.
One of the most insane things that has had me shaking my head at triathletes for decades is the amount of money they are willing to spend on ridiculously overpriced "sports nutrition".

Same here, (NZD) $2.50kg sugar, $243 for a kg of carbs from Maurten (if buying 12 packs of gels)

Straight sugar is probably the cheapest option. Maltodextrin/fructose/gatorade is just more palatable and only fractionally more expensive. If you do straight sugar you're going to need electrolytes of some type, I guess you could use table salt. The real benefit though is the maltodextrin, it doesn't contribute much to the sweetness so you can put massive amounts into each bottle. The limit of dissolution for 500ml bottles is about 100g matodextrin, 100g fructose, 50g gatorade. That's 1000kcal in a bottle for anyone who's counting, $40 worth of Maurten gels for a couple bucks.

I have been a fan of Dan Plews for years and I find it interesting that other coaches who are desperate for the sort of limelight he gets naturally jump at the first opportunity to make noise, raising imaginary disagreements with things he's actually never said. I'd like to provide a bit more context:

- Firstly Dan is really an old school coach, for him volume and plain hard work come first, trendy nutrition comes second. Chelsea is not low carb and in the EndureIQ the standard training plan is completely separate from LCHF, some people use it others don't
- Secondly, really a lot of what he preaches is highly relevant to people who don't have the time to train like pros and put it 20-30 hours. As he explains pros constantly train fat oxidation and do glycogen depleted sessions because they train so much. If you are training 10-15 hours per week, provided you are doing all the basics right, it may help many to manipulate carbs for certain sessions to train fat oxidation. This has the potential to solve the 2 critical performance destroyers for age groupers: 1) people training a lot and still carrying spare tires around their waists and 2) gut issues, esp on the run.
- Thirdly, he uses science to prove things - like that sweat testing and targeting milligrams of sodium is a waste, and stuffing your mouth with 120g of carbs/h just because you have heard it on the TdF is probably useless.
- Finally, in my opinion (I don't now the facts) Sam Long wanted to become a full distance athlete and he was shown a way to do it which would have hurt his 70.3 chances, he walked away which is completely fine he will remain a great 70.3 athlete but will never be capable of winning Kona. Dan's training methods can work wonders for many (ask Chelsea and others) and he's implemented them in practice with success on himself, winning Kona as an age groper while having a full time job, kids etc. That is why many other coaches can only dream of the kind of brand he has. Let me put another way, of the triathlon coaches out there, I think he's the main one Time Ferris/Rich Roll would want to host (may be with Ola Alexander)

Now on what I read here today there are several points I actually agree with:

- If you are a pro putting out massive amounts of watts, there is simply no way you have to stick to 70g/h as an arbitrary - I am with DTD on this, it's plain common sense
- High carbs may work for many - the higher your IF during a race and the higher your body mass. I don't get the dogmatic approach of "I won't believe it until there is a study". Just go ahead and test it with your athletes, if you wait for a study on everything you will be 5 years behind. I am an age grouper putting out 3.2W/KG during an ironman, I am pretty sure 120g is useless for me, but others should try and if it works for them, be my guest
- And finally the most stinging one, I do think Dan's association with Sfuels is unhelpful. Any industry study sponsored by say, tobacco chocolate orange farmers or any trade association etc are always clearly caveated as non independent. Peter Attia leads the way in having a clear section on his website with conflicts of interests and the list of companies he's invested in. Professional standards are much lower in triathlon and it seems to me the general level is people will say anything and the opposite just for a fistful of dollars. Of course the payout from selling a company to say Nestle will be multiples of what you can make as a coach, so obviously maximizing those chances can become the overriding considerations.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Sodaro's Kona WC pre-date her using Plews as a coach? Doesn't seem like she's progressed with him. What other top professionals is he currently coaching?

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Can you expand a bit more on that? Do you have any scientific sources to back that up?


