In some competitive sports, athletes compete on consecutive days and glycogen stores need to be at their maximum each time. Here it is important to restock the glycogen store in the muscles as fast as possible after the event. High G.I. foods are best in this situation. Sports scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra have shown that high G.I. foods resulted in faster replenishment of glycogen into the fatigued muscles. Muscles are more sensitive to glucose in the bloodstream in the first hour after exercise, so a concerted effort should be made to get as many high G.I. foods in as soon as possible.
Suggested foods include most of the sports drinks on the market (which replace water and electrolyte losses too), or low amylose rice (Calrose rice), breads and breakfast cereals with a high G.I. such as cornflakes and rice bubbles. Potatoes cooked without fat are a good choice too, but their high satiety means it is hard to eat lots of them. Soft drinks have an intermediate G.L, so they won’t be ideal but they won’t do any harm either.
Females weighing about 50 kilograms should aim to eat 50 grams of carbohydrate. Males weighing about 75 kilograms should aim to eat 75 grams of carbohydrate.
If you want to keep up the pace from one training session to another, day after day, you will benefit by learning to select high G.L foods. The trouble is that many people, even coaches and sports medicine practitioners, have got it all wrong when it comes to selecting sources of fast-release carbohydrate. The information in this chapter gives you the most up-to-date information and the key to better performance and faster recovery. Go for it!
Recovery formula. Aim to ingest about I gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight each 2 hours after exercise. If you weigh between 50 and 75 kilograms, you need 50 to 75 grams of carbohydrate for each 2 hours after exercise.
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