energy supplements

[Meto500]

There is no ban on eating before riding. After a number of operations I am medically unable to eat before riding or any exersizing. I am actually wondering if having a riding partner would be more beneficial.

[kenwstr]

Hi, What I said before was mostly meant to indicate that supplementing energy during a ride can only be minimal. I offered this because, there are a lot of misconceptions about this and many overuse energy products to the detriment of their health.

In your case, there are still a lot of unknowns about what you are experiencing and why you believe you need energy supplement. Normally, excess energy is stored in the body tissues as glycogen and this is what fuels the bulk of energy needs for activities like cycling. Supplements can only add a very small amount to the activities total energy requirement because the rate of demand is much higher than digestion can provide. Digestion includes energy products such as sugars, carbs etc in drinks. It is not clear whether you can use a supplement in a drink before or during exercise.

So if supplements are not necessary for the activity duration you have indicated, this raises the question of why you believe you need them? There may be a number of reasons, it may be a true need or a false perception. If your muscles feel fatigued and unable to meet the demands right from the beginning of the ride, it is likely you are starting off too hard and just need to ease right off and go very gently on flat terrain to warm up for 10 - 15 minutes or so, whatever you body needs before it is ready to perform. Are you feeling light headed, while this could be energy related, it could again be going too hard and not giving the body time to adjust, similar to vertigo, takes the body a while to catch up with demand. Starting early and not eating gets you from a sleep state to on the bike in a very short time. You may just need to ease into the activity very gently, not doing so will will have you playing catch up the whole ride and make it very tough going and generally underperforming.

On the other hand, there may be an energy problem if say you are losing weight despite efforts to maintain it. If that is the case, endurance exercise is probably not the appropriate type as it consumes the most energy. Intervals may be a better choice as studies have linked it to vastly improving mitochondrial activity. This has a most profound benefit for intercellular coordination. In other words, keeps the cells functioning together, so the organs do what they are supposed to do. Maybe you know this already and are using these short rides to do intervals. Your doctor should know about this if keeping up with the the research as it's been known some years now.

As I don't know your true situation and don't want to press for what may be considered private information, I can only try to surmise and offer random suggestions in hopes something may by chance be helpful. I think though the bottom line is that energy can normally only be absorbed by digestion either as food or in drink and high energy density is available in either carbs or fats. Carbs are fast, while fats are slow to digest. These seem to be immutable parameters. Can you doctor or a nutritionist offer suggestions?

Ken

[Meto500]

Thanks Ken there is lot there to understand and I have re read it a few times. It makes sense what you have outlined above. Muscle fatigue seemed to be the issue today on a 100k ride but the fatigue was early. Actual energy was ok for the whole ride. So need to try interval riding
Also I have been losing a lot of weight so this had some effect on longevity. ( but needed to as I was way to heavy)
I have increased my smallest commute to work to 20k each way to try to allow muscles to get stronger. Moved the Sunday ride to sat allowing an extra day of muscle revive.
Seems I was thinking the wrong way.

[Bentnose]

I use Heed from Hammer Nutrition, it is 91% maltodextrin and sweetened with Stevia. Lollies and most energy drinks like Gatorade do terrible things to your teeth when combined in particular with a dry mouth brought on by breathing hard during exercise. I have issues with my teeth that were caused by a lot of Gatorade and Poweraid while riding when I was younger.

[BugsBunny]

I would avoid energy gels and energy drinks if you could.

Personally, I would pack a small bag or two of a variety of nuts. Almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cashews etc. They pack a healthy calorie punch, and contain some salts and other nutrients. To give you an idea, 34 grams (quarter of a cup) of salted cashews packs 190 calories. Just reading off the can of walnuts beside me That's equivalent to 2 packs of energy gels.

Just stop for a breather every 20-30 minutes for a drink of water and a handful of nuts. If you are cruising at low to medium intensity this should keep you going for your 60 km ride.

Bugs

[kenwstr]

Thanks Ken there is lot there to understand and I have re read it a few times. It makes sense what you have outlined above. Muscle fatigue seemed to be the issue today on a 100k ride but the fatigue was early. Actual energy was ok for the whole ride. So need to try interval riding
Also I have been losing a lot of weight so this had some effect on longevity. ( but needed to as I was way to heavy)
I have increased my smallest commute to work to 20k each way to try to allow muscles to get stronger. Moved the Sunday ride to sat allowing an extra day of muscle revive.
Seems I was thinking the wrong way.

There is essentially nothing wrong with doing distance rides, I was only concerned about energy expenditure if weight loss was not in control as might be the case depending on your condition and treatment. Congratulations on doing 100km rides by the way, I have done some but couldn't ATM as I had along spell off after illness and am not up to snuff. So I think your doing really well after your troubles. Anyway, exercise types exist for specific reasons and while there are some overlaps in their effects. It is most beneficial to target specific weaknesses or things you desire to improve. Commonly people extend distance at low intensity over winter to develop a basic endurance base to build performance on later but when that later comes along you still want to retain that endurance base and may switch to no less than either half the distance or half the intensity as the minimum to maintain that level so you can focus on some other goal for a while. Anaerobic intervals tend to develop aerobic capacity and the health related issues I referred to. There are strength or sprint targeted intervals also. Intervals are tough and take determination and you need recovery time. When I do interval sessions, it's generally only 1 ride a week and I do other types of rides and at least 1 recovery day between each workout ride depending on the workout intensity or duration. This so it doesn't get too much like work, work and no play. Some do recovery rides, others take the day off completely. Anyway intervals, there are varying opinions on interval durations reps, sets etc so I suggest do some research but the basic idea is that the term interval refers to the duration of the recovery interval between efforts but 1st there is the warm up do not neglect this, like before just go at an easy pace for at least 5 minutes or until you can kick in normal endurance pace without muscle fatigue . The efforts are basically 100% max all out for say 30 sec to a minute depending whose advice you follow, then you do a
short recovery for ideally as little as half that time if you can hack it and hit an effort again. You do a number of reps then a longer recovery and do another set of intervals and so on till completion, then a cooldown to work out the lactate and you done. Whole thing only takes 15-30 min max depending on the program you follow. It is asserted that the shorter the recovery interval the greater the benefit. However unless you are at an elite level, such short recoveries seem unlikely, I for one need longer. Basically you are never fully recovered before beginning the next effort so it's darn tough stuff and I always ease into these things to try to avoid self injury and gauge how I'm coping. I'm not an expert on this and I am going from possibly faulty memory so I strongly advise researching it and exercise caution. Good hunting!

[opik_bidin]

From what i do and see fellow riders doing
1. bananas
2. dates
3. nuts (almonds, peanuts, etc)

all can be thrown to the ground as its organic and will decompose.

[g-boaf]

Thanks Ken there is lot there to understand and I have re read it a few times. It makes sense what you have outlined above. Muscle fatigue seemed to be the issue today on a 100k ride but the fatigue was early. Actual energy was ok for the whole ride. So need to try interval riding
Also I have been losing a lot of weight so this had some effect on longevity. ( but needed to as I was way to heavy)
I have increased my smallest commute to work to 20k each way to try to allow muscles to get stronger. Moved the Sunday ride to sat allowing an extra day of muscle revive.
Seems I was thinking the wrong way.

Good on you for doing those big rides. If your legs feel tired and sore, if possible do your commute ride in an easy gear - just spin away. Have a recovery day here and there. That's most of it really.

I wouldn't worry too much about intervals.

I also second the comments about those gels. I've used them and they do work, but they also can have unfortunate side effects.