“Electrolytes” is one of those buzzwords you hear when learning about health, exercise, and nutrition. Athletes often stock up on electrolyte-infused drinks after working out, but not everyone understands the significance of these minerals. There’s a science behind the theory of both preloading before exercise, and rehydrating afterwards. Both are equally essential to the performance…
It’s impossible not to be in awe of Enduro rider, Jess Waldron, a young, fresh and fair faced 18-year-old rider with guts and a gorgeous smile, from Albany in Western Australia. Today I had the fortune to interview her for the Bindi Athlete Blog and as the first athlete I interviewed for the series, we sure did hit it off to a great start!
There is no doubt that Busselton in December is absolutely buzzing. The town is fills with Ironman athletes clad in compression gear… the foreshore bursts with marquees and red carpet… and the atmosphere is electric. Although this year may look a little different in Busselton, it is sure to be an exciting week. Here is a list of the ‘go-to’ places to visit in Busselton… so you can spend more time with a long black in hand and your feet up!
Getting ready for a big race? Wondering what all the carb-loading hype is about? The purpose of carbohydrate loading is to give you the energy you need to complete an endurance event with less fatigue and to improve your athletic performance on race day. Heavy training will deplete your muscle glycogen stores, so in the lead up to a race a combination of tapered training and increased carbohydrate intake with have your muscles replenished and perfectly primed for race day.
Athletes will usually thrive around a routine of training and recovery including healthy nutrition and plenty of sleep. At home and within our familiar environment, we have everything we need to stay on track. But when it comes to racing it can involve travelling, leaving our regular routines and disruption of sleep and even time zones. So, how do we retain progress while on the road, and arrive in the best shape possible? Here are some of the best tools for staying on track with nutrition, even while you’re on the road.
Next up on the endurance race calendar is Ironman Western Australia. As you all probably know, Busselton is home to Bindi HQ and we can’t help it, we are totally in love with this beautiful part of WA. But as IMWA race day grows nearer and triathletes are making final adjustments to their race plans and nutrition, we thought we’d talk about the elephant in the room – or in this case – the sharks in the water.
Racing an Ironman can be one of the most exhilarating and incredible experiences of your life. It can also be a totally awful day and a lot of this comes down to your nutrition choices. If you’ve watched or raced an Ironman you’ve seen it before; athletes blowing up on the bike, vomiting on the run, cramping, collapsing at the finish line and being carted off into the medical tent. Ironman racing can get messy at best and dangerous at worst. This can happen to a lesser degree in other sports, but Ironman is a day when you can’t hide from your nutritional decisions.
Athletes commonly vary between easy and hard days in training. It can be an advantage to plan food and nutrition around these training cycles and use a technique called carb-cycling. As sports nutrition shows us, some diet changes can help enhance our athletic performance, particularly in weight sensitive sports. They can even help us lose fat and improve performance, which is particularly helpful as we get closer to a race or competition.
We all know sugar tastes good and it’s hard to stop at just a small sample of anything deliciously sweet. But are you addicted? It’s certainly possible, as sugar activates opiate receptors in your brain to make you feel good emotionally, even if only in the short term. But once the sugar high wears off, you can be headed for an energy crash, headaches and fluctuating hormones which becomes a vicious cycle as you reach for the next quick ‘pick me up’. There are clear benefits of quitting sugar on performance for athletes, so it’s time to get real and look at what happens to your body when you give sugar the flick for good.
During a long endurance event such as an Ironman race there is no question that you will need to fuel yourself well throughout the day. You body has limited stores of energy, and we know that consuming carbohydrates during exercise can improve your performance. We also know that not all carbs are created equal, and so when planning a race day strategy you may use a combination of drinks, gels, and solid food to get the nutrition you need. No one wants to run out of energy or have gut discomfort, so here are some solutions to keep these problems from affecting you on race day.
Taking care of your immune system is always important, but even more so if you are facing any stress in your life. Stress can be in many forms, including a heavy training load, nutritional stress from a sub-standard diet, or physiological stress from an intense job or challenges in your personal life. And what happens when we get stressed, tired, or run down? We get sick. Which is the last thing you want if you’re training for a big event, or you’re just simply trying to stay as healthy as possible in everyday life.