Who here is arguing in favor of that?

Or, weigh your scoop once and forgo the scale forever afterwards.

No it does not. Plenty of namechecks on Rich Roll podcast and NYT article on Chelsea. His fingersprints are all over.

Pouring plus scale is still faster (for us, given kitchenware). I’ll make a video. I should have a long time ago.

I think I’d like to host a bottle prepping speed competition virtually. Stay tuned. I don’t expect to win because our kitchen is no longer optimized for pure bottle prep speed now that we have a teen. Goal: everyone learns something about how to save time on the most annoying part of training!

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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Plews coached her victory, after her win she got her mental heath condition under control. Chapeau for doing it, depression is a mofo.

Thanks so much for posting this. If it's valid to extrapolate down to a 50kg female pushing 140W (in my dreams) in an IM, it gives 50g CHO (200kCal) or less which sounds wonderful!
What's the source, or are they just common values used in the sports physiology world?

Not Tilbury or nearly as smart as him, but calorie expenditure in cycling is very well represented by power output, which makes sense since a calorie is just a unit of energy and power is a unit or energy/time. The mass of the rider actually doesn't matter, only the power output (larger riders usually have more power output, but a 100kg rider at 100w is still burning ~half the kcals as a 50kg rider at 200w) The biggest source of error is the metabolic efficiency of the body, it's usually represented between 20-25%.

The math works out as 1w=1j/s and 1cal=4.18j. So for easy numbers say 100w for 1 hour = 100w*3600s=360,000j=360kj, 360kj/4.18=86kcal. Here's the fuzzy bit, human cycling efficiency is 20-25% so your actual 100watthour burn is 344-430kcal. That's a pretty wide margin. It's safe to say if you've been cycling a lot you're nearer the more efficient end, but even things like temperature and position can have an effect. I just use 350kcal/100watthours as an easy number. 2h at 200w is 1400kcal, 4h at 250w is 3500kcal.

Awaiting Tilbury's answer about fat oxidation as that's a more mysterious measure.

what if you made a gallon of simple syrup ahead of time?

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IG - @ryanppax
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Yup the math is pretty simple and based on what we know from sports science and efficiency (~25%).

The fatmax numbers I just chose from example purposes. Only way you'd know those well is from lab testing or by proxy via lactate testing protocols.

But if google "what are good fat oxidation rates cycling" you'll get a bunch of fun reading.

Hope that helps.

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

That would be fast but the concentration would be inflexible meaning that hot easy days and hard cooler days might be over- or under- carb'd or sodium'd. But fast!

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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Chelsea was 5 th in 70.3 Nice 2019 in her first year in long course with a different coach. SO you could say their finger prints are all over her Career and Her new coaches insight gave her more confidence to win Kona in 2022 or maybe with a different coach she would have 2-3 bigger wins under her belt by now as well.

GenDivName#AG5611Daniela Ryf1F PROSUI00:26:3102:33:3701:18:3604:23:047822Holly Lawrence4F PROGBR00:26:2202:36:5001:20:0704:27:018933Imogen Simmonds7F PROSUI00:26:4002:36:1501:21:1004:28:1012244Chelsea Sodaro26F PROUSA00:27:2202:41:3401:17:5604:31:0713655Lucy Charles-Barclay2F PROGBR00:25:2202:42:0301:20:1804:31:49

That was pre motherhood and just out of short course.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

What’s the harm in over salting a colder ride?

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IG - @ryanppax
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Not much. Maybe excess drinking and urinating later in a long cold ride. Maybe chronically unnecessarily high sodium consumption if it is a regular thing.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
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I always suspected, based on personal experience, that over-salting is less risky than over-carb'ing. Especially in warmer weather or higher intensity.

Maple syrup with fast food soy sauce packets are actually quite tasty. For the bourgeois DR’s followers who turn their nose up at peasant sugar ;-)

Maurice

Quite correct.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub