How to make your hard turbo sessions rocket-fuelled.

How much carbohydrate you eat makes a massive difference to how you deliver in training, aid lean muscle retention, improve recovery and support a stronger immune function.

For this post, I'm focusing on making sure you are eating enough carbohydrates to deliver consistently better quality in training.

I’m going to break this into two parts:

Day-to-day recommendations for athletes in training.

Burke Etal (2011).

Light volume - Low intensity or skill based 3-5g per kg of body weight.

Moderate volume - Moderate intensity 5 - 7g per kg of body weight.

High volume - High/Moderate intensity (1-3hrs pd) 6 - 10g per Kg of body weight.

Very high volume - High intensity (>4-5hrs pd) 8 -12g per Kg of body weight.

I often see athletes and cyclists fall short of these numbers because they are afraid of weight gain. They needn’t be if they are within their calorie needs day-to-day.

Bottom line. Eating the right amount of carbohydrates on a day-to-day basis will ensure you have adequate carbohydrates and muscle glycogen to train more effectively.

Do you eat anywhere near enough?

In-training carbohydrates:

For this post, I’m focusing on harder, shorter turbo TRAINING sessions.

What should you be consuming?

Between 30g and 60g of carbohydrate per hour, lasting between 1 -2 hours is the recommendation for optimal performance in TRAINING.

Jeukendrup (2011).

The easiest way to consume this is in fluids with an energy mix of 2/1 ratio of carbs/fructose.

Why? Most athletes and cyclists think they only need to replenish once the carbohydrate tank in the blood and muscles starts to get low. In reality, this needs to be much sooner. Scientists are now discovering that even a small depletion of muscle glycogen reduces muscle and nerve output.

When you are training physically hard in these tough sessions following these guidelines will help you dig deeper, make them more quality driven and you'll experience them emotionally stronger making you more confident each time you come to them. Who doesn't want that?

How are you fuelling day-to-day and in hard training sessions? Are you anywhere even close to these numbers?

Thanks for reading, Simon

Performance & Nutrition Director
2 X Winner of Gym Based PT, and founder of VPCC