For athletes participating in aerobic activities lasting at least 90 mins, carbo loading can play a crucial part in increasing and improving performance.
It can increase stored glycogen in muscles to about 3 to 4 times normal levels. The full carbo loading process is listed below
| Duration: 13 days | |
|---|---|
| 1st - 7th day | Hard exercise daily to deplete carbo stores to get body used to depleting and using carbo stores, but eat normally. |
| 8th - 10th day | Cut Carbs 50% each meal for first 3 days, continue to maintain light and short workouts, the 3rd day should see you eating less then 5% of your original carbo quantity. drop in level of carbs can be made up by high fat and high protein diet to keep full. |
| 11th - 13th day | Increase carb intake back to original levels i.e. 7th day, during the 3 days, eat almost exclusively carbohydrates i.e. lower fat intake and reduce protein intake to almost zero, eat as much carbs as you can ingest 3-5 times a day. |
| 14th Day | Race day. |
How to know you’ve done it right?
- You feel stiff and heavy (it can be due to water retention because every 1 gram of glycogen stored in muscle there will be 2.7 gram of water stored too)
- You’ve gain 2-3 kgs (all comes from additional glycogen and water stores)
With all this said, bear in mind, that carbo-loading may leave you psychologically weaker and it takes its toll on your immune system. Hence, one must be ultimately careful to look out for any tell-tale warning signs during the process.