat loss of only 2% of your bodyweight can significantly impair your aerobic performance. It is the easiest, most accessible essential nutrient we consume, yet many of us walk around underhydrated every day and don’t drink enough during exercise.

What you need to know about every day hydration:

8-10 glasses of water every day. We use 60-80 oz of water through everyday living in average temperatures. 8-10 glasses of water is what we need just for everyday living.
Water can come from many sources including juice, milk, yogurt, fruits and vegetables as well as pure water.
Coffee in moderation, less than two (2) cups per day, does not significantly impair hydration, though it does not add to your basic 8-10 cups per day. If you drink more than two (2) cups per day, match each cup with a glass of water to maintain hydration levels.
Soda containing high amounts of sugars and syrups are a poor choice for hydration because of their high caloric and additive content.
For each serving of alcohol, consume one (1) glass of water to maintain hydration levels.
One trick is to fill a 2-liter bottle (67 oz.), or two (2) 1-liter bottles, with water each morning. Once you have finished the bottle (s), you have fulfilled your daily hydration requirement. Doing it this way makes your progress visually clear throughout the day.

What you need to know about hydration during exercise:

Hydration needs will very from person to person and environment to environment. Learn your sweat rate by working out for a given period of time and weighing yourself before and after. For each pound lost, you have lost 16 oz. of water.
If you have not adequately maintained your hydration during the day, consume 24 oz. of water two (2) hours before exercise.
During exercise, consume 4-8 oz. of fluid (sports drink or water) every 15 minutes hour depending on your sweat rate and the weather conditions. Most water bottles hold between 16 and 24 oz.
Always consume electrolytes, especially sodium, with your fluids during exercise. Doing so will help you avoid hyponatremia, a potentially dangerous condition most often brought on by consuming too much water and too little electrolytes. For events and training under 3 hours, 100-200mg of sodium per hour should be enough. For training and racing over 3 hours, consider consuming 250-500mg of sodium per hour. Consider that most sports drinks contain 25-50mg of sodium per serving.

General Nutrition

While the media has jumped hard onto the low-carbohydrate diet fad, this type of diet is very poor for endurance athletics. Plain and simple, endurance athletes need carbohydrates to fuel our exercise. Even a low intensities at which we are burning fat as the primary fuel source, we need a adequate amounts of carbohydrates to combine with fat to create energy. As intensity increases, higher and higher percentages of calories burned come from carbohydrates. So keeping your muscles fully fueled with carbohydrates is very important to your success during training and racing.

While carbohydrates are essential to properly fueling yourself for exercise, how and when you consume them is also very important. Except for immediately before, during, and immediately after exercise, you should consume carbohydrates in combination with lean sources of protein and healthy fats. Doing so will minimize the insulin response to the food you are eating and minimize sugar spikes. Consuming your carbohydrates with fat and protein will, thus, provide a longer stream of energy and store less of your calories as body fat.

Our minimum daily calorie requirement before accounting for exercise, is about 10 calories per pound of lean body weight. The biggest mistake that most endurance athletes make is not eating enough to fuel their exercise. This causes a slow down in their metabolic rate, decreases the benefit of a training session, and can lead to fatigue and illness. The following chart offers a range of daily calorie requirements based on your current training level.

Calories per lb. bodyweight	Carbohydrates (g/lb. bodyweight)	Protein (g/lb. bodyweight)	Fats (g/lb. bodyweight)
Mild: 12-14 Moderate: 16-17 High: 18-24 Very High: 24-29	Mild/Moderate: 2.25-3.0 Moderate/High: 3.0-4.5 High/Very High: 4.5-5.5	Moderate: 0.45 High: 0.5-0.75 Very High 0.8-0.9	> 0.5 depending on energy needs
160 lb. athlete with high activity level
2800-3800 calories	560 g carbohydrates (60% calories)	128 g protein (13% calories)	115g fat (27% calories)

Source: Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes, Monique Ryan

You can see that the caloric requirements to keep your endurance machine properly topped off takes a lot of fuel. Work with these parameters to find the mix that works best for you.

Exercise Nutrition

While the best way to be fully ready for exercise is to maintain a proper daily diet, there are strategies to use before, during and after exercise to optimize your fueling strategy.

Before Exercise

Start planning and fueling two (2) hours before your workout and three (3) to four (4) hours before your race.

Consume a meal of 200-250 calories per hour before your activity. This could mean a pre-race shake or a full meal that you know you digest well. It should contain a high concentration of carbohydrates in the range of 0.3-0.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per hour.
Two hours before exercise, consume 24 oz. of fluid to top off your hydration.

During Exercise

Even when fully fueled, we only store 1400-1800 calories as glycogen, the fuel created from carbohydrates. At moderate to high intensities, you will deplete these stores in 1-3 hours. While we cannot replace our calories as fast as we deplete them, we can slow down the process through training and nutrition.

Carbohydrates: For exercise over 90 minutes, consume about 0.5 g, or 2 calories, of carbs per pound of bodyweight per hour of exercise. Under 90 minutes, benefits of consuming carbohydrates begins at about 30g, or 120 calories, per hour. The more complex the carbohydrate the longer it will provide energy.
Protein: When sufficient carbohydrate is not available for fuel or to combine with fat for fuel, protein is broken down from muscle tissue to provide fuel. Protein, however, is a very inefficient fuel for endurance performance, so you will slow down significantly and it will come at a high cost of muscle break down. For exercise over 90 minutes, 5-10g of protein per hour should offset any cannibalizing of muscle tissue toward the end of a long workout. Seek out supplements that use soy based protein, rather than whey based.
Fat: Even the leanest athlete carries enough fat to run several marathons back to back. Consuming fat during exercise, thus, provides virtually no benefit. At times, however, consuming foods with small amounts of fat will not impair performance and may offer extra flavor that will keep you eating.
Water: Depending on your sweat rate, your intensity and environmental conditions, consume 4-8oz. of fluids every 15 minutes. Drink full amounts, rather than sipping as a full gut empties more rapidly. Greater amounts of fluid than this are not often beneficial and can be dangerous, so track your fluid consumption. If you find yourself behind in your hydration, be sure to consume sports drink and not just straight water.
Electrolytes: Depending on conditions, consume 200-700mg of sodium per hour. You an do this with supplement tablets or simply adding 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt in your water bottle.
Low intensity training teaches your metabolism to utilize greater amounts of fat and less carbohydrate at all intensities. The more efficient you are at burning fat as fuel, the slower you burn up your carbohydrate stores and the more likely you are to keep up through carbohydrate consumption.

