Nutrition Guidelines for Downhill & Gravity Enduro MTB Riders to Maximise Muscle Growth

Today, we're heading towards the bodybuilding world to examine how cyclists can build muscle over the winter off-season to maximise their strength and robustness heading into the 2024 race season.

Conversations surrounding a cyclist's physical development are primarily dominated by how lean they can become. However, for many riders, especially gravity enduro and downhill riders, having more muscle can reduce injury risk through improved joint stability and protection.

In addition, more muscle and strength, up until a critical point, can improve the rider's ability to endure the physical demands of fast and technical descents.

Before delving into the nutrition recommendations, we must remember that the primary driver of muscle growth is a robust weight training stimulus. Ultimately, a rider can follow the dietary recommendations below to support muscle gain, but if the training stimulus is weak, rates of muscle growth will be limited.

Therefore, the nutrition or supplement intervention aims to:

1. Improve performance during the weight training session, resulting in greater training volume. Note: From a training perspective, total training volume (weight x reps x sets) is the most potent factor for muscle hypertrophy.
2. Amplify the response and adaptation to said load. For example, a robust weight training stimulus will dial adaptation up, whether nutrition dials adaptation to maximum.

Research by Iraki et al. (2019) has outlined the latest evidence-based guidelines to build muscle optimally. Therefore, to maximise your muscle-building potential this winter, here's what you need to know:

1) Calorie Surplus:  From a nutrition standpoint, ensuring adequate energy availability is most important. In this case, a ~10-20% calorie surplus is advisable. That being said, well-trained or advanced lifters should be careful of being overzealous with their calorie intake as this will lead to unwanted body fat gain. Therefore, the calorie intake should be nearing maintenance, or 5-10% above.

For example, for novice lifters, a 300-600kcal surplus may be required, whereas an advanced lifter may need a smaller 150-300kcal surplus due to the lower energy cost of building muscle.

Research shows that muscle gain can happen whilst simultaneously dropping body fat by following a calorie-restricted diet. Although muscle can be built during energy restriction, muscle development will not be maximised.

2) Protein Intake: Aim to consume adequate protein with every meal to amplify muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and the adaptation to training. A weight training stimulus initiates a robust response in MPS, where protein intake further enhances this response.

To maximise MPs via protein, aim to consume 3-6 meals per day with an intake of 0.4-0.55g/kg/bw with every meal. Each meal should then be evenly distributed throughout the day: Breakfast, lunch, mid-afternoon, dinner and pre-bed.

Following the above eating pattern will result in a total protein intake of 1.6-2.2g/kg daily.

For example, if you weigh 80kg, you'd need approximately 130-180g of high-quality protein per day, which equates to 30-40g of protein on a per meal basis.

3) Dietary fat:  Aim to consume between 0.5-1.5g/kg/bw per day with carbohydrates making the remainder of energy intake. As a general rule, and to keep the maths simple, the FTR coaches set dietary fat at 1g/kg, which is 80g for the 80kg rider.

Therefore, adequate dietary fat is obtained through the diet to support normal physiological functioning. Still, it isn't too high, as this will displace carbohydrate intake and therefore impact fuelling for training sessions.

4) Carbohydrate (CHO) intake: For many gym goers, this will equate to approximately 3-5g/kg/bw per day; however, more carbohydrates are needed if additional training (bike, runs, etc.) is scheduled on the same day.

For example, if you have a gym session in the morning, followed by skill work on the MTB in the afternoon, you'll need to fuel both sessions and ensure adequate energy is still available for muscle growth. Therefore, CHO intake can exceed current recommendations and be 6-8g/kg/bw daily.

Therefore, the same 80kg rider may need to consume upwards of 500-600g of CHO on more demanding days. That being said, this is a ballpark figure to work from. If the same rider has a 3-hour ride, burning 700kcal per hour instead of the skill session on the MTB, then CHO intake will most likely exceed 10g/kg, or 800g.

Ultimately, you fuel for the work required.

5) Supplements don't directly build muscle. At present, all supplements aimed at building muscle are done indirectly via improving performance. Unfortunately, they don't directly increase muscle hypertrophy; therefore, they do so indirectly.

As the saying goes: 'If it works, it's banned, and if it's not banned, it doesn't work'.

6) Supplements that improve weight training performances: creatine, beta-alanine and citrulline malate. That being said, supplementation will offer marginal gains, where consistency with hard and progressing training combined with good eating habits will provide the major gains needed to see significant results.

To reiterate, all the above is somewhat 'fluff' unless you train hard enough to cause a stress response and the subsequent adaptation. By all means, you don't need to train to complete failure where muscle soreness is crippling, which impairs your ability to perform in the following weight training sessions, but this doesn't mean you're coasting.

Lastly, although these are recommendations provided to bodybuilders to maximise muscle growth, this doesn't mean you'll look like a bodybuilder by following them. These are simply the guidelines to maximise your results in the gym and, therefore, get better results by doing the same amount of work.

In summary, the muscle growth formula can broken down into three main questions:

1. Am I getting stronger in the gym each week?
2. Am I eating enough protein at each meal?
3. Am I eating enough calories to support a slight gain in body weight? (note: if you're building muscle, you'll weigh more because, unsurprisingly, muscle weighs something - this indicates that your plan is working.)

By all means, sleep quality, stress management and genetics play a significant role in the ability of a rider to build muscle. Still, from a nutrition perspective, the above points are the core drivers.

- Coach Chris