Carbohydrates sometimes get a bad press, but the right carbs at the right time are the cyclistâs friend. Research from the University of Bath shows that athletes who drank carbohydrate sports drinks during an Olympic distance triathlon improved their performance times.
âWe showed that ingesting a relatively high concentration of carbohydrates, as opposed to taste-matched water, during the cycle section resulted in a significant improvement in subsequent run performance,â explains University of Bathâs lead researcher Dr Kerry McGawley.
The study shed new light on the topic of energy conversion from carbohydrates and the optimum ways of creating energy from carbs â as well as tasting loads of sweet things in the process.
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The selection of energy drinks, gels and bars on the market is bewildering. To see what works best itâs useful to look at the hierarchy of energy â and how we get it from our food. We explain below how your body converts food into glucose (blood sugars), which in turn provides the fuel for the bodyâs energy.
The production of energy from carbs is also affected by the type of carbs youâre taking in. You can control the rate at which your energy supply flows by eating certain types of carbohydrate.
Energy-containing foods are now classed by their position on the glycaemic index (GI). This is a rating of food types that gives each one a score according to its effect on the bodyâs glucose levels as itâs digested over a two-hour time span.
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