The VO2 Max Forum

Background

Current sport nutrition guidelines recommend consuming 60-90 grams of carbohydrates per hour to fuel endurance performance. There are various individual factors that influence whether an athlete chooses to consume closer to 60 grams or at the higher end of 90 grams per hour of carbohydrates. Research literature has long-suggested that there are no additional benefits to consuming more than 90 grams per hour. Consuming more than this has been associated with increased GI discomfort as well due to the body’s limited ability to digest and absorb such large quantities of carbohydrates during endurance exercise.

A recent trend in endurance sport, particularly among professionals, has been to consume ultra-high carbohydrate (U-HC) intakes in training and racing, which is defined as consuming >90 grams of carbohydrates per hour (2). It seems like it is more commonplace today to see professional triathletes consuming 90-120 grams per hour in both training…

Welcome to the VO2 Max Forum. Here, I share Science Posts to help you, the reader, bridge the gap between endurance sport science and its application to your endurance discipline(s).

Background

I am a big fan of Lionel Sanders! If you haven’t heard of him, he is a Canadian professional triathlete currently living in Tucson, AZ. He has been a pro in the sport for a while now, since 2013. He also has many, many accolades to his name, including the placing 1st at the 2017 ITU Long-Distance Triathlon World Championships, 2nd at the Ironman World Championships twice (2017 and 2021), and is the winningest Ironman professional in history, with over 30 professional wins at Ironman-branded half and full-distance races.

Lionel Sanders was an up and coming pro when I first got into triathlon myself back in 2014. He was the OG when it came to professional triathletes having a social media presence, particularly on YouTube. He was known for being super raw, unfiltered, and somewhat insane. He usually posted uncut videos of himself training for long hours on his bike trainer…

Background

Polarized training, or “80/20 training” as it is also known, has become a popular training periodization approach in recent years. Initially, observations that elite Norwegian cross-country skiers spend most of their annual training volume at low intensities (i.e., >80% of training volume), very little at modest intensities (i.e., 0-5% of training volume), and then the remainder at very high intensities (i.e., 15-20% of training volume) led to a surge in interest in this style of training intensity distribution among researchers, coaches, and some amateur/recreational athletes (3). This interest has grown into somewhat of a craze among most endurance athletes. Nowadays, many endurance athletes follow this sort of training approach or, have at the very least, heard of it from one of the many voices preaching its superiority as an approach to training intensity distribution for endurance performance success (e.g., Matt Fitzgerald and one of his many “80/20” books).