Injury Nutrition: How To Minimise Risk & Treat Injuries in Cyclists

Today, we look at nutrition strategies for the prevention and treatment of injuries in cyclists.

If you ride bikes, an injury will unfortunately happen at some point, whether that be to the muscle, bone, tendon or ligament, it'll happen.

Injuries will result in a loss of training time and, ultimately, a loss of time that could be progressing. Therefore, the rider aims to become as robust as possible; then, when an injury does occur, you can get back on the bike as quickly as possible.

Therefore, it's essential to put nutrition interventions in motion to reduce the likeliness of injury and to have strategies in place to accelerate recovery if an injury occurs.

For every issue, there's an intervention, as outlined below by the work from Close et al. (2019):

To Treat the Muscle:

1. Adequate protein may not prevent a muscle injury; however, increasing protein intake post-injury may help overcome anabolic resistance and, therefore, support muscle retention and injury repair.
2. During limb immobilisation, high-dose omega-3 supplementation has the potential to reduce muscle mass loss and function through increasing anabolic sensitivity.
3. Vitamin D deficiency can impair muscle regeneration following damaging exercise. Therefore, it may play a role in muscle injuries and regeneration.
4. Creatine supplementation can reduce muscle mass and strength loss when the limb is immobilised and improve rates of muscle gain following limb immobilisation.
5. Upon injury, athletes should avoid large energy deficits as this will impair the healing process and accelerate muscle mass loss during limb immobilisation. Athletes should reduce intake with reduced expenditure, but they need to eat adequate amounts to 'feed healing'.

To Support and Treat the Bone:

1. Low energy availability (calories available for the body to use after exercise) reduces bone formation and causes bone resorption. This can be seen after five days in females and in some males. Reduced dietary intake, rather than increased expenditure, appears to drive this. Consuming adequate calories is likely essential in optimising bone health.
2. Improving calcium and vitamin D status can decrease fracture risk. Calcium loss through sweat can be significant in some cyclists, in return causing the bone to lose some of its calcium stores to normalise blood calcium levels. To circumvent this, 'pre-loading' calcium before sweaty sessions is recommended to reduce bone resorption.
3. During the winter months, when UVB exposure from the sun is reduced, it's recommended to supplement with Vitamin D3 to support calcium absorption in the gut and improve bone mineral density (BMD).
4. Don't be deficient in any macronutrient of micronutrient (vitamins, minerals and trace elements): protein, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin D, potassium, fluoride, manganese, copper, boron, iron, zinc, vitamin A, K, C, and B support bone tissue and formation.

To Support and Treat Tendons + Ligaments:

1. Vitamin C, glycine and copper play a role in connective tissue healing and strength.
2. Collagen is the backbone of connective tissue. Therefore, collagen supplementation or gelatine (food derivative of collagen), or more specifically, the amino acid Proline, can increase collagen synthesis when supplemented before loading, increasing the tensile strength of connective tissue. Collagen supplementation is recommended as a prehab and rehab strategy. Some evidence also suggests that supplementation decreases knee pain through increasing cartilage thickness.

Ultimately, whether you're looking at preventative or treatment strategies, the world-class basics always rise to the top: Eat high-quality foods in appropriate portions to minimise nutrient deficiencies and meet the body's demands!

You'll often find that when your eating habits target one issue, you optimise many other processes in the body. Knowing this, we cannot stress the importance of eating high-quality foods aligned with the energy demands of the day.

This is undoubtedly a tedious and repetitive message that will never sell headlines, but trust us, when you invest the time and energy to master your eating habits, the downstream results are life-changing and extend far beyond how well you perform in the saddle.

- Coach Chris