Let the new season begin!

Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby h.harb » Fri Sep 06, 2013 6:24 am

You can't get around it, you need carbs if you want to recover the glycogen. It doesn't mean pasta and potatoes; fruit and many vegetables have carbs.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby Max_501 » Fri Sep 06, 2013 9:17 am

Here's an interesting article:

10 things you should know about lactic acid
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby geoffda » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:39 am

h.harb wrote:You can't get around it, you need carbs if you want to recover the glycogen. It doesn't mean pasta and potatoes; fruit and many vegetables have carbs.


Yep. And while ketogenic training may allow you to avoid the need for glycogen at high-intensity aerobic levels, you can't avoid the need for glycogen once you surpass your anaerobic threshold. Once you go anaerobic, you get about 10 seconds out of the phosphate pathway, but beyond that, the only option the body has for muscular movement is to synthesize ATP exclusively from carbohydrate stores (the byproduct of which is lactic acid).

For that reason, I would think that a ketogenic diet would be a poor choice for skiing since skiing is predominantly an anaerobic activity. With skiing, you are going to get lots of long simultaneous muscle contractions which reduce the local oxygen supply and force the body to use anaerobic mechanisms. If you go to a low carb diet, your glycogen stores will be depleted, which will leave out of luck when you are missing the only fuel that can allow your muscles to deliver what is being asked of them.

You've got to have carbs to ski at a high level. What is also interesting is that replenishing glycogen stores is generally not a fast process. If you completely exhaust them, I've heard it takes two days to fully replenish them. The one exception is the "glycogen window". During the time when your body is actively burning carbohydrates (which will start to happen at aerobic intensities above about 50% max heart rate), you can ingest carbohydrates and your body will rapidly store them. This "window" stays open for about 2 hours after you stop exercising, but the first 20-30 minutes is when it is at it's best. Once the window shuts, you are back on the two day plan.

I've always thought of the glycogen window in terms of endurance sports; i.e. eat something right after cycling. However, now I'm wondering if it also opens when you are using anaerobic systems during skiing. Presumably it would since you are burning carbs, so if that is the case, it would seem that ingesting carbohydrates during and/or immediately after skiing would be a very important recovery aspect if your plan is to ski multiple days back to back. Anybody have any insight into that?
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby Erik » Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:36 pm

Carbs don't work seem to work for me while skiing. My legs get really tired.
Pizza - French Fries - Pizza - French Fries - Pizza - French Fries...

For those who are not already exercise fanatics, there are two other areas to really help skiing endurance.

- Learn PMTS and minimize the inefficiencies in your skiing. It is amazing what a difference PMTS makes in skiing endurance. And when you get tired enough that your technique is falling apart, stop skiing. No use in reinforcing bad movement patterns.
- Unless you are already completely satisfied with your body mass index, get your metabolism under control through nutrition (primary) and exercise (secondary). You can't out-train a bad diet. A proper baseline nutrition plan throughout the day is a higher priority than workout-focused eating. Shedding those extra pounds will make it easier to ski well, and easier to build strength and endurance.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby NoCleverName » Fri Sep 06, 2013 4:00 pm

geoffda wrote:... it would seem that ingesting carbohydrates during and/or immediately after skiing would be a very important recovery aspect if your plan is to ski multiple days back to back. Anybody have any insight into that?


I knew there was a reason for not delaying apres ski.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby arothafel » Fri Sep 06, 2013 4:56 pm

Here's an interesting article:

10 things you should know about lactic acid


Great article and sources, Max_501.

Especially #2. About 90% of the fitness and training community is still under the assumption that Lactic Acid causes DOMS.

Cool to see how knowledgeable and involved everyone is in their own nutrition programs.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby h.harb » Fri Sep 06, 2013 6:06 pm

There are many theories out there on nutrition many are biased based on the type of activity the user or proponent is familiar with, and this thread is good because it demonstrates as alignment and ski boots there is not one set up that fits every one's dietary need. I agree with Geoffa, he's got the physiology correct. Dr. Jan Karlson, who did the tests on Stenmark and the rest of the Swedish ski team, is a pioneer in this field, for skiing. I have met him twice and asked him many questions, I even introduced him as a key note speaker at the last Congress. His basic research on muscle energy, recovery and explosive contractions for skiers goes along with Geoff's post. Just two cents rubbing together.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby milesb » Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:55 pm

Erik wrote:.... And when you get tired enough that your technique is falling apart, stop skiing. No use in reinforcing bad movement patterns...


