Essentials of Nutrition for Sports

Ergolytics

What We’re Talking About

We have learned about erg

ogenic aids—substances that

supposedly help improve performance

. A great deal is written about

materials or methods that may enhance exercise capacity or otherwise augment human performance.

Now let us concentrate on the things that work to undermine

your performance, sometimes without your knowing it.

There is quite a long list of ergolytics: substances that worsen

performance. Most athletes do not hear enough or think enough about these substances.

The list starts with nutrition: the energy sources you eat, the

vitamins and minerals. It progresses to drugs, many of them medicines you might take under a doctor’s orders. Then there are substances that you take thinking th

ey will make you better, when in

fact they make you worse! Do not be surprised to see some of the substances you saw listed under “Ergogenics” also listed here.

I do not mean the following listing to be comprehensive. I just

want to get you thinking about what you put into your body or that what you do that may worsen your performance. I will discuss common, representative problem areas, and then briefly list other ergolytics in those areas.

Nutrition Energy Sources

Too many calories.

If your total intake of calories is too high,

you are going to gain weight. Extra fat may help to protect from the cold and to float when you are swimming, but it worsens performance in most endurance aerobic events.

Wrong composition of calories.

If you are an endurance aerobic

athlete, performance comes from glycogen—a storage form of carbohydrate. If you use your glycoge

n daily, you have to replace it,

and that means a diet high in carbohydrate. Fad low-carbohydrate diets—including the South Beach, Atkins, and 40–30–30 diets (40% carbohydrate, 30% fat, 30% protein) may be popular—but without the carbohydrate fuel, you cannot maintain high-energy output. A better aerobic endurance diet is one that contains 60% to 70% carbohydrate, 20% to 30% fat, and 10-15% protein. Vitamins and Minerals

Sure, we all need vitamins and

minerals—for our general health.

Too much of some of them worsen performance. An energy bar or two on a ride, plus a multivitamin/multimineral tablet in the morning, add up to multiples of our RDAs for many of us.

No vitamins have been s

how to improve performance;

eight

have

been shown to worsen it or

cause disease in excess. Although

six

minerals have been shown to po

ssibly benefit human performance,

twelve

worsen performance or cause disease in excess.

The ergogenic and ergolytic potential

of vitamins and minerals is

discussed in

Vitamin & Mineral Supplements

, starting on page

126

.

Street Drugs Alcohol

Perhaps the most common ergolytic drug. Read about alcohol on

page

93

.

Other Common Ergolytic Street Drugs •^

Tobacco, including smokeless tobacco.

-^

Marijuana.

-^

Cocaine.

Nutrition for Sports, Essentials of 124