Even though I loved lifting weights since I was 15, I have probably been more involved in endurance sports than anything else over my varied athletic career. So I do get questions related to endurance activities and they do interest me. So today I want to look at the question: How do I carbohydrate load for endurance sports?
Specifically, I want to answer the following question:
What does the science say regarding the proper protocol for carbohydrate loading before a goal endurance event like a full marathon? As usual, internet articles are all over the place: some say 2 days, some a week or more, some say keep calories the same but higher carb percentage, some say to jack it up to 5-7 g/lb.
So there’s actually several questions to address here. Before getting to them, let me, as usual, start at the beginning.
What is Carbohydrate Loading?
The concept of carbohydrate loading is fairly simple. … Keep Reading