Nutrition strategies for triathletes -
That could be a bowl of cereal, toast, or pancakes. Anything rich in carbohydrates to fill up your glycogen stores before the workout. However, we recommend having a sweet-tasting drink that will activate the neuromuscular system and give you a kick each time you take a sip.
When completing an endurance workout, your nutrition goal should be to control your blood glucose levels. Instead, your goal is to burn as high a percentage of fat as possible.
Before an endurance-building workout, consume a meal that is high in protein and fat while low in carbohydrates. For example, you could have an omelette, peanut butter, meats, seeds, or nuts.
Suppose your endurance workout is longer than 90 minutes. In that case, you should be fueling with the same high-fat and high-protein foods at a rate suggested by the triathlon nutrition calculator. Just plug in the workout, time, and details, and you will get the target number of calories to consume.
These efforts should be fueled in the same way as you will fuel your race day efforts, but with some slight modifications. That means a high amount of carbohydrates before and during the workout.
When you first start your race-specific workouts weeks before your goal race, your should start at the low end of the nutrition calculator when it comes to taking in your calories. You will gradually increase this amount each week to help train your gut while also training your race-specific fitness.
At the peak of your race-specific training, you may actually be consuming more calories than the target from the calculator. On race day, you'll actually be able to drop your calories down, and your stomach should be able to handle the race-day calories comfortably compared to what you consumed in training.
Similarly to how you increase your training load over time, you should focus on increasing the number of carbohydrates that you can consume each week. Another key point is that you should consume a high-carbohydrate snack before your race-specific workout.
Aim to consume a muffin or bowl of cereal, for example, minutes before your race workout, to ensure that your glycogen stores are completely topped off. During your race workout, consume the exact amount of calories that our triathlon nutrition calculator suggests.
These calories should come from mostly carbs, such as sports gels and energy drinks. Specifically, you should aim for a high percentage of carbohydrates consumed during these workouts. Our nutrition calculator will provide your target number of calories to consume, but you can also narrow it down by calculating the grams of carbohydrate per hour to consume.
In everyday life, you may be consuming grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight per day. However, as a triathlete, your carbohydrate requirement will be much greater on high-intensity training days and race days.
These days, a triathlete should aim for 8 to 12 grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight per day. For example, a 70 kg triathlete may be consuming 2, calories per day. At CHO carbohydrate grams per kilogram, this athlete should be aiming to consume grams of carbohydrate per day.
Remember that this goal doesn't need to be met every day. The grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight per day are reserved for big training days, high-intensity training sessions, and races.
The main difference is that Ironman is significantly longer than other forms of triathlon, and it can take upwards of 12 hours for many triathletes.
When it comes to your race day nutrition, the timing and foods should be the same as your typical triathlon nutrition plan. You can get all of these numbers from the calculator above. However, the biggest difference in Ironman triathlon nutrition is the volume of food that you will be consuming.
That means that you really need to train your gut. While it may appear simple on the surface, triathlon racing and training nutrition can be hard to perfect. Proper fueling is one of the keys to success in endurance sports, yet there are some basic principles that you can easily get wrong.
The topic of fasting has come to the forefront of the health and fitness industry in the last decade. There are countless studies, podcasts, and articles on the benefits of fasting, but there is still much that is unknown.
Crucially, most of these studies involve members of the general population, not endurance athletes. For those getting into triathlon, aiming for a PR, or trying to compete at their very best, fasted training is NOT a good option. The best way to make the biggest fitness gains is to fuel your training and get stronger.
Many athletes, especially endurance athletes, struggle with their body weight and body image. But the trend is changing, and the best triathletes in the world are now strong and muscular.
It is impossible to guess your ideal body weight for a triathlon, and perhaps there is no answer. Because of the tri-sport nature of triathlon, you can always be better at one discipline and worse at another. The key is to NOT focus on your body weight, and rather, focus on your performance.
Fuel your workouts using our nutrition calculators above, and your ideal body weight will reveal itself. For more information on body weight and running performance, check out This Running Weight Calculator Will Find Your Ideal Running Weight.
After mentioning body weight, we also need to talk about body composition, which is the proportion of tissues in your body, specifically fat, muscle, bone, and water.
Body composition will tell you your body fat percentage, the amount of muscle that you carry in different areas of your body, your bone mineral density, and more.
In general, body composition is a much better metric for endurance athletes to track compared to body weight. Did I just gain 5 lbs of fat or 5 lbs of pure muscle?
One will make you significantly faster, while the other could make you slower. Instead of trying to lose weight, focus on improving your body composition, which means more muscle and less fat.
