Energy Gels

Cork24

From watching youtube videos like the one below..

i wonder are they worth the risk of taken?

For a 3 hour Bike ride i would have a Strong Coffee, and
the first 1 hr 30min would be Gel Free, purely allowing my muscles to break down the fat into energy.

If i want to become Gel "Free" how can you get the same effect with out the risk. Seen i have acid reflux i dont want to take the risk of having something to eat while on the bike in just in case my reflux start to flare up

sconhome

I use an agave based gel which is low GI and additive free. All depends on the intensity at which you are training as to whether gels or energy drinks are needed.

Enduro

Apart from recovering from an extreme energy crash / bonk, I don't know why anyone consumes this crap. Very very expensive sugar hits.

You become Gel free by not taking gels. It's not rocket science. It is that simple. You shouldn't need to consume anything on a 3 hour training session. Fat burn will give you enough energy to last days rather than mere hours. Firing a gel into yourself after 1:30 is just ensuring that you're not getting any fat burn adaptation from your training. I race everything from 30 minute (or so) races to 10 day races without using Gels. And I really don't get why anyone would ever use the things in training.

sconhome

Enduro wrote: »

Apart from recovering from an extreme energy crash / bonk, I don't know why anyone consumes this crap. Very very expensive sugar hits.

You become Gel free by not taking gels. It's not rocket science. It is that simple. You shouldn't need to consume anything on a 3 hour training session. Fat burn will give you enough energy to last days rather than mere hours. Firing a gel into yourself after 1:30 is just ensuring that you're not getting any fat burn adaptation from your training. I race everything from 30 minute (or so) races to 10 day races without using Gels. And I really don't get why anyone would ever use the things in training.

Enduro, do you eat during those events at all? Fruits, oatmeal or anything at all? How long did it take you to go fully fat adapted is it months or years of training and racing?

Geunine questions.

In the winter when I'm just running I do a lot of stuff 'on empty' often without water and even the majority of my training runs at easy pace will be 'on empty' up to 2 hours or so. I just find when the intensity is high or racing I empty really quickly and bonk.

Is part of the process pushing through the bonk? I know its very individual how to go about it but I am curious of others experience.

Bambaata

I generally go gel free in all training except with im a few weeks out from main race where ill then start practising race day nutrition. I do still use an energy drink and might also have a cereal bar/banana etc for sessions on the bike over 2/2.5hours. Just water below that and generally nothing on long runs (again ill bring maybe 1 or 2 gels ij the weeks just before the race to check alls ok).

Oryx

I only realised at the end that the video is an advert in itself.

A clubmate of mine has trained to do IM with very little nutrition, so as with Enduro above, its simply a matter of making your body adapt. Another clubmate had a sandwich and a pack of tayto as IM bike nutrition, got on just fine. We're conditioned to use branded 'energy' food for convenience and because we believe the advertising blurb. Gels kill my digestive system so I'm attempting to wean myself off them, anything that makes you feel ill cannot be good. There is a psychological aspect to them which has a big effect, yet as mentioned in a recent thread about hydration, we don't need as much as we think we do.

And I got a better effect from Jelly Babies than gels in recent long runs, they are €1 a pack.

sconhome

Oryx wrote: »

as mentioned in a recent thread about hydration, we don't need as much as we think we do.

I was looking for that thread as on Twitter this morning Jodie Swallow was in bad shape after IMKona as a result of over watering, dropped out at mile 13.

tunney

Enduro wrote: »

Apart from recovering from an extreme energy crash / bonk, I don't know why anyone consumes this crap. Very very expensive sugar hits.

You become Gel free by not taking gels. It's not rocket science. It is that simple. You shouldn't need to consume anything on a 3 hour training session. Fat burn will give you enough energy to last days rather than mere hours. Firing a gel into yourself after 1:30 is just ensuring that you're not getting any fat burn adaptation from your training. I race everything from 30 minute (or so) races to 10 day races without using Gels. And I really don't get why anyone would ever use the things in training.

I agree what fat oxidisation needs to be trained. I disagree that there is no place for sugar in training.

Fat burns in the flame of carbohydrate. You can only go for days on fat if you have carbs to burn. If you intensity is low enough i.e. 10 day races then agree you don't need supplements.

Yes you can push the ratio of fat:glycogen used at specific intensities up but eventually you hit a sustainable limit.

