Knapsack Treks
  • Detian Waterfall Then & Now
  • Good Vices
  • Live From Lukla
  • NDP – National Day Pendaki
  • Trip Reports
    • Australia
      • Aussie Odyssey Part 1, Uluru, Kata Tjuta
      • Aussie Odyssey Part 2 Kings Canyon
      • Aussie Odyssey Part 3 Kangaroo Island
      • Dunes Downunder Part 1
      • Dunes Downunder Part 2
      • Dunes Downunder Part 3
    • Climbing Tianyou Peak 天游峰 @ Wuyi Shan 武夷山
    • Europe
      • My Greek Odyssey (Athens & Acropolis)
      • My Greek Odyssey (Delphi)
      • My Greek Odyssey (Meteora)
      • My Greek Odyssey (Mt Olympus)
      • My Greek Odyssey (Pella – birthplace of Alexander the Great)
      • My Greek Odyssey (Thessaloniki)
    • India
      • A Tale of Two Jahans
      • Akbar The Great
      • Dungeshwari – where mistakes are made and corrected
      • Horriday In India – Trains
      • Sarnath – first lesson
      • Shimla – legacy of British India
      • Taj Mahal
      • The Mahabodi Temple, Bodhgaya
      • Varanasi, a city as old as time
    • Indonesia
      • Beautiful Bali 2019
        • Batur Mountain & Lake
        • Kuta Sunset
        • Marvellous Munduk
        • Nusa Penida 1
        • Nusa Penida 2
        • Tirta Gangga
      • Dieng Antiquities
      • Gedung Songo
      • Gunung Lawu 2019
      • Sex & Temples
        • Candi Kethek & Ceto
        • Candi Sukuh
      • Back In Mt Bromo With A Kid In Tow 1
      • Back In Mt Bromo With A Kid In Tow 2
    • Kyrgyzstan, Land of Yurts, Horses, Vodka and 美女😆
      • Song Kul Lake Horse Trek
      • Beautiful Bishkek
      • The Ala Kul Lake Trek Via Telety & Karakol Valley
      • Dungan Mosque Kyrgyzstan
      • Holy Trinity Cathedral, Karakol
    • Magical Myanmar 2019
      • Hsipaw Trek
      • Paya Ko Thaung
      • Pining For Pyin Oo Lwin
      • Sunset In Sittwe
      • The Goteik Viaduct
      • Yangon Memories
    • Nepal
      • Everest Three Passes Trek Nepal
      • Tilicho Lake
      • Annapurna On Wheels With Two Kids In Tow
      • Gosainkund Winter Trek
      • Lost In Lumbini
    • The Water Curtain Cave
    • Kunming, Dali With A Kid In Tow
  • Wacky Workouts
    • Climb Stairs
    • Great Body Weight Exercise
    • Metabolic Principle – Fat Burn
    • Metabolic Principles – Muscles
    • Pull Ups Step By Step
    • Push Up Variations
    • Pushup Variations
    • Working With Elastics
  • About The Author
  • Knapsack Books
  • Fighting Fit
    • 1000 Squats
    • Alternatives For Prevention of AMS?
    • Buffering Your Blood
    • Carbo-loading: The Real Thing
    • Cold Dips
    • Fluid Replacement
    • Food For Hikes – Sweet Potatoes
    • Healthy Coffee?
    • High Altitude Diarrhoea
    • Jumpstart Cream
    • L-Carnitine
    • Low Carb Myths & Risks
    • MacRitchie To Bukit Timah Hike
    • Preventing Blisters
    • Sandfly Bites
    • Cheating AMS
  • Gear & Stuff
    • Choosing Footwear
    • Cooking Set
    • Cushion Gloves
    • Dressing Right For The Himalayas
    • Gelert Boots
    • High Fashion (Frogg Toggs)
    • Hiking Footwear Cheap & Good
    • How To Clean Mouldy Slides
    • My Neat Knapsack
    • New Hiking Boots From Decathlon
    • The Humble SAF Combat Boot
    • The Thermos Effect
    • Custom Made Hiking Boots
  • The Aging Adventurer
    • Bye Bye Bunions
      • 6 Weeks Post-op
      • Day 1
      • Day 2
      • Day 7
      • One Month Post-op
      • Trying On My Boots & Thongs
      • Week 3
    • Clogged Arteries: everyone has them!
    • Don’t Lose That Muscle
    • Foot On Ice
    • How Exercise Affects Blood Pressure
    • Keeping Fit Past 70
    • Secret To Burning Fat
    • Stairs Workout
    • Strength Training
    • The Best Doctors In The World
    • Toes & Poles
    • Too Old To Run?
    • Training For Seniors
  • Legends
    • Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922)
      • The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
    • Gigi The Bikini Hiker
    • Khoo Swee Chiow – K2, the ultimate peak
    • Xiao Peng 小鹏
    • Yu Chun Shun 余纯顺
    • Lei Dian Sheng 雷殿生
      • Horsehair & Blisters
      • Trust & Kindness
  • Other Sites by Chan Joon Yee
    • Chan Joon Yee On Homecooking
    • Chan Joon Yee On Social Issues

