Maintaining Energy Levels

Updated 03/14/2004 See Caution at end.
How many times has one of the following happened to you? As you are riding, you go through a tough section and your legs start to burn, after the tough section is passed, a few minutes later your legs feel better; but it happens again in the next tough section you attempt a long or difficult climb and find that you just don't have the strength to pedal, but you've made it up that hill before and in the same gear with no problem; you cut your rides short because you get continuous leg burn;
you just can't seem to squeeze that extra 1 or 2 mile per hour increase out of your legs, and you get left behind; you just aren't yourself on the trail, you have to go slower and use easier gears. These things are all generally the result of lack of energy. During the course of a ride, your body has to have some source of ONGOING energy. There are many sources of energy and that is what this article is about.

About calories, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. A calorie is a unit of energy and it doesn't have to be related to food. For instance, work done in a lab is measured in calories. Your body uses calories to do work such as mountain biking. Calories come from carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

So you need to have a source of calories throughout the time that you are riding. Your body can store calories in different ways. Your body keeps calories in a ready to use form called glucose in your blood stream. Glucose is instantly available for doing work. Your body also keeps an additional store of calories in another form called glycogen in your liver and muscles. Glycogen can be released and used for energy very quickly, whenever needed. Any additional calories in the body that aren't glucose or glycogen are converted to fat and stored in areas around the body you may be familiar with. That fat can be converted back into useful energy but it isn't a rapid process. Chances are, if you are exercising hard, your body won't be able to convert fat to energy fast enough and so it won't even use fat as a source of energy. (1 gram of protein releases 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates releases four calories, and 1 gram of fat releases nine calories)

As your are exercising, your body will likely first use up it's store of glucose, then glycogen. If you are exercising at a reasonable rate suggested by the lower end of your target heart rate, your body will also be able to convert fat back into energy and use that. If you are exercising in the upper limit of your target heart rate, your body may not be able to convert fat quickly enough and you will probably burn no fat at all. If you are exercising over your target heart rate, chances are good your body won't be able to continue supplying energy to your muscles for very long, even though you have energy in your body in more than one form. Here is why. As your muscles use energy to do work, they produce pyruvic acid as a bi-product. Normally the pyruvic acid is mixed with oxygen and carbon dioxide, water and glycogen. When your work your muscles vigorously over a long period of time, the body loses ground delivering oxygen and pyruvic acid ends up being lactic acid. This lactic acid leaks out of the muscles and moves around the body. If the over-working continues the muscles fatigue very quickly and the body can no longer do work. The pain felt when over exercising is caused by the hydrogen ion concentrate that is released along with lactic acid. If the rate of exercise is reduced and oxygen is delivered around the body once again, lactic acid is converted to pyruvic acid and then to carbon dioxide, water and glycogen. Under normal conditions the production of lactic acid can be beneficial, it's only under continuous over exercise when the body cannot deliver adequate oxygen. However it is best to minimize lactic acid production because of hydrogen ions which can actually break down and destroy glucose and glycogen. This is why aerobic training is very good, because it provides for a greater flow of oxygen around the body.

The summary of all this is you need to have a good store of glucose and glycogen available for a good ride.

External sources for energy are suppliments which typically take two forms, food and drink. Energy foods come mostly in bars or thick syrups. They derive their calories from the different forms: carbohydrates, fats or proteins. The syrups are fats and simple carbohydrates that break down to glucose very quickly. A good bar will have a healthy balance of all three. Depending on your body metabolism, a different form may work better or worse for you. Personally, I like to use dietary fiber protein bars like Clif Bar. The drinks rely on different types of forms, such as chemical stimulants like ginseng, taurine, ginkgo and caffeine coupled with loads of sugar. Again, there are dozens of different drinks, and different ones work better or not for different people. Beware the knock-offs you find in some grocery stores. Many of them rely almost entirely on caffeine and sugar in large amounts, sort of like a super-cola. Look for the herbal ingredients like genseng, ginkgo and taurine. The first energy drinks that came on the scene (to my knowledge) were MetRx, Hansen's and Red Bull. Personally, Hansen's Energy is my favorite after four or five years of using energy drinks. A warning, it's probably not good to drink more than one energy drink in a row. They are strong and can cause you to shake, and impair your mental processes.

Real quick, I hope you have read the article on using heart rate monitors and understand how your body works at least a little bit. Target Heart Rate / Monitors The simple fact is that no matter how much energy your body has available to it, if you are exercising too hard it's possible your body for one reason or another will not be able to supply energy to the muscles. If you are exercising too hard, you can get seriously hurt, even die.

Now with all this in mind, the first thing you need to do is lead up to your ride with some decent meals. Two good meals before your ride will give you a good start. By good I don't mean big meals, I mean meals that consist of quality foods. You can never go wrong with following the Food Guide Pyramid you were probably taught in school. If your natural energy stores aren't enough to get your through your ride at the kind of performance levels you want, then next time eat a good energy bar about 30 to 45 minutes before your ride (protein, dietary fiber and complex carbs take some time to break down) and then follow that with an energy drink 15 to 20 minutes before your ride (the simple sugars and chemical stimulants work almost immediately). If, armed with all this, you still bonk on the trail you are probably exercising too hard for your fitness level. Tone it down some. You can also carry a few packs of syrup such as Gu. You can pop one on the trail while you ride (PLEASE don't liter!) and within only minutes you'll get a good energy kick for maybe 20 to 30 minutes.

Experimenting with different foods for meals, different energy bars and drinks will result in maximizing your performance throughout your ride, giving you greater strength and endurance, and in some cases increasing your awareness. I cannot say if the products I have finally come to use myself are the best, but they certainly work the best for me.

You MUST drink water throughout your ride! This is important in all aspects of your bodies functionality. Experts say to drink every five minutes, so you know you aren't drinking enough if you only drink once or twice a ride. If you aren't a drinker, you'll be surprised how much drinking more water will help on the trail. And you shouldn't have to worry about going to the bathroom. During exercise your body makes much more effective use of fluids internally as well as for cooling (sweating). I can easily drink 30 to 40 ounces of water while on the trail without ever having any need to stop and use the restroom. On the other hand, if I do that during the course of a normal work day, I'll be in the bathroom a couple times.

And we come to the end. If you combine an understanding of your heart rate and target rate for exercising with this information on energy, you should be able to hit the trail and spend hour after hour after hour in top performance mountain biking without any drops in energy. Personally, the difference between applying this routine before a ride or not makes the difference of at least one rear gear and 3 to 5 miles per hour as well as easily doubling the duration of my ride at full strength. It makes all the difference.

Caution! (added 03/14/2040)
After you have read all that you might go grab a Hansen's Energy or Red Bull, have the best energy you have had during a ride in years and vow to always drink one before a ride. Maybe even two!

I would like to warn you against it. Let's keep in mind that what you are trying to do is train your body to alter it's energy stores and delivery methods so it can perform when you need it to perform and in the manner you wish it to perform (oh and burn fat, right?). When you take a stimulant such as a Hansen's or Red Bull you are almost literally pouring liquid energy into your blood. During your mountain biking ride your body is using mostly the stimulant energy and not your own inner stores. You are unlikely to lose any weight and you certainly are not training your body to make better use of it's own energy stores. You will end up relying on the stimulants for a good store of energy during a ride. Not good.

When I am out of shape and want to get back into shape, I tend to use energy drinks to get back in the swing of things. But after a several riding sessions I start to phase energy drinks out in favor of energy syrups. And eventually I phase those out as well and simply try to eat better all the time. After a few months of riding my body gets the hang of it and I'm back to being stimulant free. Which of course is the goal.