Ironman and Half ironman - definitely a physical requirement.

I did gas analysis testing a few years back to determine maximum wattage I could hold and fuel on the bike in Ironman and to monitor improvement in utilisation ratios.
Very interesting stuff. From this I can plot trained versus untrained (trained including an 18+ week fat burning adaptation) and I can see huge differences. However I can also see that there is always a minimal amount of glycogen required. The trick for Ironman is finding the sweet spot at which the burn rate matches your absorption rate + stores.

This is where gels come in. For your 10 day events you can much on fruit cake, chicken whatever you want. Thats great.

However in Ironman you cannot. A number of reasons. Firstly the absorption rate from solids is lower, less calories in, lower maximum output. Secondly a ten day event is different to a one day race. A ten day event you will sleep, take breaks, use a toilet. A five minute sh1t stop on the run is huge in an IM. Plus solids increase the likelihood of GI issues (read the sh1ts).

Shorter distances its different but still valid

http://www.isaude.net/en/noticia/10496/general/mouthwash-with-carbohydrates-increases-the-performance-of-athletes

So in short for racing gels and drinks can be beneficial, as can fat adaption.

Suggestion that one or the other is not important and beneficial is rather silly as all anyone does is hinder their performances.

Cork24

Lately during my Morning Swim and my Morning 60min Bike ride, i feel myself not being able to push as hard, or having to force my self to keep going with the though in my head of just finishing up early..

So with a bit of Goggling
I am planning on buy a Electric Juicer,

And seen all the talk about Beet Juice
I will try that and see how i get on.

I also found this

The Pre-Workout Smoothie

Why: Early morning workouts mean even earlier breakfasts—or for many, no breakfast at all. But if you're aiming to nail those interval times, having some fuel on board is critical. A smoothie provides fuel and fluids in a convenient and easy to digest form. You can drink it in the car on your way to morning Masters swim, or sip on it as you stretch and get ready to run or roll out the door.

When: Digestible liquid meals like smoothies mean that the time between eating/drinking and working out can be shortened. Aim for at least 30 minutes lag time for greater gastrointestinal comfort.

What: For a pre-workout smoothie when training in the heat, try blending with ice cubes to make a cold slushie (cold drinks have been shown to boost performance in the heat). To make a thick, spoonable ice-cold smoothie, freeze in an ice tray then simply blend the frozen smoothie cubes with an extra dash of milk or juice.

Blueberry Honey Pre-Workout Smoothie

The fruit and honey provide energy and the blueberries pack in antioxidants. Yogurt adds probiotics and may be easier to digest than milk, but you can use whatever milk or milk alternative you prefer.

Ingredients

¾ cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

¾ cup natural plain yogurt

2 tsp honey

3 ice cubes (optional)

Preparation

1) Throw all ingredients into the blender and blitz until combined. Serves 1.

Originally from: http://www.ironman.com/triathlon-news/articles/2013/06/three-essential-smoothies.aspx#ixzz2hn4Izc84

Green&Red

For the bike I dont think theres anyway u can push through the bonk and for me taking a risk on a club cycle that I'll bonk is not worth the risk, 50k on a winters day on ur own is torture

While I never use gels for training I would have always used granola bars or some such and bananas.
This year i've started bringing sandwiches, even on easy spins, get my body used to absorbing them and while its not fast it should (in my theory at least) keep the man with the hammer away!

Cork24

Green&Red wrote: »

For the bike I dont think theres anyway u can push through the bonk and for me taking a risk on a club cycle that I'll bonk is not worth the risk, 50k on a winters day on ur own is torture

While I never use gels for training I would have always used granola bars or some such and bananas.
This year i've started bringing sandwiches, even on easy spins, get my body used to absorbing them and while its not fast it should (in my theory at least) keep the man with the hammer away!

nothing worse in life then getting the feeling of the bonk, i normally get it coming off a 90k cycle and the last 5 km home are the worst feeling ever.

i also tried Red Bull before and take along a Can of Coke, so i can drink during my long Spins. I found better effects with coke then with the Red bull as with the Caffeine in the Red Bull does have its down turn

I found this on The Complete Guide to Food for Sports Performance - Peak Nutrition for Your Sport

