Fitness
from your carbohydrates, it means
you can generate energy very,
very quickly.”
In other words, lactate is your
friend, not your enemy.
“People often see lactate as a prob-
lem, but it’s actually a very good
thing. Someone who can form
lactate faster is someone who can
generate energy faster. So lactate is
a good thing.”
What about carb intake at the
extreme end of performance?
“In a Tour de France stage,” says
Jeukendrup, “you use a lot of
carbohydrates and you need to
replace them, so you look at 10 to
12g per kilo bodyweight. In reality,
it is usually 12g — but that is a
really extreme number.”
Refuelling while riding:
30g carbs per hour
If your goal is just to avoid
bonking, typically you can get
away with 30g carbohydrates
per hour while riding. However,
if you want to optimise your
performance for a workout that
lasts many hours, then you’ll
need to push that amount to
60g per hour or, for the longest,
most arduous workloads, up to a
maximum of 90g per hour.
“From a series of studies,”
says Jeukendrup, “it has been
shown that the recommended
range for maximum carb intake
in a single serving is 30 to 60g.
If you consume more than that,
then the body will not be able to
absorb it all.”
Daily protein intake:
1-1.5g per kg bodyweight
For those undertaking a moderate
training workload, Sports Nutrition
for Endurance Athletes suggests
consuming between one and 1.5g of
protein per kilo bodyweight per day
— depending on the period of the
season and the level of the athlete.
Jeukendrup concurs: “1.2g is for
someone training not especially
hard, while 1.6g is the intake for
when the training is much harder.”
It is an intake easily be met by
most athletes’ usual diets, he adds:
“Most of the athletes and cyclists
I work with would have a much
higher protein intake anyway.
They reach that target very
easily, simply because they eat
relatively large quantities to fuel
their training.”
Girling usually allocates
1.6-2.2g per kilo of bodyweight
per day. “Less than 1.6g [protein
per kilo of bodyweight per day]
is for a more sedentary person
who’s exercising infrequently,”
he says. “As you exercise more,
the demand for protein goes up,
because the requirements for
recovery are greater.”Max protein per serving:
20g total
Be careful not to consume too
much protein, as your body
can process only so much for
rebuilding tissues. The limit is
0.3g per kilo bodyweight per
serving up to 20g.
If you consume more than 20g
in one meal, your body will use it
as fuel, not for repair and recovery.
“When it comes to protein,more isn’t always better,” says
Jeukendrup. “When people talk
about recovery, they usually mean
next-day recovery. But proteins
don’t actually do much in that
respect, because protein synthesis
process is very slow, taking several
weeks, not a single day. To repair
takes a long time.”
For maximum repair, consume
a small amount of protein every
four hours.Daily fat intake:
0.6-0.8g per kg bodyweight
The old guideline was one gram
of fat per kilo of bodyweight per
day for those following a moderate
training programme. Of course,
the real-life variables vary, so take
your own needs into account.
“It depends on the particular
rider and the goal,” says James
Worley, owner of Pyramid
Nutrition and formerly nutritionist
for High5 and Team Raleigh-
GAC. “If you’re going out for an
easy ride, the recommendation
might be slightly different to if
your focus is performance. My
recommendation is anywhere from
0.6 to 0.8g per kilo bodyweight,
focusing on different types of fats:
saturated, polyunsaturated and
monounsaturated.”
“The lower end of the
spectrum, around 0.6g [per
kilo of bodyweight],” he adds,PROTEIN
Maximum
per serving
PROTEIN
Daily intake
per kg
bodyweight
FAT
Daily intake
per kg
bodyweight
40 | February 8, 2018 | Cycling Weekly