There are many people who enjoy cycling. Is it important to follow a diet for cyclists if you are cycling? Keep reading to find out more.
Cycling is one of the most popular sports that you can do in different ways. For example, you can try road cycling or even mountain biking. Related to this, is there any cycling diet you should stick to?
Modalities of sport cycling
The main characteristics of different types of cycling are the degrees of activity. There are three categories of cycling: competitive cycling, amateur cycling and mountain biking.
There are many different types of competitive cycling. How do they differ from each other? Here is a brief description of each:
- On tarmac: also called road cycling, but you can also cycle on unpaved terrain. This sport is very demanding and the competition season is usually between spring and autumn. This category includes long-term competitive races such as the Giro d'Italia or La Vuelta in Spain. In addition, there are also classic one-day races.
- Indoor: this type of cycling is riding on track bikes. These bikes have no brakes and cannot change gears. Some tests in this category are individual tests and there are also team speed and mileage tests.
- Adventure or high risk: mountain biking takes place on natural tracks. This is why it is more dangerous. Bikes are generally lighter and have better suspension mechanisms.
In addition to these three, we can also list other types of cycling such as cyclocross, cycling trialing and BMX.
The latter, BMX, is practiced on a cross bike and comes in two types: cross-country and freestyle. This article https://www.feltet.dk/spil/nyheder/tips_og_ider_til_at_forbedre_din_cykling/ provides tips and ideas to help improve your cycling.
Diet for cyclists
All these sports require individual and correct nutritional advice for each athlete. Of course, a nutritionist or nutritionist should look after the cyclist's diet.
Some problems cyclists might encounter:
- High training load, which means an increased need for energy and carbohydrates. To ensure that they don't get an upset stomach due to high nutrient intake, it's important to use trial and error. This means adjusting the amount of food and supplements during training to make them useful during competition.
- Lack of planning between workouts. This leads to problems with healing between sessions. Maintaining a water balance combined with the right food choices after training can help prevent problems with overtraining.
Finally, keep in mind that other factors such as stress come into play on race days. This also affects the number of calories burned on the bike.
Approximate training day diet menu for cyclists
The first thing to consider is the timing of the training, how long it will last and whether it will be one session or several. Here we will assume that it is one three-hour bike ride on the motorway.
Since the session takes place in the afternoon, you can eat your usual breakfast and lunch portions. If the training session is planned for two hours in the afternoon, lunch in the afternoon would be a pre-exercise meal.
A plate of pasta, mushrooms and tomato sauce and two or three turkey fillets would be a good option.
During your workout, which lasts about three hours, you should drink water, electrolytes and carbohydrates.
It is important to get plenty of fluids and electrolytes immediately after your workout.
Finally, it is important to remember that sleep is essential.