When Mo Farah makes his much anticipated marathon debut in London next April, consuming the right energy gels at the appropriate moments will probably form an integral part of his race plan. Farah and his coach Alberto Salazar are renowned for putting every aspect of distance-running under the microscope, and it’s that attention to detail which has seen him become one of the greatest athletes of his generation.

While Farah inhabits a world so competitive that focusing on the marginal gains is imperative to success, supplements such as gels can provide an effective means of boosting individual performance for all runners, not just the pros. But to get the maximum benefit, it’s vital to understand if and when to take them.

Marketing often bills energy gels as a sugary means of transporting the struggling club-runner experience to some kind of race-day nirvana. However, in reality gels only really make a difference if you’re running a sufficiently long way. For 5k and 10k runs, gels will make little difference, as the process of digestion takes 45 minutes to an hour before the body can begin to use them as a fuel.

“You shouldn’t need to use gels unless you’re running for well over an hour,” Professor Keith Baar of the University of California says. “Unless you’re going for a long period of time and you’re really trying to go fast, you don’t need to take additional carbohydrates.”

The physiological benefits of consuming gels are actually two-fold. First your body receives an instantaneous boost, before gaining the more substantial benefits once the sugars have been processed through your digestive system – a process that can take up to an hour. But it’s actually the former benefit that has been intriguing many researchers of late. It occurs because there are many receptors in the mouth that feed directly back to the brain. On detecting carbohydrate, neural signals are emitted that tell your body it’s receiving some nutrients, and allows you to push harder in the short term.

“There’s a couple of studies where runners take a carbohydrate solution, swish it around in their mouth and then spit it out, but they still receive this boost,” Baar says. “This tells us that the performance benefits from consuming gels aren’t necessarily about using the sugar as a carbohydrate, it’s about sensing that something sweet is coming. It makes sense, because when you’re feeling down and then have something sweet to drink, you feel like you have more energy, despite the fact that it takes a lot more time for your body to absorb it and get it to wherever it needs to go.”

When it comes to exercising for long periods of time, it’s vital to strike the right balance when it comes to carbohydrate intake. Britain’s Chrissie Wellington dominated the Ironman triathlon for many years, and her goal was always to consume 90g of carbohydrate per hour via a strict 2:1 ratio of glucose to fructose. In fact, glucose and fructose are found in this 2:1 ratio in all fruits, and if you upset this naturally occurring balance by consuming too much of one or the other, before or during a run, you’re likely to feel more than a little unwell.

“Glucose and fructose come into your body in two different chemical transporters,” Baar explains. “It’s like a conveyor belt, but if you overload it, you’re not going to be able to take things off any faster than before. This creates problems as when you can’t absorb the sugar, it keeps moving down to your gut where it accumulates and acts like a salt. It pulls water into the gut, and that’s not a good feeling. It basically means you have a real potential for an upset stomach.”

It’s a problem commonly seen in underprepared runners, who try to compensate for a lack of training by stocking up on gels to try and make it through the race. However, just like the muscles in your legs, your gut needs to be trained.

“If you’re going to do a marathon, you should have practised your nutritional strategy two or three times,” Baar says. “And that strategy should encompass everything – from what you eat the night before, to your breakfast, to the drinks that you use during the race. If you train your gut, that increases its ability to transport sugars. But if you don’t train it, it doesn’t expect it, and you’re going to have an even harder time.”

Your body stores any glucose that it doesn’t use in a form known as glycogen, in the muscles and the liver. One of the problems that marathon runners experience is that we do not naturally have enough glycogen to last you 26 miles. And so our ability to cover the distance without “hitting the wall” after a certain point depends on our ability to process fats, as this enables us to spare the glycogen until later in the race.

“The more glycogen you can spare by using fat, the longer you can go,” Baar says. “If you can run at 9mph and use a fair bit of fat, you’re going to be able to do better than if you run at 9mph and use purely carbohydrate. You’ll be able to build up that speed for longer.”

Baar’s group is currently researching a particular protein that is important for increasing your ability to use fat as a fuel. This protein is known to be activated by certain oils known as fatty acids, so instead of taking carbohydrate gels, the way forward for runners could be to take a gel which contains some of these oils.

“Next April, Mo Farah’s going to be running 26 sub-5-minute miles, but at that speed he can’t naturally use body fat to fuel himself as the metabolism is too slow,” Baar says. “He has to use all carbohydrate. But if you could take a gel which enables you to use fats more efficiently, you would have more glycogen for later in the race, meaning you’re able to continue to go at a fast pace.”

Source: Read Full Article