Going Bananas?

Ready to go riding with my bananas

I've written before that sports drinks cannot  totally replace your electrolyte losses during exercise. Moreover, sports drinks are manufactured and may contain flavorings and chemicals that you may want to avoid.

And if you're like me and prefer eating real food and drinking lemon water (or just plain water) rather than sports drinks while exercising, then you may be doing enough to replace the carbohydrates to fuel your exercise and even speed recovery.

A preliminary study in 2012 found that cyclists performed better for a strenuous bike ride if they had a banana or sports drink compared to water. The cyclists also had lower levels of inflammation after the ride. That study did not show why and how the carbs were aiding recovery.

The same authors did a new study that was recently published using more sophisticated techniques to track molecular changes inside the cyclist's bodies.

The subjects' underwent a intense 75 km bike ride inside the laboratory. In one ride, they drank only water while in another ride, they had water, eight ounces of a sports drink or half a "Dole" banana every 30 minutes.

The subjects' blood was tested before during and immediately the ride and even 45 hours after the ride. Inflammatory blood markers and metabolites were assessed during and after to test how much stress was taken by them.

When the cyclists' drank only water during the ride, relatively high levels of inflammatory markers were found. These same markers were much lower if the cyclists' had consumed the banana or sports drinks. Metabolite profiles were less stressed regardless of whether they had the banana or sports drink compared to without.

One obvious difference was those cyclists' that ate the bananas had blood cells that produced less COX-2 (a genetic precursor of an enzyme). This was not seen if they drank only water or had the sports drink.

For those interested, COX-2 enzyme stimulates prostaglandin production, which increases the intensity of inflammation. Those of you who take inflammatory medication like Arcoxia or Celebrex tablets note that they are COX-2 inhibitors. They help reduce inflammation.

This study suggest that bananas might perform comparably although it is unknown how bananas affect the cells' gene expression. So instead of popping pills like Arcoxia and Celebrex prescribed to you, you may want to eat more bananas and ginger.

It was calculated by the researches that half a standard banana provided similar carbohydrates as a cup of sports drink and the cyclists' had half every 30 mins. Bear in mind your needs may be different. Some cyclists' also complained of feeling bloated after eating that amount of bananas.

So be warned before you go bananas over ingesting bananas in your next long ride or race.


References

Nieman DC, Gillitt ND et al (2012). Bananas As An Energy Source During Exercise: A Metabolomics Approach. PlosOne. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0037479

Nieman DC, Gillitt ND et al (2018). Metabolic Recovery From Heavy Exertion Following Banana Compared To Sugar Beverage Or Water Only Ingestion: A Randomized, Crossover Trial. PlosOne. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0194843

*Note that Dole Foods which sells bananas funded both studies. However, they company did not have any involvement in study design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish or preparing the article.

Which Calf Is Bigger?

Notice any difference in the picture above? If you look closely, you'll notice that the left calf is slightly bigger than the right. Upon palpation my patient's left calf does feel more "meaty" compared to his right.

This is surprising as my patient says that his right leg is his dominant leg. Usually the dominant leg is bigger and stronger than the non dominant leg.

Now, this patient, who is an ultra marathoner came in to see me yesterday after a 35 km training run in the morning. He said that his right calf muscle often cramps after about 35 km.

Even after an easy run, his right calf and hamstrings often feel more tired and fatigued compared to his left. He also felt that it required more effort to bend his left knee compared to his right.

My patient also does not have any numbness, pins and needles down his right leg or other neurological signs. After checking his back as well, I explained to my patient that the reason for his muscle cramping in his right calf muscle is simply due to muscular fatigue.

Since his left calf is bigger, it will also be stronger than his right calf. This means that after running a certain distance his right calf will work harder than the left calf and will fatigue faster too.

I explained that muscle cramping is not due to sodium (or salt) loss, dehydration, electrolyte or fluid loss. I've explained this in a bit more detail before in another post, have a read here please if you're keen.

We then discussed how he could do some isolated (right) leg training to make his right calf stronger to avoid cramping eventually.

Here in his case, size does matter.

