What has changed in professional cycling nutrition—beyond grams of carbohydrate?

Professional cycling numbers draw attention: large quantities of carbohydrate during the entire competitions and teams dedicated to feeding. Copy only the dose, however, leaves out the structure that gives meaning to the strategy.

A review of the UCI sports nutrition project allows you to look beyond this headline. The interest for amateurs is in understanding the organization of decisions, regardless of automatically the volumes of those who live to compete.

What the article brings together

Jeukendrup and collaborators discuss nutrition in road competitions, including energy demands, carbohydrates, recovery between stages and body mass control. It is not a new experiment that compares one universal dose to another.

The review describes greater intake of carbohydrates during competitions and relates this practice to competitive requirements, tolerance training and logistic support. It also highlights that, in competitions by stages, the interval between one day and another is part of the same nutritional problem. Its basis combines research and experience applied to the professional environment, requiring care in extrapolation.

Average power does not explain all demand

A competition can have long moments relatively controlled and be decided by very demanding efforts. To plan food, it is necessary to think about what needs to remain possible at the end, not just in the average intensity of the journey.

As editorial reasoning, this changes the question of “how much should I consume because professionals consume?” to “what effort do I need to sustain, for how long and with what opportunities of fueling?” The amount becomes part of the answer, rather than being the isolated starting point.

It is also useful to distinguish how to transport food, how to eat and how to tolerate the strategy. A plan that only works on paper can fail when the ground requires attention or when the opportunity for access to products decreases.

Preparation does not end at the finish line

In a calendar with new demands the next day, recovery interferes with the race start condition of the next stage. This helps to understand why a competition strategy needs to talk to the rest of the day's food.

In the amateur context, the same question can be applied with a different scale: will there be another demanding session tomorrow? Is there time and access to a meal after training? Does the routine allow you to perform what was planned?

These are applications of reasoning, not demonstrations that the amateur needs to reproduce the menu of a great turn.

Editorial example: a useful fueling spreadsheet

Before an important cycling training, organize four fields: expected demand, available products, consumption opportunities and response in previous trials. After the session, register what really happened.

If the athlete could not access half of what he took, the initial problem may be operational. If he executed the plan and had discomfort, the investigation is another. If he totally changed the intensity to accompany the group, the session held was no longer the session for which the plan was built.

This review gives meaning to individualization. Individualization is not just adjusting a number to body weight. It is adapting the decision to the task and creating conditions to perform it.

The most transferable teaching of professional cycling is the integration between planning, feeding and evaluation. The dose is important, but it does not work independently of the rest of the preparation. The strategy needs to serve the competition and the athlete, and its execution needs to be possible.

Cada um no seu ritmo. Juntos no caminho.