Seeing that sprinters do mostly anaerobic work do they need alot of carbs? I’ve read the article about maurice greene eating only 2 meals a day but supplementing with around 5 protein shakes (don’t know how true it is though).
Before training I actually feel quite good if I’ve eaten only meat, very alert and edgy.
It’s interesting too if we look at the animal kingdom and examine how the most anaerobic creatures such as the cheetah function on a meat only diet.
My question is should sprinters just eat a regular diet or should carbs be controlled?
Thanks
I have tried many approach myself from low carbs to zone/paleo to high carbs.
Low carbs is the best to get lean, but you’ll loose some speed in the lactic training. Even tempo training would seem much harder than usual.
But I don’t think It takes 60% calories from carbs to get the fuel you need. Around 40% would be more appropriate. I think the zone is one of the best diet around, but you’ll have to eat shit load of fruits and vegetables to get the 40% of carbs that is prescribed by the diet.
Also, a critical issue is that testosterone levels seems to crash on low carbs diet. I know Poliquin think that low carbs actually increase testosterone, but in my experience this isn’t true. Maybe I failed to buy 200$ of his supp. a month?
depend on your levels of fat, of your training, the period of the year, your reaction.
i work well with low fat diet, but when i must do a very intense period, i need carbo, no a lot of carbo, but i need. is an individual issue.
test it.
surely if you tend to gain fat or to retain water, your carbo intake must be lower than a person who don’¡t.
test it
Excellent summary, thank you. Yes a big problem is the testosterone crash from low carbs:( I agree with you that about 40% carbs would probably be more appropriate for a sprinter.
Hmm the zone diet looks interesting.
Right now I think I want to lose a little body fat while retaining as much muscle as possible. I gained about 5 kilos during an intense weights period and some of that is fat I think, so maybe it’s time for a low carbs cycle
if you change your training, is better to wait what happen…if you start to do more Endurance type is probable that you’ll lose weight without change your diet.
If you haven’t tried the Zone diet before, you should. It will definitely cut the fat. You can adjust it once you’re down to an acceptable level. PM me if you want more info on how to get started.