TRIA Orthopaedic Center Your Cycling Blog

By:  Jane Schwartz Harrison, RD, Nutritionist

MyOptumHealth.com

The bike festival is only a few weeks away. Want to feel great and have plenty of stamina on race day? Don’t wait until the last minute to start thinking about your nutrition. Cycling for 50-plus miles requires proper “food training” in the weeks (not just days and hours) leading up to the big event.

Start NOW by eating a healthy balance of foods on a daily basis. Use the following tips as a guide:

Don’t Skimp on Carbs

Carbs are your primary exercise fuel. They are the main food source that is stored in your liver and muscles (known as glycogen).   

• The more you train and the more carbs you have in your diet, the more glycogen you are able to store. Trained muscle will hold almost three times as much glycogen as untrained muscle! This means better endurance and mental focus, and will help to prevent “hitting the wall.”

• Aim to have a little more than half to two-thirds of your daily diet come from carbs, mostly in the form of brown rice, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat breads and cereals, fruits, vegetables, and beans. Some white flour products are fine, but choose whole grain more often for extra nutrients and fiber.

Get Adequate, but not Excessive, Protein

Exercise, not protein, is the foundation for building and strengthening muscles.

• Protein helps to build and repair muscle tissue. But excess protein intake will be burned for energy or stored as glycogen or fat.
• During your training period, you will need about .6 to .7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. At 150 pounds, this equals about 90 to 105 grams of protein per day, which can be easily met through diet.
• One egg, one glass of milk, one yogurt serving, and six ounces of meat, fish or chicken will meet that goal when combined with your carb-rich foods (which also contain some protein, with the exception of fruit).

Fuel Properly Right Before the Event

In the days and hours before the race:

• Cut back on exercise two days before the ride and take a rest day the day before.
• Drink extra fluids. Your urine should be almost clear in color.
• Eat carb-rich meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the day of the race, eat a familiar breakfast. Have something hearty and high in carb with some protein and a little fat. Give yourself three to four hours to digest. Try to avoid sugary cereals or donuts before the bike race because they’ll give you short term energy but can set you up for an energy crash during the ride.
• Oatmeal with banana, whole grain cereal or low-sugar granola with skim milk, a bagel with a little peanut butter, pancakes with fruit, are all good choices.  If you can only tolerate liquids, drink a large smoothie made with yogurt, frozen fruit and 100 percent juice.
• Avoid foods with too much fat or fiber, which may cause GI distress.
• If you are hungry within an hour of the race, have a small smoothie, a granola bar, or piece of fruit.
• Plan to eat carb based snacks (energy bars, dried fruit, sports drinks, gels) every 60 to 90 minutes during the ride to maintain your blood sugar.

Remember, having a nutrition plan in place is just as important as your exercise training. Get started on a healthy eating plan today and your body will thank you on race day!

Sources:
Position of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine: Nutrition and athletic performance. J Am Diet Assoc. 2000;100(12):1543-1556.

Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook: 4^th Edition. 2008.

Minnesota Bicycle Festival,OptumHealth,road cycling   Tags: cycling, Jane Schwartz Harrison, Nutrition, OptumHealth, Training,   Comments Off  

Most of the pain in cycling is located on the upper body. Wrists, hands, neck and back are the main culprits for bike-related pain, but the lower extremities are no strangers to pain, either. Knees are a touchy subject, as any slight biomechanical imperfection can cause major pain, as well as the four words that anger cyclists the most: stay off your bike. Michelle Gorman McNerney, M.D., CAQ Sports Medicine is going to address this week’s question: What should I do if the pain while cycling is behind my knees:

While cycling is a great exercise for cardiovascular fitness and large muscle strengthening, there are certain muscles that get neglected when we’re pounding out the hilly terrain. Cyclists, and triathletes for that matter, tend to target their straight ahead muscles, the hamstrings and the quadriceps, with their exercise programs. Many of the stabilizing muscles like the gluteus muscles get neglected with this training. That tends to limit the control you have in the thigh bone when you’re up out of the saddle and the knee cap tends to shift around (like a train off its tracks), causing pain and stiffness.

A cyclist will always want to make sure they are having no swelling in or around the knee. The knee should not be catching or locking into place or feeling unstable (like giving way with walking). If none of those symptoms are occurring, it is safe to try and strengthen some of the stability muscles in the belly, back, and butt to help take some of the stress off your knees when you ride. Some target muscles to think about strengthening are the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius. Also, regularly using the transversus abdominis (not the beach muscles), a core stabilizer of the torso, will contribute to more stable lower extremities. Hip adductors are also a very important and often overlooked muscle group. A few visits with a good (sports) physical therapist is helpful to get on the right track and make sure you are activating the correct muscles and not wasting your time. It may be also worth a visit to your friendly sports physician to make sure there is nothing more significant going on!

Uncategorized   Tags: cycling, Knee Pain, Michelle Gorman McNerney, pain behind the knee, TRIA Blog, TRIA Orthopaedic,   Comments Off