I am a life long athlete covering over four decades of training ranging from competitive martial arts, boxing,soccer,basketball, middle distance running and long distance kayaking.  I have kayaked since I was a …

During an intensive bout of exercise, your body can use up to 200 or even 250 grams of carbohydrates depleting your full store of glycogen, or stored glucose. Once your exercise is finished, those carbohydrates need to be replenished quickly to keep you at your peak athletic performance. Refueling your body and rebuilding stores of glycogen, or stored glucose, is the last critical step of training.

Glucose is simply blood sugar, and eating carb-rich foods prior to working out will initially raise your blood sugar. To counteract this flood of glucose, the body releases insulin, which is produced in the pancreas and insulin then moves the glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells. When glucose arrives in the cells, it is used immediately for energy.

My days are busy and I work full time, nearly everyday. In order to fit in my training schedule, which is normally 2 to 3 hours 5 days a week, I train in the basement of the thrift shop where I work. This is a recent training session focusing on 1 minute endurance sets.

Diets high in carbohydrates are essential for athletes, but as discussed in Carbohydrates: The Body’s Core Fuel For Energy, finding the right balance of fuel for your body is about much more than what you eat. Properly preparing your body for work-outs is a balancing act of what sorts of carbohydrates you eat and when you eat them.

As any athlete with a little experience knows, what you put into your body is what you get out of it. Don’t believe me? Just try eating a burger and fries the night before a big event, maybe indulge in a beer or three. Your performance will suffer. Along with an effective training schedule, what you ingest is the most important factor in determining performance during an event and recovery speed afterwards.

Okay, but what type of carbs should the athlete be eating? The reason carbs have a bad reputation is because there are lots of low-quality sources out there, in the form of junk foods and other convenience foods that don’t offer any real nutrition – people fill up on them and pack on the pounds, but are still starving for nutrients. Over consumption of simple sugars (mono and disaccharides), like those found in candy and soda, has also been linked to the onset of type 2 diabetes and obesity. These types of carbs have a high glycemic index, which means they cause your blood sugar to rise rapidly and then eventually crash. The exception to the rule is the simple sugar found in fruits. Because fruits contain fiber, vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and other goodies, they generally prevent the sugars from being absorbed so rapidly in your system, so you don’t get that crash.

Contrary to what some fad diets would have us believe, carbohydrates are not the enemy. In fact, they are pretty much the athlete’s best friend. Carbs provide the foundation for any serious athlete’s diet. Why? Because anytime you engage in moderate to intense exercise, your body is using glycogen (stored carbohydrates) as its primary fuel source.

Compare two athletes of the exact same body size and build, who have followed the same training regimen – they don’t necessarily have the same power, speed or explosive capacity. Why? Once athletes attain a certain level of strength and stamina, the difference in their capabilities comes down to their bodies’ bio-electric current flow. The stronger the current flow, the stronger the body, and the more explosive power and strength you have access to.

Shaun McDaniel is on his way to becoming an international champion. Last week, the twenty four year old New Yorker famous for training in a thrift-store basement (link to original article) unofficially broke the world record that his longtime hero, Paddy Doyle, established in 2008. With a forty-pound weight strapped to his back, Shaun managed to pump out 719 back-handed pushups in an hour, topping Doyle’s previous record of 663. “I didn’t know I could do it,” said Shaun, “I thought it would just be a practice session.”