TRAIN HARDER RECOVER FASTER
By Rick Curl & Edmund R Burke, Ph.D.

Rick Curl is founder and Head Coach of the Curl Burke Swim Club. The world famous Curl Burke Swim Club is home to four Olympic Gold Medallists and 12 USA Swimming National Team Championship Titles (www.cubu.org).

Dr. Edmund Burke is Professor of Exercise Physiology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and author of over 16 books including the bestseller, Optimal Muscle Recovery (www.optimalmusclerecovery.com).

FUELLING MUSCLES DURING WORKOUTS AND COMPETITIONS

How much water and carbohydrate should a swimmer consume during a workout of, at least, 5000 yards? We’ve come a long way in understanding the importance of rehydrating and re-supplying muscle energy stores during exercise. Your ability to maintain workout intensity is directly impacted by how well you restore body fluids and replenish muscle carbohydrate stores.

As little as a 2% loss in body fluids will negatively impact cardiovascular performance. For a 160 lb swimmer, that’s only 3 lbs. The problem becomes even more complicated because we can’t depend on our normal thirst mechanism to replace the fluid we lose during exercise. Exercise physiologists call this involuntary dehydration. That’s one reason why sports drinks that contain electrolytes are beneficial. Not only do they restore electrolytes lost during exercise, but salt also makes us thirsty resulting in continual consumption of fluids. It’s best, however, to drink on a schedule.

The primary fuel

The second aspect is carbohydrate intake. Carbohydrate is the primary fuel that powers the muscle during moderate to high inten sity exercise. However, if you consume too much carbohydrate during a workout, you may feel bloated and can even become nauseous. Too much carbohydrate delays gastric emptying. What’s the correct amount? Although everyone is different, here are some guidelines. Your muscles normally store about 2000 calories of carbohydrate (glycogen), however you can’t use all of them. Normally you have about 1600 calories available for energy. At a VO 2 max of between 60-80% you’re burning approximately 400-500 calories per hour. After an hour, you’re starting to bring your muscle energy reserves down to a level where they need to be replenished. You should take in at least 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour. This additional carbohydrate delays the use of stored muscle glycogen.

Over the last 20 years, it has been shown that athletes who consume sports drinks that contain 6-8% carbohydrate (6-8 grams of carbohydrate per 100ml of fluid) can exercise longer and with less fatigue than athletes who only drink water. There are sports drinks on the market that have a considerably lower percentage. These products may help you replenish fluid, but they won’t provide your muscles with the necessary carbohydrate they need. (Table 1)

New research now coming out of the University of Texas may dramatically change our view of what constitutes an ideal sports drink. Previously, researchers showed that a sports drink that contained both carbohydrate and protein in a 4-to-1 ratio could speed muscle recovery and deliver the benefits of protein without negatively impacting fluid and carbohydrate replenishment.

Extending endurance

Dr John Ivy and his co-workers at the University of Texas speculated that a carbohydrate-protein sports drink consumed during exercise might provide more immediate energy and greater endurance than a conventional sports drink. This assumption was put to the test. Athletes on three different occasions were either given water, a 7.75% carbohydrate sports drink or a 7.75% carbohydrate and 1.9% protein sports drink (ACCELERADE) during an exercise bout of varying intensities. The results were quite dramatic. The athletes consuming the carbohydrate protein drink in the 4-to-1 ratio had a 24% improvement in endurance when compared to the 7.75% carbohydrate drink and a 54% improvement when compared to water.

The study shows the addition of protein improves the muscle’s fuel efficiency by speeding carbohydrate uptake thereby sparing muscle glycogen. The result – an improvement in endurance capacity.

At the Curl Burke Swim Club, we make sure that our swimmers consume carbohydrate and fluids during workouts and competition. And, we clearly see the benefits. Our swimmers have more endurance and they feel stronger at the end of their workouts. This summer was one of our most successful ones. We dominated every local championship competition (age group, junior and senior), won the combined and men’s titles at the Eastern Sectionals, placed fourth at the Senior National Championship in Combined Team and Men’s. As well, won the Combined National Team SK Water Title, while placing second in the men’s competition. Many of the swimmers, who competed at the National levels, used ACCELERADE during their training (or preparation) phase for the summer season. In addition, several made the consumption of ACCELERADE, a regular pre-race routine. There is no question that using a sports drink that combines carbohydrate and protein provided an additional benefit to my swimmers. As we begin the fall 2001 season, ACCELERADE will be an integral component of our quest for another championship season.

The bottom line

If you are serious about swimming, use a sports drink during your workout that helps you rehydrate and also contains protein in the correct proportion to carbohydrate so that you don’t compromise the ability of your muscles to perform at optimal levels. A sports drink that combines carbohydrate and protein in a 4-to-1 ratio spares muscle glycogen so you can train at a higher level of intensity.

