Now that I am well into the Master’s age group category, it is at times frustrating (mild language!)  to see the downward slide in performance.  I blame my lack of conditioning on a combination of factors. Like most other Masters’, I have old injuries that keep me from doing much high intensity training.  Recovery time is longer, and I have to spend more time maintaining flexibility so that I can hit the gas and sprint to the finish line without sustaining a muscle pull.  Attitude is number one, training smarter, number two.  If you’re not older and smarter, you are done as a master! 

Staying competitive over age 40 means understanding how to make the most of what you have.  Besides fine-tuning technique and buying the latest equipment, your diet becomes a bigger factor in performance.  Is it possible to eat a diet that raises oxygen delivery?  Yes; but until recently, only the most dedicated  (I couldn’t!) could do so. But now a concentrated food supplement has become available that could rocket your performance.  Beet root extract.  To be exact, the specific compound in beet root that is responsible for its’ performance enhancing effects is the nitrates which are found naturally in beets.

The good news is not only can you ski, bike or run or whatever your passion is at a higher level, it costs you less in lung sucking air effort.  Power lungs translate to power legs and you know it. 

Beets.  More to come on the benefits of high nitrate foods. Stay tuned.  Spinach egg omelets? Beet shots as a pre-load?  Horseradish beet mustard? The right food can give you the first wave finish.  Eat it.  Have more fun. Live better through natural science.

 ’Fat burners’ are the most popular supplement group on the market.   What exactly is a ‘fat burner” ?  Manufacturers apply this term to describe any supplement that  increases fat metabolism or energy expenditure for a short time period, increases weight loss, increases the use of fat as a fuel during exercise, or somehow causes metabolic  changes that promote the use of body fat over a long time period.  While there are thousands of fat burner supplements available for purchase on the market, few have any human studies to back up their claims.  Supplements that have been tested on humans include caffeine, carnitine, green tea, conjugated linoleic acid, forskokloin, chromium, kelp, and fucoxanthin.  Of this list, only caffeine and green tea have sufficient data to back up their claims, and the effects on fat metabolism are small.  The other supplements, while showing some promise, need further testing to warrant recommendation for use.

It is frustrating to have a great day training and then wake up the next morning too sore to workout again.  Many athletes avoid using NSAIDS because of the potential risk of bleeding, ulcers and kidney damage.  Natural anti-inflammatory supplements are regularly marketed as safer and effective, but do they really work?  The jury is still out, with some researchers getting positive results, and others not.  If you do chose to use a natural food based anti-inflammatory supplements, here are some guidelines. 

1)  Take a supplement that contains a mixture of ingredients. The concurrent ingestion of flavonoids increases their effectiveness.  2)  Use the supplement consistently for at least 2 weeks.  Popping a natural supplement the day of a race is not likely to be effective.  To date, two of the supplements that have shown effectiveness include black currant berries containing 240 mg anthocyanins, or and a combination of quercetin mixed with isoquercetin, EGCG, fish oil, vitamin C, and niacin.

I admit it. I wear my heart rate monitor and check the calorie count for my workout as much as I follow heart rate.  Seeing the calorie burn keeps me motivated to keep cranking up hills and staying on pace.   Research has proven without question that carbohydrate feeds during endurance exercise improve time to exhaustion and decrease muscle breakdown.  But all that extra sugar can take away from overall calorie expenditure.  Over a 1 hour ride, 24 oz of a typical 6% carbohydrate sport drink will add 150 calories, and it is all sugar.  Recently researchers at the University of Texas tested a new formulation of sport drink in female athletes and found that a protein plus mixed-carb supplement could improve performance despite containing 50 percent less carbohydrate.  The protein plus carb blend was also 30 percent lower in calories, and important consideration for many athletes.   Better performance, less sugar, and more calorie burn.  That’s my kind of sport drink.