Profile: Caffeine and the road cyclist
Is Coke the real thing?
If you’ve watched a road cycling race, triathlon or marathon in the last
five years, you may have noticed a curious thing. After drinking a sports
drink for most of the race, competitors suddenly switch to their ‘secret
weapon’—Coca-Cola! Feed zones and aid stations are awash in cans and
bottles bearing the iconic red-and-white logo. The Coca-Cola company’s
marketing prowess is well known, but there is no advertising campaign
telling athletes that ‘things go better with Coke in the last third of an
endurance event’. Nor does Coca-Cola mount sponsorship drives to put
its products on bikes or in the hands of runners. Can experienced athletes
really be turning their backs on sports drinks, supported by millions of
dollars worth of research and hundreds of scientific publications, in
favour of a beverage that’s mostly sugar, caffeine and flavouring?
Caffeine . . . At marathons in the 1980s, it was common to see
runners pouring cups of strong black coffee from thermoses as they
finished their warm-ups and congregated at the race start. Cyclists are
still connoisseurs of the pre-race coffee, and the coaches of many pro
teams travel with coffee machines that would be at home in any Italian
cafe. Caffeine has been known as a stimulant and used in sport for its
ergogenic properties for at least a century. But relatively new scientific
evidence both supports the competition caffeine hit and explains the
recent sudden increase in its popularity. In the late 1970s, papers began
to appear in the peer-reviewed literature ascribing metabolic and
performance advantages to the consumption of caffeine in the hour
before to endurance exercise. The first of these came from the Human
Performance Laboratories of Ball State University in Indiana, under
the leadership of Professor Dave Costill. Costill’s reputation in running
circles as a ‘sports science guru’ ensured that this information quickly
spread, via articles in popular running magazines and word of mouth, to
large groups of runners of varying abilities. Many studies published since


Costill’s have confirmed the ergogenic effect of consuming moderate to
large doses of caffeine (5–6 mg per kg of body mass) in the hour before a
range of exercise activities.
The number of endurance athletes switching to Coca-Cola in the
last part of a race intrigued us and our fellow sports scientists at the AIS.
Although cyclists told us they drank Coke for the ‘caffeine kick’, we felt
the dose (~1–1.5 mg per kg of body mass) and the timing (in the last
20–60 minutes of the race) would be unlikely to achieve the same effects
as the standard caffeine protocol developed in the 1980s. We suspected
that either the Coke was delivering a placebo effect or that other aspects
of switching to it (such as its higher carbohydrate content compared to
sports drinks, or the change in taste) were also involved in performance
changes. In any case, enthusiastic testimonials from athletes prompted
us to investigate the mysterious ‘Coke effect’. Together with colleagues
from RMIT University in Melbourne and the University of Canberra, we
completed two studies based on the same protocol. Each study involved
well-trained cyclists or triathletes, who undertook a 2.5-hour cycling task
on four separate occasions, after 24 hours of controlled training and diet
and abstinence from foods and drinks containing caffeine. The cycling
task was divided into a two-hour segment completed at a steady aerobic
workload followed by a 30-min time trial. This allowed us to monitor
metabolism for the first part of the race, then measure performance. The
athletes ate a carbohydrate-rich pre-race meal and drank sports drink
(about 1 L per hour) throughout the task—in other words, they followed
recommended race nutrition strategies.
In the first study, twelve athletes completed the trial. For each of
their four cycling bouts they received one of the following treatments:
• A single caffeine dose of 6 mg/kg body weight consumed 1
hour before the ‘race’
• Six 1 mg/kg caffeine doses consumed every 20 minutes during
the ‘race’
• A switch from sports drink to defizzed Coca-Cola for the last
40 minutes of the ‘race’
• A placebo treatment of dummy capsules
Despite beliefs that caffeine increases the use of fat as an exercise fuel
and spares precious glycogen stores, we found no differences in muscle

