How Frequently Should Cyclists Consume Carbohydrate During A Ride?

Consuming adequate carbohydrate (CHO) is fundamental for sustaining medium-high intensity performances.

Whilst daily CHO is the highest priority, we must consider CHO during our rides to maximise performance.

There’s been a plethora of research establishing how many grams of CHO are needed per hour of exercise to maintain physical performance.

However, there’s little research investigating how FREQUENTLY you should consume CHO during exercise…until recently.

Menzies et al. (2020) examined how two different CHO delivery methods impact running performances (time to exhaustion).

Both groups consumed 75g of carbohydrates over 75 minutes, however...

– Group A ‘drip fed’ CHO evenly throughout, consuming 5g servings every 5 minutes (15 servings in total).

– Group B consumed zero CHO until the 75-minute mark and finished the entire 75g all at once (bolus).

Despite consuming precisely the same amount of CHO during their running test, group A increased their time to exhaustion by ~9 minutes, representing a 10% improvement in exercise capacity.

The runners who ‘drip fed’ CHO throughout saw a noticeably smaller decline in their muscle glycogen stores and therefore could push harder for longer.

Essentially, consuming CHO ‘spares’ muscle glycogen; therefore, you have more of this finite substance to work at higher intensities.

In contrast, Group B left it too late and depleted their muscle glycogen stores to the extent where muscle contractibility became impaired…and subsequently, work rate at higher intensities dropped off.

Once this happened, adding 75g CHO didn’t restore glycogen to any actual extent over the remainder of the test.

Therefore, you must be very proactive with your fuelling and start implementing your nutrition strategy from the first few minutes.

Don’t dig yourself into a hole, then attempt to ‘rescue’ performance with reactive fuelling strategies. It doesn’t work. Fuel The Ride

- Coach Chris