Login

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Tweets by toothfully
Follow me on twitter

Carbo-loading: The Real Thing

Don’t be surprised that even people who are not into endurance sports have heard of carbo-loading. However, very few people, even some of those who are into endurance sports, have a good understanding of what carbo-loading really means. From the way the word sounds and spells, many people just guess or assume that carbo-loading simply means loading the body with carbohydrates.

Trekking can be considered a form of endurance sports, so it would be appropriate for me to shed some light on this issue which relates to performance enhancement. This article aims to teach you how to give yourself an unfair advantage over trekkers who don’t really understand carbo-loading.

To understand carbo-loading, we must first take a look at skeletal muscles and glycogen or animal starch, the fuel which the muscles store and use up during prolonged exercise. Depletion of glycogen stores will result in muscular fatigue.

Actually, a more appropriate and descriptive term for the strategy of carbo-loading is glycogen supercompensation. This technique works by packing more than the usual amount of glycogen stores into the muscles and you won’t achieve that simply by consuming large quantities of carbohydrates. This is because there is a “normal” limit to the amount of glycogen that can be stored in our muscles. Any excess will be converted into fat. To create more packing space for glycogen, the body must first be starved of carbohydrates. There are basically two stages in the process of glycogen supercompensation.

In the first stage intense exercise targeting specific muscles are performed to the point of exhaustion. This is aimed to deplete glycogen stores. This is followed by a high protein and high fat diet for 3 days. Food types taken at this stage includes cheese, sardines, chicken, eggs, butter, fruit juice, vegetables. Specific muscles are exercised to ensure that glycogen stores are depleted. In reaction to this depletion, the body produces more glycogen synthesising enzymes. This is an attempt to compensate for the lack of carbohydrates in the diet.

In the second stage, the floodgates are open. On the 4th or 5th day after carbohydrate starvation, the diet is switched to a high carbohydrate one. Plenty of bread, noodles, potatoes and rice are taken. Excess enzymes accumulated during glycogen depletion will end up supercompensating by storing more than the usual amount of glycogen. Swollen with glycogen, these muscles will not fatigue so easily during prolonged activity. That is carbo-loading.

Points to Note

1. Do not get carried away. The carbohydrate starvation stage can be very uncomfortable. The long-term ill-effects of carbo-loading have not been established and there are risks of damage to one’s health. This technique should not be employed unless you are in a competitive situation. It is definitely not advisable for people who have a family history of diabetes.

2. It only works for sports like distance running. Short duration sports will not benefit from carbo-loading. Some people modify the glycogen depletion stage by shortening it to just one day.

3. Women benefit less from carbo-loading than men because women burn fat long before their glycogen stores are depleted. Theoretically, women’s muscles fatigue slower than men’s.

4. Your weight may go up as a result of carbo-loading. Doing it too frequently may result in significant weight gain.

© Chan Joon Yee 2009

Connect with me through my Facebook fan page.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Knapsack Books

2023 Knapsack Treks. Donna Theme powered by WordPress
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}