Cycling Training and Nutrition - Part one of my Article

Here is part 1 of my Cycling Training and Nutrition article:

The body’s main store of energy is called Glycogen (Pronounced gly-ko-gen), Glycogen consists of lots of glucose molecules joined together to form a chain.

When you eat carbohydrates, your body stores them as glycogen. There are two types of Carbohydrates, simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are individual glucose molecules, and are metabolised quickly. That is why cyclists eat a mars bar or something else sugary when they feel like they will hit the wall, it gives you a quick spike of energy to keep you going that little bit longer.

If all you ate was mars bars before a long ride or cycling training session, you would run out of energy quickly, since the glucose will be burned off quickly. You could keep going if you ate a continuous supply of mars bars during the ride (but you would need the will power to eat 40 mars bars! I did that in one weekend once, but that’s another story!).

Before a long ride, or hard cycling training session, you need to eat complex carbohydrates, such as pasta and potatoes. Complex carbohydrates are metabolised slower by your body, since the enzymes need to break the bonds between the glucose molecules. Since the complex carbohydrates are metabolised slower, you have a continuous supply on energy available. Eating lots of carbohydrates leading up to an event is known as carbo-loading.

Read the rest here.