Gut Training for Endurance Athletes #TriageNews

Published: Fri, 07/28/23

Gut Training: Prepare Your Gut for Endurance Events

In order to optimise performance as an endurance athlete, you need to fuel your training with high levels of carbohydrate intake. This not only applies to before and after training & competition, but also during. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as exercise can somewhat "shut down" the gut, which can lead to unwanted gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain, cramping, flatulence, diarrhoea, and more.

This is where preparation or "gut training" comes into play.

Figure 1: How Training the Gut Can Improve Performance.

By deliberately training the gut, you can experience the following effects:

Reduced bloating and fullness during exercise
Increased gastric emptying (speed of movement of food / fluid in and out of the stomach and thus into the intestines)
Increased capacity to absorb & deliver carbohydrates

Essentially, the result is that you can consume more carbohydrate during endurance exercise without gastrointestinal upset, thus leading to improvements in performance. Methods listed in the paper noted above include:

Training with larger fluid volumes to prepare the stomach for such volumes during exercise
Training sooner after a meal to get used to exercising with food in your system (I struggle with this myself!)
Training with progressive carbohydrate intake during exercise
Race simulation with a realistic nutrition plan
Increased carbohydrate intake overall (you don't want to go from 100-200g average to a whopping 800g on the day of competition!)

The question with such hypothesised mechanisms is always: does this play out in practice?

This has been studied, and a 2023 Systematic Review by Martinez et al. provides us with further insights.

Figure 2: Training the Gut - What the Evidence Shows.

How important this is would depend on (1) how serious you take your endurance training, and (2) your past experiences with carbohydrate ingestion and gastrointestinal symptoms. To get started, I think that aiming to drink more fluid during training and introducing 20-40g carbohydrate (gels, drinks, powders) per hour of endurance training is a good starting point. While intakes of 60-90g per hour may provide further benefits in competition, start with these initial steps before worrying about that.

If you'd like further guidance and more advanced preparation, I currently have spots available for coaching endurance & hybrid athletes.

If you'd like to maximise your understanding of carbohydrate biochemistry, physiology, and practical applications, join the waitlist for Triage Nutrition Certification V2.0.

Dr Gary McGowan, MB BCh BAO, BSc

gary@triagemethod.com

This Week's Triage Content

YouTube: We published two new videos this week. Make sure you are subscribed to keep up, as 2023 will feature a heavy focus on YouTube videos (longer form vs instagram etc.) for us at Triage.

Using The Incline Bench Press To Build A Big Upper Chest

Sustainable Fat Loss Forever | Nutrition Science Explained

Instagram: As always, we posted plenty of new content on Instagram this week, all of which you can find listed below for ease of access.

Podcast: HOW TO TRAIN - Field Sports | Triage Thoughts Ep. 272

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss how to train for field sports. Naturally, there are many differences between the various field sports, however, there are also many commonalities too. Having a better understanding of how to train for your sport can really help improve your performance.

Watch Now On YouTube

Listen Now On Spotify

Triage Nutrition Cert V2.0 (Join The Waitlist!)

Join the Waitlist for Exclusive PRE-RELEASE

Click for Coaching with Triage

Careers At Triage: Apply Now

www.triagemethod.com

36 Clonard Drive
Sandyford
Dublin COUNTY DUBLIN D16
IRELAND

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options