Excessive amounts of refined sugars can cause oxidative damage, and are linked to heart disease, cancer, and aging. Athletes depend on sugar for energy. Do products sweetened with honey, molasses, date sugar or brown sugar provide any natural antioxidant protection?  Antioxidant capacity of table sugar, corn syrup and agave syrup  contain minimal antioxidant capacity when measured using the ferric reducing ability of plasma ( FRAP) assay. Less refined sweeteners have a higher FRAP (antioxidant rating). Based on a typical intake of 130 grams of refined sugar per day, if only less refined sugars are used, the antioxidant protection would be equal to that of one serving of berries. Don’t be fooled by healthy sounding sweeteners, they all have 4 calories/gram and offer little nutritional benefits.

The basic technique for eating a one-day high GI load is simply a “this for that” approach – i.e., swapping whole grain, high fiber low GI carbs for high GI carbs.  Notice that many of these food choices will work for someone on a gluten free diet, which I have indicated with a GF symbol. [ Read More

 Doing squats is a great way to strengthen the gluts and hamstrings.  These muscles oppose the often over-used, and tightened hip flexors that fire when running or cycling.  

To test whether carbohydrate or branch-chain amino acids (BCAA) are effective in reducing the muscle soreness that occurs after the eccentric movement used during squats, researchers provided a drink with one or the other to untrained females and had them do 7 sets of 20 squats, resting 3 minutes in-between.  Delayed onset muscles soreness (DOMS) showed a peak at days 2 and 3 after the trial for both test drinks,  but the level was higher in the carbohydrate only group.  

 The  benefits of BCAA are seen at relatively low doses, 100 mg/kg body weight.  If you weigh a 154 pounds, that is about 70 kg.  Supplementation with 7 grams of BCAA prior to lifting may be sufficient to reduce muscle soreness and allow for faster recovery, based on these study results.

In the last 30 years, fructose consumption in the American diet has increased fivefold.

Athletes consume fructose, which is the natural sugar found in fruit, as part of a high carbohydrate diet.  Most sports drinks contain a combination of fructose along with other sugars. 

The negative effects of alcohol, which is actually fermented fruit sugar, are similar to excessive amounts of fructose, metabolically.  Excessive amounts promote the development of insulin resistance, resulting in a “fatty” liver and a fat abdomen.  Like alcohol, fructose affects the limbic system, which is the reward center of the brain.  Both sweets and alcohol can hard-wire the brain to set up cravings for more. 

Athletes who use fructose and alcohol can use moderate amounts of these sugars safely, particularly if they are maintaining energy balance.  Avoiding concentrated sources of high fructose corn syrup, such as sweetened sodas is as important as not overdoing the beer tent at the end of a race.

Murphy’s Law says if something can go wrong, it will. When it comes to a race, problems with delivering a carefully chosen sports drink, gel, or blok are common. This is not a laughing matter when you’re in the middle of a 100- mile bike race, or a half-Ironman tri.

Here are a few of the bloopers I heard about from athletes who thought they were well prepared: 1) new camelback, used only once during training. Turned out this camelbak was longer, and made it impossible to strap a waist-pack that was going to hold liquid gels. Bad mistake, and cost this 100 mile mountain back rider a bad bonk.  2)  Switching from a sqeezable gel, to a blok for quick energy. Different packaging made it very slow to access the bloks, which were great, once opened.

Choosing the right sport product is only the first step in race day nutrition support. Consuming it is the next. Don’t get caught unprepared.  Have a plan, test it out, and have a back-up plan. That’s what makes a successful and fun race.

Fructose has been getting a lot of bad press recently, with excessive amounts linked to rising obesity rates and cardiovascular disease in the general population.  Current opinion by health experts suggests that athletes may be protected from the adverse effects of fructose because it is used for energy during exercise by working muscles. Avoiding fructose by using a glucose-only sports drink may be one way to eliminate the negative effects of fructose.  When this idea was tested with nine well-trained cyclists performing a 100-km time trial using a glucose-fructose drink, and then a glucose-only drink, the results were clear.   All 9 cyclists completed the 100-km time trial significantly faster using the glucose-fructose drink.