I usually take one, or usually two, rest days per week, completely off the bike. Usually these days are the day after my most intense training sessions. I know that I should have a lot of protein and carb during the maximum uptake window directly (within one hour) after the workout. But even doing this, I typically feel more hungry, drained and sore the night of, and even the day and night after those intense workouts. But I am not exercising during that period. So if I eat more calories than normal during that period, is it going toward building muscle and replenishing depleted glycogen, or making fat, or both? And/or does it depends on the composition and timing of the extra intake?
This may be fluid issue. Holding on to glucose requires water. If you drink too little you will feel die because you dehydrate as a result of the calorie intake.
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Is this potentially an under-fueling issue? Are you getting adequate energy intake overall to meet your needs not only for training, but on rest days too?
Do you currently know your energy intake relative to needs? This is the first step to help with understanding what âmoreâ means for you. You could always simply âeat moreâ but without knowing the demands, itâs hard to say just how much more you might be consuming.
This is similar to above. Until you know how much the body needs, itâs a hard question to answer (maybe a little of both). It comes down to timing, as you said, and the composition. So 1 hour post-hard workout, a higher %CHO can be helpful while glycogen synthase is elevated. Depending on how much depletion occurred in the workout, that need may stick around for 12-15 hours or more. But the intake has to be relevant not only to your workout, but to the overall training load and intensity youâre taking on. So you need to understand what your expenditure is like on hard days as well as light days. Know that, as @kjeldbontenbal said, if you have a lot of muscle damage from the workout then youâre not going to hold onto those glycogen granules because the structure in which those are stored is damaged, and that also reduces the amount of water thatâs attached to whatever amount of stored glycogen you do have.
So long story short, I would suggest looking at your expenditure first, on an average basis, to get a sense for what youâre putting out. Then, get an estimate of your intake - you can do that in a few ways, from detailed food logs and apps (they work, but also have inherent errors, so take the numbers with a grain of salt) all the way to visual estimates to better understand whatâs coming. See how those two relate to one another and make sure youâre getting enough. Once you have that information, it can help inform your approach on those off days and work out a strategy to get what you need for the best recovery possible.
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Several things here: sounds like you are doing good job post ride refueling within the 60-90 min window. Your description post ride that night and next day could call for different recovery protocol. IE foam rolling, massage gun etc. recovery is very personal and the only science backed recovery is good old sleep! Most athletes miss their daily protein needs which includes post ride. Shot for 1g/kg of protein. If you are a master age athlete over 40 you could up that to 1.2-1.5/kg. Protein helps rebuild fibers of the muscle tissue that was damaged and stressed during those HIIT sessions and it helps prepare for the next workout, not so much building the muscle like you inquire as associated with strength work or body building. Be sure you are getting in 40-60g carbs on workouts that are higher intensity and this is good protocol even for you easier endurance zone 2/3 rides that are longer that 90min. Hope this helps.
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Thank you - this is helpful and a lot to think about. This isnât an issue after Zone 2 days, itâs really a post-interval thing, which implies muscle damage is involved (and it feels that way too because the extra hunger comes later and often correlates with DOMS onset. The bit about the glycogen granules implies that maybe a little extra CHO could be useful all the way into the DOMS window because the muscle has to be repaired before glycogen storage is restored - though as a biologist, I imagine this damage/depletion/recovery is temporally and spatially heterogeneous within the muscle. I am imagining that post-workout anabolic demand (in all athletes) looks like a big bump right after the high intensity workout when cell transporters are most active, and then an exponential decrease with the length of the tail depending on the extent of muscle damage. Does that sound reasonable?
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Thank you. Yes, I am a masters athlete. I should start better tracking my protein consumption and my carb consumption for that matter. I think I do pretty good with carb fueling for intense workouts, but on zone 2 days, I tend to go lighter (like 60 g over 2-3 hours) because I feel like too much carb will inhibit my mitochondriaâs capability of metabolizing fat.
@jvbailey88 there is not much reason to be concerned with your fat metabolisation, because of the following:
- size principle: whatever intensity you train, you will be using your Type I fibers and therefore utilise fat â just go longer than +/- 5 minutes to ensure your oxidation machinery can start-up fully.
- extension principle: as long as you keep extending the duration for which you use your Type I fibers, you will be improving fat metabolisation.
This is exactly why it is so interesting to include (a bit of) high-intensity in long slow rides. You can âburn offâ your Wâ (PCR and Glycogen) and then continue using fat. Of course, your average speed will be very slow as those Type Iâs do not provide a lot of force.
Adding a lot of high-intensity will hinder the glycogen replenishment as explained by @ryan. It will also lead to the accumulation of muscle damage. That is. Even a slow ride contains moments where you utilise Type IIs (the damaged once). When you start riding, after each traffic light, the bridge, the hill. â in my believe, high-intensity should be limited to the amount where you can recover before your next ride.
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My fitness pal app is great for tracking, the paid version which is like $50/year will allow you to connect your Training Peaks account if you have and upload what you are eating into the calendar. Protein is so crucial for us master age athletes and like I said most do not get enough. Sounds like you are periodizing fueling and food intake based upon the demands of training. Utilizing fat as fuel really comes down to what your unique crossover point is to when your body switches from fat to carbs, once you know this you know what and when to eat based on intensity. You can find this out plus a whole lot more about your metabolic profile with INSCYD. As a coach I use this as a key ingredient to coaching my athletes and their success and their performance.
I hope this provides some additional info. Best of training to you!
Ride. Fight . No Surrender!
This is exactly why it is so interesting to include (a bit of) high-intensity in long slow rides. You can âburn offâ your Wâ (PCR and Glycogen) and then continue using fat.
To that end, I wonder about doing some high intensity after warming up at the start of long endurance rides, to more quickly get to higher levels of fat oxidation.
Can you expand a little on this? What do you mean by continue using fat?
What would be an example of this kind of session?
kjeldbontenbal
is exactly why it is so interesting to include (a bit of) high-intensity in long slow rides. You can âburn offâ your Wâ (PCR and Glycogen) and then continue using fat.
Steve, I didnât know how to attribute the quote, which was by K. My question was, assuming what he said holds, would some higher intensity at the start of an endurance ride bring higher levels of fat versus glucose oxidation to the forefront quicker
yes, by him.
kjeldbontenbal
@jvbailey88 there is not much reason to be concerned with your fat metabolisation, because of the following:
- size principle: whatever intensity you train, you will be using your Type I fibers and therefore utilise fat â just go longer than +/- 5 minutes to ensure your oxidation machinery can start-up fully.
- extension principle: as long as you keep extending the duration for which you use your Type I fibers, you will be improving fat metabolisation.
This is exactly why it is so interesting to include (a bit of) high-intensity in long slow rides. You can âburn offâ your Wâ (PCR and Glycogen) and then continue using fat. Of course, your average speed will be very slow as those Type Iâs do not provide a lot of force.
Adding a lot of high-intensity will hinder the glycogen replenishment as explained by @ryan. It will also lead to the accumulation of muscle damage. That is. Even a slow ride contains moments where you utilise Type IIs (the damaged once). When you start riding, after each traffic light, the bridge, the hill. â in my believe, high-intensity should be limited to the amount where you can recover before your next ride.
Thanks. I guess I was looking for actual data of this type of session on a metabolic cart.
Or a paper showing actual data of this type of example.