RECOVERY: THE KEY TO IMPROVED SWIMMING PERFORMANCE

In the last decade, research coming out of leading exercise physiology laboratories, has given us a greater understanding of how nutrition and recovery can improve exercise performance. Recovery is an issue for all swimmers because it is in the interval between training sessions that most of the adaptations for increased muscle strength and endurance occur. The ability of swimmers to perform at peak levels is limited by how quickly their muscles recover and repair themselves after strenuous training. Although many factors contribute to recovery, nutrition, which may be the most important, is often neglected, misunderstood or surrounded by many misconceptions.

Window for Recovery

Because muscles are working at such high levels during intense interval sessions in the pool, your muscle glycogen stores (stored carbohydrate) are greatly depleted and muscle cells are also traumatised by the high stress placed on them, which leads to muscle fatigue and soreness. The ability to train at a high level several days per week is limited by how well the body recovers its glycogen stores and repairs muscle tissues after strenuous training.

The key to maximising recovery is to consume the right nutrients in the right proportions to ensure your muscles’ health and to improve performance the next day. The latest research on muscle performance and recovery shows that carbohydrate replacement 30-60 minutes after exercise can have an enormous impact upon your next day’s performance. This is called the “glycogen window”. Ideally, the post exercise recovery drink should be high in simple carbohydrates. Swimmers, who wait more than one hour to consume carbohydrates, restore about 50 percent less muscle glycogen than those who consumed carbohydrates during the one-hour period.

Insulin-the recovery hormone

The difference relates to insulin, a hormone released by the pancreas that is essential for the transport of carbohydrate into the muscle cell and the manufacture of muscle glycogen. Not surprisingly, researchers have focused on enhancing insulin release during recovery. Increasing carbohydrate consumption is one way to stimulate insulin, but the effect of carbohydrate on glycogen storage reaches a plateau. Exciting new research is showing that protein, when added to carbohydrate, can further stimulate insulin. But here more is less. Too much protein taken after a swimming workout slows rehydration and glycogen replenishment, which is the last thing a swimmer wants.

However, when the ratio of carbohydrate to protein in your recovery drink is 4-to-1 (4 grams of carbohydrate to 1 gram of protein), there is a greater stimulation of insulin leading to a faster and more complete replenishment of muscle glycogen with no adverse effects on rehydration.

Researchers at the University of Texas have shown a recovery drink that has the 4-to-1 ratio of carb to protein combined with antioxidants (Endurox R 4) doubled muscle glycogen levels after exercise. Not surprising, there was a 55% improvement in endurance capacity in the next workout.

It is not always easy for swimmers to consume a carbohydrate supplement within hour after a workout. Intense workouts decrease appetite, which is why a sports drink may offer an advantage. It helps in rehydration and can easily deliver the proper nutrition to speed recovery and swimmers find it easy to take.

Free radicals and muscle damage

The muscle cell undergoes considerable trauma during exercise. This trauma leads to soreness and the need to rebuild protein. It is only recently that the causes of muscle stress have been better defined. During exercise there is a build-up of free radicals.

Free radicals are largely responsible for damage to the muscle cell membrane. Because antioxidants such as Vitamin C and E have been shown to reduce free radical build-up, a recovery drink that contains the necessary amounts of these vitamins should reduce muscle damage. And that is what researchers found. They found that when athletes consumed Endurox R 4, which contains Vitamins E and C, there was a significantly reduction in free radical formation and a 36% decrease in post exercise muscle damage.

Exercise also stimulates cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, which increases protein breakdown. Insulin has been shown to blunt the cortisol rise normally seen during exercise thereby helping maintain muscle protein. Products that stimulate insulin may also reduce the rise in cortisol thereby reducing protein breakdown. Because insulin plays so many important roles in accelerating muscle recovery it is termed the “master recovery hormone”.

At the Curl Burke Swim Club, Endurox R 4 has become an essential part of our training program. One of our Olympic champions who uses Endurox R 4, in only his fourth week of training, after recovering from a three-month “lay off” due to injury, was able to train a 30,000 metre Saturday – very effectively. It was truly an awesome accomplishment. More amazing – 48 hours later he was able to negotiate an intense workout without soreness or fatigue from the Saturday 30k.

On October 11, at our UNITED WE SWIM relay, we swam 206 miles to raise money for the victims families of the September 11 attacks. We had several swimmers swim between 6 and 20 miles. Regular supplementation with ACCELERADE allowed the swimmers to complete the challenge effectively. Following the swim, Endurox R 4 was taken and, in less than 24 hours, each swimmer was effectively training in a regular anaerobic cycle.

If you pay more attention to rest and post-exercise nutrition to aid your body’s building and repair processes, you’ll reach levels of performance that you never thought possible. The secret is knowing that rest is important and that the timing of the right nutrients will also optimise your recovery time.

TABLE 1 – SPORTS DRINK COMPARISON