General nutritional advice
Tips
- Avoid sugars such as white, brown, reed and grape sugar. These are quickly absorbed in the blood, which increases the insulin content.
- Avoid hard fats. Cut fat and skin away from meat.
- Use semi -skimmed or even low -fat milk products.
- Eat more fish; Fish also contains less fat.
- Use nuts and seeds as snacks. Nuts and seeds are important food sources for trace elements and multiple-saturated fatty acids.
- Vitamin C promotes the absorption of most trace elements.
- Coffee, tea and most soft drinks (especially cola) inhibit the recording of trace elements. Therefore do not use these drinks at or shortly after meals.
- Antioxidants prevent cell and tissue damage due to the free radicals that are released during (heavy) efforts. They accelerate the recovery process after a heavy effort, reduce the injury sensitivity and prevent aging. Therefore often put food that is rich in antioxidants on the menu: carrots, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, tomatoes and cauliflower.
- Cooked vegetables are healthier than raw. The tough cell walls are made soft by cooking, so that the antioxidants are better absorbed by the body.
- Raisins contain a lot of carbohydrates and also fiber, iron and potassium.
- Caffeine stimulates the fat fire.
Nutritional advice
When should I and will I use sports nutrition? For many triathletes who regularly train and play competitions, this is an important question and where the answer is not always clear. Everything stands and falls with a healthy and balanced basic food. Only then comes sports nutrition and then any supplements.
An important structure of sports nutrition during a training or cyclo -sporting is an essential part of making the finish/finish line easy. In the piece about physiology, the different energy systems have discussed. For example, it has been explained that people only have a limited stock of carbohydrates.
Some carbohydrates will always be used for the burning of fats as an energy source. In addition, it is good to know that the body (on average) only absorbs a maximum of 60 to 70 grams of carbohydrates per hour.
A small case has been worked out here:
Couple:You participate in a 4 -hour training/competition. In the first hour you burn 70 grams of carbohydrates through exercise. However, in that hour you only get 50 grams of carbohydrates through sports drinks, energy giegel or an energy bar. You have built up a shortage of 20 grams of carbohydrates. You cannot supplement this shortage the next hour (if you keep driving). After all, your body only absorbs a maximum of 70 grams (and you also used it in 2 hours) during the entire trip you will keep this shortage. If this happens again the next hour you will get a shortage of 40 grams. With a trip for more than 4 hours you can build a shortage of more of an hour of energy ... and there the man with the hammer comes around the corner….
If you prepare the tour well, you can prevent this energy shortage.
For the effort
During this period a distinction must be made in two different times:
Period of months and weeks before the effort
Period of 6 days before the main goal
In the period of months/weeks, the emphasis is on building the overall condition and speed. Preferably this based on a training schedule. There must be enough room for recovery in this schedule. Also use this period to experiment with sports nutrition.
You can already use sports supplements to improve the overall condition. Also recovering the training sessions well and practice tours will ensure that you move forward faster. This includes the use of recovery drinks and protein bars.
The 6 -day period before the main objective is dominated by the reduction of intensity and duration of the training sessions in combination with the "stacking" of carbohydrates. This is also called "tape". The effect is that at the end of this period your body has stored extra carbohydrates that you can use at the 'moment supreme' ...
The stacking of carbohydrates is possible through so -called carboloader. This is a drink that is composed of almost pure carbohydrates. To get the same number of carbohydrates in solid food you have to eat many plates of dry pasta ... Maybe his drink is not that bad ...
TIP:Do not drink a sports drink before the effort itself until you start cycling. The fast carbohydrates that you take in advance ensure an increase in your blood sugar level, after which a large dip takes place. You get very weak legs and feel lifeless…. Take a thirst quencher with only salts and minerals.
During the effort
If a training or competition lasts longer than 60 minutes, you can improve your performance by eating carbohydrates during the exercise and supplementing moisture with a sports drink.
However, carbohydrates may not be supplied in unlimited quantities, because on average no more than 1 to 1.2 grams per minute can be processed by the body. A maximum supply is therefore approximately 60 to 70 grams of carbohydrates per hour (rule of thumb is 1.2 grams/hour/kg body weight). Taking more does not necessarily lead to higher combustion.
So it makes no sense to take a lot of sugars or drink very syrupy drinks: it only increases the risk of gastrointestinal complaints.
The effort period is therefore dominated by regular food. Take a maximum of 70 grams of carbohydrates combined with a maximum of 750ml sports drink or water per hour.
Do you only drink water during a trip or training? Realize that you also lose minerals and salts (called electrolytes) through sweating. These are essential parts in controlling your moisture management.
After the effort
After you have trained full, cycled a competition or completed a tour, it is important that you deliver your body the right building materials as quickly as possible to be able to recover.
Quick recovery ensures that you can quickly sit on the bike again to do the next training or trip.
Make sure you have eaten sufficient recovery promoting drinks or bars within 30 minutes of the effort. These are drinks and bars that contains a correct combination of proteins and carbohydrates. As a result, the broken muscles will be repaired faster and new muscle mass can be produced, without the body having to use other parts of the body for this. If you do not use enough proteins after your training, you will remove proteins (protein) from other muscles from your body to facilitate the recovery. This will be restored in the longer term, but is certainly not optimal for an athlete who wants to move forward.
Recovering sports drinks and bars can absorb this problem. The carbohydrates ensure the addition of the glycogen stock, while the salt helps retain the absorb moisture.
Time is also an important factor in the recovery phase. Depending on the situation (the effort made, the muscle glycogen stock at the start of the effort and the power afterwards), the complete recovery can take 10 to even 36 hours. Enough rest is therefore essential to optimally restore an effort. A sports massage can also speed up the recovery process.
TIP: Which brand of sports nutrition you use is very personal. So don't go to your friends but experience it yourself. Try various brands during training so that you know what you like or not and experience how your body reacts to sports nutrition.