Instead, the results will come from consistent training and proper fueling. Triathlon racing and training nutrition is simple but not easy. Focus on carbohydrate fueling before and during high-intensity training sessions and races, and fat fueling and burning during low-intensity training sessions.
Use the exact same foods, gels, and drinks in training as you will on race day. Come into your training and racing with a plan, and there will be nothing new. Stick primarily with carbohydrates, a little protein, and minimal fats.
Toast and jam, a banana, oatmeal, PowerBar, and Carbohydrate electrolyte drinks are popular choices. Some will have egg or peanut butter for protein. Some athletes prefer a shake. If you have a coffee on training days, have a coffee on race day.
Finish breakfast hrs before race start to give yourself time to digest. Some athletes will take a PowerGel prior to race start. Bike Starting the bike — For the first minutes of the bike, drink water and take in minimal calories, mainly in the form of a sports drink.
Let your body adjust to cycling, and let your heart rate drop down. Then start eating when you have settled into a good cycling rhythm. From 10 minutes after the bike start to 10 minutes prior to the bike finish eat carbohydrate calories per hour, regardless of source.
Larger or muscular athletes tend to need more calories. Bigger athletes need more calories. Some athletes can digest more than others.
Test it in training. Drink 1 to 1. This is approximately 2 small bottles to 2 large bottles per hour, depending on climate and your personal perspiration rate. A training tip is to weigh yourself pre- and post ride.
Every 1 pound lost is 1 small water bottle of fluid deficit, and will negatively impact your half marathon performance. Set your watch alarm to go every 15 minutes, to remind you to eat and drink regularly.
Despite the need for a higher energy, it is important to still include a variety of fruits and vegetables to ensure adequate intakes of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals are achieved. Fluid requirements vary between individuals depending on sweat rate and sweat composition, weather conditions and ability to tolerate fluid while training and competing.
Athletes should start races well hydrated and continue to optimise hydration throughout the race. Obviously this presents a challenge in the swim leg, but can to be maximised on the bike leg. As the intensity of racing is lower compared to shorter distance races, more fluid can usually be consumed and tolerated.
Dehydration, both in daily training and racing, can lead to fatigue, loss of concentration and impaired performance due to loss of power and intensity. Due to the length of training sessions and races, a combination of water and sports drinks is common.
Effective carbohydrate loading can be achieved within days prior combined with reduced training load. This loading should not be achieved through simply eating more food, but rather targeted intake of more carbohydrate rich foods or fluids.
Consulting with an Accredited Sports Dietitian to assist with this will reduce risk of gut upset and optimise muscle glycogen stores. Long distance triathlons most frequently start in the early morning anywhere between am. Eating any more than 2 hours before the race can be a challenge and pre-race nutrition needs to be modified to suit this.
Ideally a pre-race easy to digest, carbohydrate-rich meal should be eating mins before the start. Suitable options include cereal, porridge, bircher muesli, crumpets, English muffins or toast.
For athletes struggling with poor appetite and nerves, liquid meal options may be better tolerated — for example fruit smoothies or liquid meal replacements. Small serves of sports drink or a sports gel min prior to swim start will assist in fuelling the swim. This strategy however is highly individual and will be dependent on the athlete, their tolerance and intensity of racing.
For events longer than 3hrs, there is a correlation between increased carbohydrate intake and improved performance.
Chrissy Carroll is a registered srrategies and Nutrihion Level I Triathlon Green Tea, and the author of "Eat to Peak: Sports Nutrition shrategies Runners and Triathletes. John Honerkamp is nutrition strategies for triathletes RRCA and Triayhletes running Wound healing remedies, celebrity marathon pacer, and nutrition strategies for triathletes leader in the New York City running community. An optimal triathlon nutrition plan can be the difference between a PR and an upsetting finish. Build your endurance nutrition IQ with the tips below and get ready for your best tri season yet. By focusing on a wholesome daily diet, you help your body maximize training adaptations and recovery throughout your season. But you should anticipate eating more during the season and less during the off season to account for changes in energy output. You can break your triathlon diet plan into three essential pillars. Protein powders and shakes athletes know that nutrition can make or break a nutrition strategies for triathletes, triathletss the eating habits of triathletes triatbletes especially Boosting metabolism for weight loss to straategies optimal results. Because triathlons tdiathletes an intense strategifs activity, successful participants need endurance, triathlwtes strength—characteristics that are highly dependent on what you eat and drink! If you are triathlete, InsideTracker can provide you with great advice on your unique nutrition needs, but here are a few insider tips for successful fueling to get you started. It can be difficult to stick to a training schedule, manage the rest of your life, and keep track of your calories at the same time! Unfortunately, not having enough fuel in your body can really slow you down and even increase your risk for injury.
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