Carbohydrates ingestion in drinks during physical exercises increases endurance abilities and slows down glycogen sources deplation and enables to keep dextrose concentration in blood on a correct level.
Scientists from California University examined the influence of different carbohydrate supplementation forms according to changes of tolerance on endurance exercises. Carbohydrates were taken in 3 different forms: as drinks, gels and gel- sweets.
There were 8 women and 8 men aged about 35 at the research moment. They underwent endurance exercises including the two following stages mentioned below.
The examination was launched with a 80-minute long cycloergometre training with the intensity of 75% VO2 max. Immediately afterwards the participants took cycling on a 10 km distance.
Carbohydrates ingestion took place immediately before, during and after exercises. Carbohydrates were provided in a randomly chosen form, out of the three following: drinks, gels and gel- sweets, 0,6 g/ h /kg of a body mass, while some of the examined people were given only water.
Dextrose concentration in blood before the endurance exercises was the same in case of each participants, but, during a training period, its significant decrease was observed only in a group of people drinking water.
Literature:
Campbell C., Prince D., Braun M., Applegate E., Casazza G.A. Carbohydrate-supplement form and exercise performance. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2008; 18: 179-90.
