5 Steps to Better Performance - Pre-Race Meal, Fueling, Recovery, Supplements and Sleep


1. Pre-Race Meal: Mystery Solved

Almost every athlete completely blows the pre-race meal by eating too many calories in the critical 3-hour window before their race starts. Correct this mistake and you’ll be way ahead of your competition before the race even starts.

Eating within 1-2 hours of race start promotes faster depletion of muscle glycogen and inhibits fat utilization. If your race is longer than 60-90 minutes, this combination of accelerated glycogen depletion and disruption of your primary long-distance fuel availability will devastate your performance. Pre-race fueling must be completed at least three hours prior to the start to allow adequate time for insulin and blood glucose to normalize. After three hours, hormonal balance is restored, and accelerated glycogen depletion & inhibited fat utilization problems no longer exist.

Following these simple steps will give you the big advantage:

If you have an early morning race start, don’t sacrifice sleep to get up and eat! It’s completely unnecessary because muscle glycogen stores remain mostly intact until you begin exercising. Instead, sleep as long as you can, fast until 5-10 minutes before race start and then consume a small amount of fuel, such as Hammer Gel. Then, begin normal fueling as soon as you can after the race begins.

2. Fueling

Over the past 20 years, we’ve had the opportunity to observe the fueling habits of many thousands of athletes. While the fueling protocols have varied tremendously, here are facts which are repeated consistently in every case:

Athletes Who Experience Fueling Success: Of the athletes who have contacted us to report success (no fuel-related, performance-inhibiting problems and consistent energy levels), the following factors occur with reliable consistency:

Athletes Who Experience Fueling Failure: Athletes who suffered poor performance due to fueling-related problems reported consumption as follows:

What you should derive from this data is that while there is no “one-size-fits-all” fueling formula. When it comes to fueling for endurance performance, less is best.

Recovery

Athletes always focus on training but often neglect recovery, specifically the critical step of refueling as soon as possible after each workout…and that’s a major mistake. The reality is that properly refueling your body immediately after your training session is as important as anything you did in the actual workout. To reap the maximum benefits of your hard training, perform better in your racing, and stay healthy, you must attend as much to recovery as you do to active exercise.

When you give your body what it needs as soon as possible after exercise, it will respond wonderfully in the following ways:

Optimum Recovery requires you to address four essential nutritional areas immediately after each exercise session:

Rehydration - To maintain optimal hydration status, daily intake of 0.5 - 0.6 fluid ounces per pound of body weight makes a more accurate standard than the “eight glasses a day” commonly recommended.

Carbohydrates - Consume 30-60 grams of high quality complex carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores and aid in the rebuilding of muscle tissue. Protein - Consuming 10-20 grams of high quality protein in your post-workout fuel provides critical raw materials to rebuild stressed muscles, enhance glycogen storage, and support proper immune system maintenance. Micronutrient Replenishment - It’s also very important to replenish basic vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients depleted during exercise, providing a variety of antioxidants to neutralize the massive quantities of free radicals that have just been created.

Supplements

Supplements : A necessity for endurance athletes

No supplement program can or should take priority over the consumption of a healthy diet; that should be your primary nutritional goal. “Eating healthy” means consuming whole grains and locally grown organic foods as much as possible, while avoiding packaged, processed foods and junk foods at all times. It means restricting sodium and avoiding foods containing simple sugars (glucose, sucrose, fructose), artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, and preservatives.

Still, while eating whole foods is the best way to supply your body with the myriad plant-derived, health-benefiting phytochemicals, today’s food supply can’t meet the nutrient needs of average people, let alone athletes. In fact, an ever-increasing body of research suggests that many people’s diets are insufficient in supplying enough nutrients to prevent a deficiency disease. Did you get that? Forget about providing enough nutrients to promote optimal health; many people do not eat enough quality food to meet the minimal micronutrient requirements for preventing deficiency-related disorders.

That’s why taking supplements is a wise strategy to employ; it helps bridge the gap between what you should be receiving and what you’re actually getting from your diet. Consuming an optimal diet as consistently as possible and augmenting that with sufficient amounts of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and auxiliary/complementary nutrients, is the best way to cover your nutritional bases.

The key word is “sufficient,” and that’s why your supplement program needs to go beyond the commonly used Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) or Reference Daily Intake (RDI) standards; they simply don’t take into account the higher needs of endurance athletes, who deplete vitamins, minerals, enzymes, coenzymes, antioxidants, and other substrates more than sedentary people do. Actually, because conventional standards are tuned to deficiency avoidance rather than optimal health, it’s questionable whether anyone should rely on them. The bottom line is that in order to receive maximum benefits you need sufficient quantities of nutrients, not the minimal amounts that the diet provides. That’s why supplementation is not an option; it’s essential.

Remember, as an athlete you place enormous physiological demands on your body so your nutrient requirements—just to maintain health—are much greater than the average person. However, your goal isn’t to just maintain health at a minimally acceptable standard; your goal is to achieve supreme health. In addition, you want to get the absolute most out of your body so that it can do what you want it to in your workouts and races, while you have more fun and achieve more success in the process. That’s where an intelligent, high quality supplement program comes in; it plays an undeniably vital role in helping you achieve optimal athletic performance and overall health. The Hammer Nutrition supplements are designed for just that purpose and they’re ready to go to work for you!

Sleep

  1. Plan on a daily transition from stimulating activities to less active, relaxing pursuits up to 3 hours prior to sleep---such as reading, listening to music, soaking in a warm bath, or taking a walk.
  2. Two hours or less prior to bedtime, eat only foods that are rich in complex carbohydrates and tryptophan and contain a 2:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium in chelated form, augmented with high optimal intake of vitamin B complex (especially B-5 and B-6).
  3. Avoid consumption of caffeine, alcohol, or foods rich in tyrosine or tyramine at least 6 hours before going to bed.
  4. Avoid stimulating arousal from exercise, stress, or medications at least 6 hours prior to sleep.
  5. See if you can synchronize your sleep pattern with available sunlight by developing the habit of going to bed when the sun sets and waking near the time when it rises. While this is not always possible, you can try to reinforce your basic sleep cycles (circadian rhythms) by providing a dark, quiet environment for sleep.
  6. If you nap between two-a-day workouts, attempt to sleep for at least 90 minutes to complete a deep-sleep cycle for optimal recuperation and muscle mass growth during sleep.

If you're looking to improve the quality and length of your sleep, try REM Caps

back to Hammer Nutrition UK Free Knowledge
back to Hammer Nutrition UK home