A great reason to get season passes!
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH78E6wIKnq3Fg0eUf2MFng
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby emakarios » Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:21 am

I always feel pretty fine after skiing by replenishing carbs with barley soup with a touch of hops (beer). Pali Ale can work wonders! Of course keeping good company is important too.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby h.harb » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:52 am

This is a study worth knowing about.
http://www.cptips.com/cmplxcb.htm

This is an in-depth study and explains to me why after 2 hours, I can't keep my heart rate up to my higher performance levels on climbs. The muscles are no longer capable of generating enough energy to sustain and push into my upper levels of heart rate. There is just no answer for this, except more training, lower altitude, and more importantly "youth". It's not Bonking it's a lower level of energy out put. I know what Bonking feels like, been there and it's ugly.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby h.harb » Sun Sep 08, 2013 10:09 am

Max, this understanding although very informative for those who still think Lactic acid is bad, has been know for some time. Personally when the old understanding of lactic acid started to occur in my muscles, to me that was a good sign, a sign that you were really producing. Of course you had to be in relatively good shape to feel this, otherwise it is painful and you have a big crash not long after you start feeling the burn.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby go_large_or_go_home » Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:25 am

This single page stands pretty well on its own, and is not too much of a technical read....

http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb ... erformance

Basically, he is testing the following statement:

"A common belief among people is that carbohydrates are “necessary” for physical exertion and any form of athletic activity."
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby geoffda » Mon Sep 09, 2013 10:12 am

go_large_or_go_home wrote:Basically, he is testing the following statement:

"A common belief among people is that carbohydrates are “necessary” for physical exertion and any form of athletic activity."


I would say that the common belief is that carbohydrates are necessary for *high performance anaerobic* (as opposed to endurance) athletic activity. I think it is pretty well known that under ~50% maximum heart rate, the body will largely burn fats. As the intensity increases above ~50% the body naturally starts burning carbs as well. The interesting question (that ketogenic diets explore) is whether the body really needs to be burning carbohydrates in the >~50% range to the aerobic maximum; i.e. can you be a successful athlete in an endurance sport with a ketogenic diet? It seems that the answer is a qualified yes.

However, even the ketogenic advocates recognize that physiology of anaerobic pathways is built on carbohydrates. You can't get around the need for carbohydrates in that realm. Absent sufficient oxygen, the body has to have carbohydrates. For an activity like alpine skiing that is largely anaerobic, carbohydrates are necessary. You can't perform at high levels without them.

Since this is a skiing forum, I think it is important that people understand this. So with respect to ketogenic diets, the question would be how is it possible to keep glycogen stores full and available to support an activity like skiing while still remaining keto-adapted?
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby geoffda » Mon Sep 09, 2013 2:28 pm

BTW, here is a good paper on ketogenic diets from NIH: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/

A couple of interesting things to note:

1) Studies with good methodology (as in have not been refuted in the 20 years since their publication) show that after ketogenic adaptation, peak aerobic power and sub-maximal (60-70%) of VO2 max were fully restored to pre-ketogenic diet levels.

There is no indication that ketogenic diets improve power in these areas. Peter Attia's blog shows marked improvement in these areas, but reading between the lines, the only way that would seem to be possible is if he was training while on his diet. He expresses puzzlement as to why his numbers improved, but it is well known among sports scientists that both VO2 max and Anaerobic Threshold will improve with training. Assuming he was training while on a ketogenic diet, then his numbers really don't show anything useful since there is no corresponding non-keto fitness baseline to compare against.

2) The same studies showed anaerobic performance suffered. In a study of cyclists, their sprinting abilities were constrained by the keto diet. As the paper concludes:

"Therapeutic use of ketogenic diets should not require constraint of most forms of physical labor or recreational activity, with the one caveat that anaerobic (ie, weight lifting or sprint) performance is limited by the low muscle glycogen levels induced by a ketogenic diet, and this would strongly discourage its use under most conditions of competitive athletics."

While the conclusion of "under most conditions of competitive athletics" seems perhaps a bit strong, studies do confirm that anaerobic performance suffers under a ketogenic diet. This should not be controversial.

As I said before, to me the interesting question is whether it is possible to leverage the benefits of a ketogenic diet without incurring the anaerobic penalty. Peter Attia seems to think the answer is yes, so I'll be interested in hearing about his approach and whether it would be suitable for skiing.
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Re: Let the new season begin!

Postby go_large_or_go_home » Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:11 pm

That's a great article....very similar to the first few chapters of the Paleo Diet...

It's a fair point about skiing being an anaerobic activity and that on a ketogenic diet, your top end performance suffers. The point that Peter Attia makes in his presentation, is that once you become Keto-adapted, you develop Metabolic Flexability. In otherwords, because you use less glycogen as a fuel source, when you eventually do need it, it is much quicker to replenish. Probably a Fight or Flight mechanism.

Is all skiing anaerobic? How much does conditioning have to play on your bodies ability to recover/ replenish glycogen? What if you never reach your Anearobic Threshold?
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