fuel use among these four treatments. But in the time-trial (Figure 9.1),
the cyclists rode ~3 per cent faster when they took caffeine or drank
Coke than when they took the placebo pills. The size of the caffeine/
Coke intake made no difference, nor did its timing. We were stunned!
Of course, the cyclists knew when they were receiving Coke, so if they
expected it to make them go faster, they may have talked themselves into
a better time-trial through the powers of positive thinking.
Because of this, we did another study under a fully ‘blinded’
protocol—meaning that neither the subjects nor the key researchers
knew which treatment was being received. Because the switch to Coke at
the end of the race meant not only a caffeine boost but a change in flavour
and an increase in carbohydrate intake over sports drink, we used similar
drinks with different combinations of caffeine and carbohydrate. Eight
athletes completed the same four bouts of cycling as in the first study, but
this time they all had their sports drink switched at the end of the race to
~750 ml of a cola drink of the following formulas:
• 6 per cent carbohydrate, no caffeine (i.e. a cola-flavoured sports
drink)
• 6 per cent carbohydrate, 13 mg/100 ml caffeine (sports-drink
carb content; caffeine content of Coke)
• 11 per cent carbohydrate, no caffeine (a cola-flavoured drink
with added carbohydrate)
• 11 per cent carbohydrate, 13 mg/100 ml caffeine (Coca-Cola)
Compared with the cola-tasting sports-drink placebo, Coca-Cola
again provided a ~3 per cent boost in the time-trial, confirming the results
of our first study were real. Our stats man helped us to tease out which
components of Coke provided the benefits—a 2 per cent improvement
came from the relatively small amount of caffeine (~1.5 mg/kg body mass)
and a 1 per cent improvement from the drink’s increased carbohydrate
content over sports drink (Figure 9.2).
These studies are part of a new wave of caffeine research showing
that even very small doses enhance performance, especially when they
are consumed when the athlete is starting to become fatigued. In fact,
the caffeine doses provided by the Coke treatment in our study are the
smallest that have been shown to provide a performance advantage
under sports-specific conditions. In addition, we confirmed that there

is no extra benefit from consuming caffeine in larger amounts. This is
good news for athletes who want to get a performance boost without
the side-effects of large doses of caffeine, such as interference with sleep.
We didn’t find an explanation for caffeine’s beneficial effect on sports
performance in our study. However it is likely to be related to the drug’s
effects on the central nervous system—caffeine masks the perceptions
of fatigue, allowing the athlete to keep exercising at optimal pace rather
than slowing down. In fact, our study shows that caffeine’s use in sport
can be similar to its use in our everyday lives. Rather than maxing out on
a single large dose of caffeine to supercharge the day, most people stop
for a small shot of caffeine when they become tired—after which they
feel refreshed and able to resume their activities.
In summary, we found that the athletes with their red cans were
right—switching from sports drinks to Coke in the last part of an
endurance race does give a worthwhile boost to performance. The fact
that caffeine appears to have this effect at doses indistinguishable from
those involved in normal eating and drinking also speaks in favour of the
decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to remove caffeine from the
list of banned substances in sport. Future sports-specific studies should
focus on identifying situations in which modest intakes of caffeine might
be beneficial to sports performance, and on educating athletes that this
approach is safer and more effective than the uncontrolled intake of large
amounts of caffeineTable 9.1 provides a summary of some common
sources of caffeine in our everyday diet or for use in sport.
Table 9.1
Caffeine in common foods, drinks, sports foods and over-the-counter
tablets


Food or Drink|Serve|Caffeine(mg)*
row1 Instant Coffee|row1 250 ml Cup|row1 60(12-169)*
row2 Brewed Coffee|row2 250ml cup|row2 80(40-110)*
row3 Short Black Coffee / espresso|row3 1 shot|row3 107(25-214)*
row4 Starbucks brewed coffee Venti Size|row4 600 ml|row4 415(300-564)*
row5 Iced coffee - commercial brands |row5 500 ml|row5 30-200*

tunney

There are a lot of misconceptions around fat as a fuel and fat burning.

As I said I agree with Enduro as to training fat adaption but if you are pushing it (and most wouldn't be pushing an IM) you need gels (or carb drink)

Some of the common ones
(a) eat lard and you get better at burning fat - this is like low fat foods being good for loosing weight
(b) training in a fat burning zone to lose weight - yes there is a zone in which the percentage fat burnt is higher than the glycogen burnt but as a total amount of fat burnt its less than at higher intensities (to an upper limit). The reason "the fat burning zone" concept took off is the people who "train" in it do so because they cannot tolerate the higher intensities and they wouldn't do it (i.e. old and sedentary people)

Fat is a fuel, its got a higher energy density than glycogen and you can go all day at low intensities. but it is just one of many fuel sources and they all have their part to play