A Better Way To Maximise Muscle Glycogen Concentrations

If you're anything like me, you are always looking for new and better ways to train. I came across an article on Peak Performance (pponline.co.uk) written by Owen Anderson that really sparked my interest.

Have you ever wanted a very effective yet very simple way to carbo load? Well, according to research carried out at the Department of Human Movement and Exercise Science at the University of Western Australia, there is.

I'm one who is very particular and specific on how I do things and try to follow a certain procedure to the letter especially during taper and the final week before a marathon. You can literally destroy months of hard earned training if you don't follow a well planned taper to recover properly and peak at a high level with some short, but high intensity workouts and have a flawless carbo loading routine a few days before the event.

The traditional method of carbo loading that many are familiar with and one that I have never experimented with personally due to the negative draw backs is a method developed by a Swedish physiologist named Gunvar Ahlborg after he discovered a positive relationship between the amount of glycogen (carbs stored in the muscles and liver) in the body and endurance performance.

Ahlborg discovered that the muscles and liver are able to store above-normal amounts of glycogen when high levels of carbohydrate consumption are preceded by severe glycogen depletion. The most obvious way to deplete the muscles of glycogen is to eat extremely small amounts of carbohydrates. A second way is to engage in exhaustive exercise.

Ahlborg's method consists of:

Performing an exhaustive workout one week before a long race (90 minutes-plus).
Consuming a very low-carb diet (10%) for the next 3-4 days while training lightly.
Consuming a very high-carb diet (90%) the next 3-4 days while continuing to train lightly.

The drawbacks?

First of all, many athletes aren't wanting to perform (including myself) an exhaustive workout just a week before a big race, as the plan requires.
Maintaining a 10 percent carbohydrate diet for three or four days carries some nasty consequences including lethargy, cravings, irritability, lack of concentration and increased susceptibility to illness.

So, many runners and other athletes found it just wasn't worth it. Later research has shown that you can increase glycogen storage significantly without first depleting it. A newer and tamer carbo-loading protocol called the No-depletion Method (probably one that most are familiar with today and one that I have been using myself) calls for:

Performing a long workout (but not an exhaustive workout) one week before race day.
Eat normally (55-60% carbohydrate) until three days before a longer race.
Eat a high-carb diet (70%) the final three days before racing while training very lightly.

This method works well for me, but I always feel bloated race day morning not to mention the extra water weight from consuming the extra carbohydrates.

The newest and the one referred to by Owen Anderson in his article is the Western Australia Method. This plan takes just one day and produces high amounts of glycogen in the muscles.

As Owen Anderson explains, "The Western Australia work pivots around one key concept: very high intensities of exercise actually stimulate higher rates of muscle glycogen synthesis than moderate intensities of exercise carried out for prolonged periods. Naturally, athletes have been a little afraid to engage in very high-intensity exercise during their tapering, glycogen-loading periods, but the Australian researchers asked, quite reasonably: what if the intense exercise is just long enough to dramatically kick-start glycogen synthesis - but not so long as to interfere with tapering and recovery? In their ingenious plan, the Australians settled on a very short duration of intense exercise - just three minutes!"

According to Owen Anderson's article the Australian researchers from the Department of Human Movement and Exercise Science at the University of Western Australia "worked with seven healthy, endurance-trained male subjects. The athletes averaged 22 years of age, trained about 10 hours per week, possessed max aerobic capacities of around 56 ml.kg-1.min-1, and normally consumed about 6.6 grams of carbohydrate per kg of lean body mass per day (e.g. 3g of carbs per pound of lean body mass per day and 2.55g of carbs per pound of body weight per day)."

After all the research (you can get the details at http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/carbo-loading-managing-your-glycogen-intake-without-overloading-glucose-65) was complete he goes on to say "The Australian plan was a real winner! It is the fastest glycogen-loading plan ever reported in the scientific literature. It also produces end glycogen concentrations (~198 mmol.kg-1 wet weight) which are extraordinarily high - considerably higher than the 131-153 readings often reported after three or even six days of traditional carbo-loading." The plan as outlined by Owen Anderson is this:

Start eating carbs as soon as possible after you finish your exercise.
Consume high-glycaemic-index foods during your 24-hour period, and don't be afraid to include high-carb drinks like Polycose. Foods that count as high-glycaemic-index items (with glycaemic-index values above 60) include the following: croissants, crumpets, banana or apricot muffins, pancakes, waffles, scones, cranberry-juice cocktail, Gatorade, bagels, baguettes, bread stuffing, oat bread, white bread, flatbread, cornflakes, Pop Tarts, Raisin Bran, Special K, cornmeal, boiled sweet corn, couscous, most crackers and crispbreads, rice cakes, chocolate ice cream, apricots in syrup, dried dates, dried figs, papaya, raisins, watermelon, fruit bars, a plain pizza with cheese and tomato sauce, kugel, gnocchi, udon noodles, jelly beans, black-bean soup, split-pea soup, broad beans, parsnips, swede, most baked potatoes (especially if baked without fat), most boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, and tapioca. You'll need to read box labels and use nutritional charts to determine how much carbohydrate you are really taking in during your 24-hour period; remember that you are aiming for about 4.6g of carbohydrate per pound of body weight. If you fret about consuming high-glycaemic-index foods, bear in mind that many of the foods consumed heavily and regularly by elite Kenyan runners have very high glycaemic indexes. For example, maize-meal porridge checks in with a glycemic index of 109. (The standard - glucose - is set at 100, which means that maize-meal porridge gets glucose into the bloodstream more quickly than glucose itself!) Another popular Kenyan breakfast item - millet-flour porridge - has a similarly whopping glycaemic index of 107. Kenyan rice - a true staple of the Kenyan runners' diet - has an eye-popping glycaemic index of 112, and cornmeal - used to create the ubiquitous Kenyan national dish, ugali, has an index of about 70. Kenyan 'wholemeal' wheat flour checks in at 87, and chapati, a flat wheat bread settles for 66.
Once you have completed your warm-up, three-minute burst and cool down, do not exercise again during the next 24 hours as this will damp down your muscles' glycogen-synthesis rate.
Don't be afraid of the lactate you will inevitably generate during your three-minute surge. Remember that lactate does you no harm; in fact, there is evidence that the lactate itself may spur the increased rate of glycogen synthesis which occurs after intense exercise.
The Aussie plan allows you to relax! If work or other pressures have kept you from carbo-loading as much as you would like before a major race, you can still do a tremendous job of stocking up on muscle glycogen during the last 24 hours before your event.
Make sure you try out the Aussie regime a couple of times in training before you use it in competition. (By trying it out, I mean using the warm-up, three-minute burst, cool-down and 24-hour carb-eating scheme, followed by a long run afterwards.) There should be no major side effects associated with the plan, but you should at least prepare your body for it. If the regime doesn't seem to be working well, try using the 24-hour plan two days before your long workouts or races, while carrying out little exercise and eating normally the day before the event. This intervening day may allow you to recover from your three-minute blast, without reducing your muscle glycogen concentrations.

For the full article by Owen Anderson go to the above mentioned link.

This is one plan I fully intend to try for my next marathon carbo loading routine and will keep you posted on the results.

Enjoy Every Step! Al