One thing which clearly separates endurance sports athletes of all kinds
to other people is the fact that on occasion we can look at one of these at one of these,
a simple foil sachet and see is almost a lifesaver some quick acting simple
carbohydrates as you really increase your cycling performance.
Yeah Dan I can think of many, many occasions over the years in races when I've not being to feeling too
good when a teammate rides alongside reaches into their back pocket and hands me a gel with a kindly look in their eye
knowing full well that in some way that will be I dunno going to relieving my rather sad depressed state
Sorry, I need that later. I've got another ride to do today
You had a kindly look in your eye as well
I did
Yes
strangely though given the fact that inside the contents is basically just
carbohydrates and water, gels can often be misused, so even if you haven't experienced it directly yourself
you'll probably know someone has had a severe stomach upset because of gel abuse so how exactly
do you use gels to your benefit?
I think the first thing that we need to understand is exactly what is contained within our gels
so we mentioned just now that they are in essence water and
carbohydrates however the type of carbohydrates can change as can the amount of carbs and also the amount of water
and it's these three things that we need to take into consideration
when we're deciding how and when to use our gels
Let's look at water first now in order for food to be absorbed quickly by your gut you're going to need a certain amount of
water in there, otherwise you risk having a bloated stomach or at the very least the food would take longer to be absorbed
so when you have a gel it's best to take some water with it unless the gel is isotonic
and in that case you won't need any water at all as the gel will quickly be absorbed itself
Yeah you also need to look at exactly how many carbohydrates are contained in each gel sachet
so your body can only really absorb about sixty grams of carbs per hour
so if there's 30 grams in each of your gels and two per hour is going to work for you
if that is your only source of energy
if it's sixty grams, one per hour will be fine
but you are using an energy drink which also contains carbohydrates you need to factor that in as well
More carbs certainly aren't better though as you may find that that
concentration of carbs brings on the dreaded stomach cramps or makes you feel sick
and that's something you can only find out through experimenting and experience and I found out a few times to my detriment
likewise doubling the amount of gels that you take when you're feeling low on carbs could make you feel the same
Yeah so I guess the simplest thing and way to think about it is like some kind of conveyor belt one which is transporting
carbohydrate molecules into your bloodstream
if you overload that conveyor belt
there's going to be a backlog and that backlog is gonna be situated in your stomach
I think you've got a bit of a backlog actually going on there by the looks of it
With that in mind
we now need to know how to eat gels effectively when out on the road
now the best way of fueling on the bike out on the open road is to eat little and
often so if you're doing a ride of over two hours the best way to start is
have your first gel after around 20 minutes or so
Yeah one thing that you want to avoid at all cost though is leaving it
too long before you take anything therefore making your gel almost like an emergency
now you can guard against this by mentally scheduling in exactly when you're going to eat
so for example if you're about to do a pretty hard race you might want to eat a solid small piece of food about
20 minutes before the start
then if the pace is really on you can take a gel after about half an hour then revert back to bits of solid food
whilst things settle down
reverting back to a gel every half an hour when the pace gets hard again
Gut problems
arise when you have too many gels in rapid succession
without liquid now different people react to different gels in different ways
some people are doubled up after just a couple while others slip down very very easily indeed
now we are actually partnered by Science In Sport, but feel I can vouch them
because I've used their products well for much of my racing career
Another thing that you should take into
consideration is the fact that when you are exercising very hard your body will be doing everything it possibly can
to transport blood to the places
it's most needed so things like your brain and your legs
what that means is that your gut can get a bit
shortchanged that can really slow down your digestion or mean
it's pretty much non-existent and that's another great reason to front-load your fuelling strategy in a race or a ride
Now let's go back to our conveyor belt analogy which says that as your body gets more fatigued
the conveyor belt slows down and it becomes increasingly easier to overload it
now let's face it runners do get far harder time than cyclists, but the fact remains you can't just eat to get better
Yeah there's also been some research done relatively recently which has shown
a positive psychological effect of having a sweet taste in your mouth
So test subjects performed better when they swilled a sweet mouthwash around their mouth
versus using just water
Now although this means that with our energy gels that we have on our ride
we will be getting carbohydrates and energy
we can still use the research to our advantage
by keeping the gel in the mouth for a couple of seconds before swallowing it and that way you'll get a bit of a lift
even before the carbs reach your muscles
One thing that always surprises me is why nobody really speaks too much
about gut training now bear with me does sound a bit gross
but it's pretty important
if you think about it you're out training putting your body
under immense load doing hundreds of miles whilst at the same time
forcing your body to process liters of liquid and hundreds and hundreds of grams of carbohydrates
now it is pretty amazing really
Yeah, I think as though our bodies are also pretty amazing
so the likelihood is that they will be able to tolerate it albeit with a little bit of practice
so I'm not saying you should carb up on every single ride on a couple of the hardest sessions
you should closely mimic a nutritional strategy that you're going to have on the day of the event itself
so exposing yourself to different types of carbohydrates and gels and food and in drinks as well
after all in the same way
we wouldn't use a brand new pair of shoes in the day of an event in case it didn't work properly
you also don't want to try a new nutrition strategy
Many cyclists then do rely on gels to get them through some hard rides and
races and hopefully now you'll understand exactly how and when to use them
you just need to know exactly what is contained inside them whether or not you need to
consume water with them at the same time
how many you can consume in an hour
and you should also train your body to be able to digest them even when it's under extreme physical stress
Yeah and to about preparing for our how to prepare for a sportif click
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Thought I was doing subscribe bit
No I, I wanted to do it mate I just wanted to wrap out nice and neat nice and tight