FEATURES

Designed to Recover...

Thursday, 15 October 2015 00:10

By Kim McDonald (competitor.com)

Eight thousand to 10,000 calories. For an elite triathlete finishing an Ironman in the eight-to-nine-hour range, that’s how many calories will be burned while swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles and running a marathon. If you could stomach it, you could replace those calories after the race by eating 15 Whoppers, 18 Big Macs or—if you wanted a healthier option—35 Carl’s Jr. Grilled Chicken Salads. But recovering properly after exercise isn’t simply about replacing lost calories. It’s about what you consume and when.

During the early days of Ironman, the pioneers of triathlon fueled themselves on the windy and hot Kona, Hawaii, course with Gatorade, water, bananas, figs and boiled potatoes with salt wrapped in foil. When the race was over, the menu of choice was burgers and fries—washed down, of course, with lots of beer....

Sports nutrition has come a long way since the 1980s, when athletes used trial and error to experiment with different diets and drinks to see what worked and what didn’t. They just hoped they didn’t "bonk" during an important race—when their blood glucose levels plummeted and their brains got so hazy they would have to walk to the finish.

Scientists now know much more about how to fuel the human body during and after exercise. Eating properly to reach your potential as an athlete is now like taking care of a high-performance race car, says John Ivy, Ph.D., a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Texas at Austin, who is one of the world’s foremost experts on sports nutrition. If you subsist on low-octane fuel, your engine will sputter. But if you take in the proper fuel at the right times, he adds, your running, cycling and swimming performances can improve by up to 15 percent.

"I thought I was a smart guy coming out of college, but we honestly didn’t know anything," said six-time Ironman world champion Dave Scott, about race nutrition in the early 1980s. "I ate mounds of simple carbs, and we’d grab a bucket of bananas and figs and try to survive an Ironman. I used to tuck six to seven bananas in my back pocket during a race, and they’d just be bouncing around, getting soft. I also thought all fat was bad, so I avoided foods like nuts, avocados, salmon and coconut oil. I didn’t eat eggs or cheese for a long period of time. As a result, my training fluctuated a lot, and my recovery was stunted."  READ MORE