After Exercise

The main purpose of post exercise nutrition is to replenish depleted glycogen stores, replace lost electrolytes and rehydrate. The most important factor in replenishing your fuel stores after a workout is the number of calories you consume from one workout to the next. Depending on your activity level, as an athlete, you caloric requirements will likely fall into the following ranges:

Carbohydrates: 3-5.5 grams per pound of bodyweight per day
Protein: 0.45-0.9 grams per pound of bodyweight per day
Fats: 20-25% of daily caloric intake from fat.

While total daily calories between workouts is the most important factor, timing of when those calories are consumed is also important. Two windows of opportunity exist. Muscles are most open to replenishing their stores 15-30 minutes immediately after exercise. During this time, it is important to consume the following:

Carbohydrates: 0.5-0.7 g, or 2-3 calories, per pound body weight.
Protein: Some! Studies are not conclusive on one optimum ratio of carbs to protein, but small amounts of protein (10-15 g) in your post workout nutrition should aid glycogen synthesis.
Water: 24 oz. of water for every pound of bodyweight lost during your workout.
Sodium: If sweat loss is significant, consume 300-400mg of sodium.

Many of these elements are combined in recovery supplements that are pre-measured and very convenient.

The second window of opportunity stays open for two (2) hours after your workout. During that time, you should consume a full carbohydrate dense meal that includes protein, fats and fluids.

Nutritional Supplements

The commercial market is filled with nutritional supplements that claim everything from quicker fat loss to greater energy to greater brain power. While nutritionists still rightly maintain that you can obtain all the nutritional elements you need from the proper daily diet, we live in a world that sometimes makes it difficult to achieve a “proper” diet every day.

There are also a few products out there that do often improve performance and are worth exploring. While studies have shown these supplements to be ergogenic in some form, they are not for everyone and must be approached with caution and understanding. Possible negative side affects rarely outweigh the benefits these supplements may offer.

Daily Supplements:

Multivitamin. A standard dose of a multivitamin can help offset some deficiencies when you are not able to sit down for a proper meal each day. No need to mega-dose since we don’t store significant amounts and the unused elements will be discarded.
Antioxidant. The metabolic process creates a lot of waste that floats around and wreaks havoc on our systems. Antioxidants clean up the mess. While your main source of antioxidants are fresh fruits and vegetables, an antioxidant formula can boost your systems “cleaning power.” Oftentimes, you can find a combination multi/antioxidant formula in one.
Protein Supplement. In our western diet, it can be difficult to find a lean source of protein for each meal. A protein supplement can help in keeping up your daily protein requirement, especially at breakfast when time is short and most of your meal options are grains or sugars. You can get the supplement in either powdered or bar form.

Ergogenic Supplements:

Creatine. Many studies have shown creatine supplementation to be effective in increasing repetitive muscle power. Creatine supplementation, however, causes more water to be drawn into the muscle and can cause cramping. At the same time, there has not been any evidence to show that creatine supplementation aids in endurance performance at all. One possible use for creatine among endurance athletes would be during the max strength weight training phase of their season. Supplementation during that period could help increase overall muscle strength that could be maintained during the competitive portion of the season.
Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs). These are readily available “proteins” that can be used for energy in exercise over two (2) hours when carbohydrate stores start to deteriorate. While maintain adequate carbohydrate intake will make these supplements unnecessary, they could be helpful if you are unable to consume all the carbs necessary. Avoid large does, however, that can lead to some nasty burping and GI issues.
Glycerol. A colorless, liquid alcohol produced from the breakdown of fat. Studies have shown the supplementing with glycerol before an event can allow one to “super” hydrate. The theory being that the glycerol will hold water in the spaces between cells. This could be very helpful in long and/or hot events where dehydration is a significant possibility. Be sure to follow the mixing directions very carefully and be sure to experiment with this product in training first. While those who use it, feel strongly about its benefits, many others have experienced nausea and lightheadedness. Also, supplementing with glycerol does not absolve you of your responsibility to adequate hydration strategies.
Sodium Phosphate. Studies have shown as much as a 4% increase in aerobic function and lower levels of lactic acid accumulation when supplementing with sodium phosphate. It usually requires a four (4) day loading period and its affects are short term. Because our bodies will assimilate the supplement, it is only beneficial to use once or twice per season. Some people will also experience GI issues during the load phase, so be sure to practice with this process for a lower priority event earlier in your season.

There are hundreds more out there. All claim to benefit performance in one way or another. Some may be effective for you. Use supplements in moderation and know what their benefits and detriments may be. And always practice with supplements in training and lower priority events before you get to your high priority event.

Summary

Other than training, nutrition is the most important factor in aiding your success and enjoyment in endurance athletics. Know what you need to fuel yourself for your type of event. If you have any questions, talk to your coach to discuss the specifics of how nutrition can help in the success of your training and racing.

Resources

Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes, Monique Ryan, 2002

Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook, Nancy Clark, August 2003

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