Carbohydrates are the PREFERRED energy source for high intensity performance

But with fitness and health gurus recommending you stay away from sugar, its hard to know what the BEST nutrition choices are for athletes when its time to perform

So what does the science say

For female athletes who are looking to PERFORM in high intensity sports like lacrosse, softball, or soccer→ muscles rely on CARBOHYDRATES to fuel their activity

Lucky the body is smart, and our muscles have their own carbohydrate stores WITHIN them known as glycogen

As activity commences, the body will turn to these glycogen stores to help fuel your hard throws or fast sprints
After an hour, glycogen stores will be depleted and r muscles turn to the blood to find sugar to fuel their performance. If the athlete consumed a meal full of protein and carbs pre-training, her blood will have adequate sugar available to help fuel her muscles
Her liver will also release some of its glycogen stores into the bloodstream for fast
However, as her training or game nears teh 1.5 hour mark, the, the sugar availability in her blood starts to diminish and fatigue starts to set in.

When muscles are unable to maintain an adequate energy supply to the processes involved in excitation and contraction, there is an inability to translate the motor drive from her brain) into an expected force. Put simply- Put simply, as an athlete;s muscles her performance decreases,

So what about FAT STORES?

It makes sense for an athlete to think her fat stores can help fuel her muscles through the final half of her game....but physiologically her body is not able to break down fats at the same rate as it does carbohydrates.
This is a problem when the rate of energy breakdown is essential to the rate of force production (aka how fast she sprints, how hard she kicks, and how high she jumps).
Fat stores (or triglycerides) take much longer to break down into energy as they rely on the aerobic system. Longer time to release energy means decreased athletic performance in terms of force, speed, and power output.

So what is a female athlete to do?

During high intensity activity that lasts over an hour, female athletes MUST supplement their bodies with a carbohydrate source that is FAST DIGESTING and will QUICKLY assimilate into her bloodstream and travel to her muscles

This is where SIMPLE SUGARS like those found in gatorade or GUMMIES come to play!

You see for CONTRACTING MUSCLES, there is already a stimulus to TAKE sugar into the cells

THIS MEANS an athlete;s body will not secrete as much INSULIN as it would at rest. With less insulin secretion, other cells such as her FAT CELLS will not receive the stimulus it requires to absorb the sugar from her blood
This means the high intensity activity and fast muscle contractions is simulus ENOUGH for the female athlete’s body to shuttle all the simple sugars in the blood INTO her active muscles
The research is clear- for females looking to PERFORM in high intensity activities that last over an hour--- sugar is NOT the villain, but rather the NECESSARY source her muscles need to perform at a high level .

свернуть