Often, we can forget some of the amazing foods we have around us that can help maintain and performance and improve recovery. The one of note in this month’s blog is honey. Honey being a source or fructose a single chain carbohydrate source like glucose.
The power of fructose is that it can be combined with glucose increasing the amount of carbohydrate that can be transported through the intestine lining in a given minute.
Why is this important?
When cycling over 2 hours glycogen (stored carbohydrate) will have pretty much all been used up, so to maintain our ability to ride at slightly higher intensities we need to take on outside sources of carbohydrate often in the form of gels, bars, energy drinks and that odd cheeky slice of cake too.
But what does this mean for Fructose?
Well glucose can only be absorbed up to ~1g/min, but when combined with fructose that makes use of a different transporter you can take this up to ~1.5g/min meaning you can fuel yourself better and also reduce gastro-intestinal distress – great if you have a history of stomach issues.
Practical Application?
The real-life impact of this information means you can quite easily make your own energy drinks cheaply with a carbohydrate or maltodextrin powder and then adding honey to your drink for that source of fructose or maybe making flapjacks with honey in.
The 2 rules you need to follow though;
- Try not to exceed more than 30g of fructose and hour on the bike
- Have your homemade energy drink in a 2:1 ratio of glucose and fructose (i.e 30g glucose = 15 fructose
Here is a great post ride recipe that will help recovery after a long hard ride.
Recipe: Raspberry Ripple
Ingredients:
- 200g Frozen raspberries
- 400ml skimmed milk
- 30g vanilla whey
- 2 tbsp low fat yogurt
- 2 tbsp honey
COMBINE in a processor
BLEND till smooth
DRINK and feel like a king!
For a long time people have spoken about having food on the bike, and it’s definitely known it will improve and/or maintain our performance in rides over 90mins. Anything less the effects would not be significant and probably won’t contribute to exercise performance.
Knowing we should eat is one thing but how often and how much is another.
It’s worth just recapping that our maximal capacity of carbohydrate intake per hour is;
Both using different transporters (or trains), meaning we can achieve up to 90g an hour which is worthwhile in long hard days in the saddle.
BUT! A long-time people have said little an often is better than larger single servings which other than maybe from a stomach comfort point of view had no backing in those words. I have been one of the first people to research the frequencies of carbohydrate on cycling performance and I am the first to do it with maximal glucose intakes at 60g an hour.
My research proved that taking 20g every 20mins improved repeated timed efforts over a 4-hour ride when compared to 60g once an hour. Also making this a unique finding and proving that the frequency we have our food makes a difference on exercise performance.
In practical terms what does this mean? Well, when out on our big rides opting for small pieces of homemade flapjack or bought malt loaf; cereal bars and such that equate to around 20g of carbohydrate and are low in fat would enable you to easily keep the frequency of your feeding up and enhance your performance rather than taking that big hit all at once.