Reference

Schwellnus MP, Nichol J, Laubscher T and Noakes T. (2004). Serum Electrolytes Concentrations And Hydration Status Are Not Associated With Exercise Associated Muscle Cramping (EAMC) In Distance Runners. BJSM. 38: 488-492. DOI: 10.1136/bjsm.2003.007021.

What Causes Muscle Cramps?

Picture by Jon Candy from Flickr

A patient came in to see me yesterday and complained  that if not for a muscle cramp near the end of her recent race, she would have won her age group and also gotten a personal best timing.

After putting it up on Facebook, she had many, many unsolicited comments : Eat bananas, take salt tablets, drink Gatorade, have some pretzels. Knowing that I used to race, she wanted to know my thoughts and get some advice on how not to cramp during a race.

While her friends and even strangers who posted on her Facebook page meant well, none of their advice will help her as even expert exercise physiologists can't say for sure what causes exercise induced cramps.

The most common and popular theory on cramps is that they are caused by sodium (or salt) loss and dehydration. Fluid and electrolyte loss. This has been the focus of much Gatorade (or other companies) sponsored research. More on that in another post definitely.

Tim Noakes, possibly the most renown sports scientist on this topic found no significant differences in sodium and magnesium levels of 72 ultra marathoners between those who cramped and those who didn't cramp. There was no differences in body weight, plasma (or blood) volume between the two groups, showing that dehydration had no real effect on cramps.

Dehydration could however hasten muscle fatigue. And this is what Noakes and most exercise scientists believe is the likely cause of cramps.

In the above ultra marathoner study, 100 percent of the runners cramped in the last half of the race or right after the race. Think about it, when was the last time you had a muscle cramp? At mile 20 (or 32 km) in a marathon or after 3 km in a 5 km race?

This explains why cramping is most likely to occur during races than training. You tend to start off too fast or you pushed yourself too hard. Other studies have found that tough, hilly course and poor pacing (starting too fast) are predictive of muscle cramps.

So, anything you can do to prevent muscle fatigue should then help to prevent cramps. The obvious though undesirable strategy is to simply slow down. Not exactly what you would want to hear or read!

Since guarding against muscle fatigue is key, you can't take any short cuts in training. Train more, do longer distances. You simply have to adapt to the distance you want to race. There is no substitute for strength work that is running specific. Gotta love hills and speed work.

Plyometrics (or explosive exercises) may improve the endurance of the receptors in your muscles that are thought to cause muscle cramps.

Knowing your own capabilities is key as you can choose a pace right from the onset of the race. Cramps are more likely to happen to athletes who start too fast.

"That's it"? My patient said. Yes, that's it.

Reference

Schwellnus MP, Nichol J, Laubscher R and Noakes T. (2004). Serum Electrolyte Concentrations And Hydration Status Are Not Associated With Exercise Associated Muscle Cramping (EAMC) In Distance Runners. BJSM. 38: 488-492. DOI: 10.1136/bjsm.2003.007021.

Real Food Alternatives To Gels

Annie's Cheddar bunnies - "stolen" from my son

Last week I wrote about how latest published research show that fast food from McDonald's is just as good for recovery compared to Gatorade, Cytomax and PowerBars etc.

But what about your long exercise sessions or when you race half marathon distances and longer? You definitely will require some nutrition along the way or you'll risk hitting the dreaded wall.

No way you can or should wolf down fries, hamburgers daily while training since it is not nutritionally sound long term.

Gels, PowerBars, Sport Beans are not exactly my thing. So now that I'm not racing anymore, I can share with you what I eat when I've had enough of the gels, PowerBars etc.

Let me discuss some whole food alternatives you can use to fuel yourself in your longer training sessions or races.

Firstly, they should fuel well you without making you bloated or make you wanna go to the toilet. For me, I find that simple carbohydrates, less protein and fat with low fibre work best.

Well, everyone's system is different and others may be tolerate more fibre, but not me. I'll end up running to the nearest petrol station toilet or bushes if I can't find a toilet when I consume too much fibre before running.

The food you train/ race with should be easy to transport. No chance of you eating spaghetti while out riding with your regular cycling group right?

Last point, to be able to fuel yourself sufficiently, you'll need between 30-60 grams of carbohydrate every hour (depending on how hard you train and how much you weigh). You can of course mix your "real food" with a sports drink, gel or bar if you like too.

Here's my list of real food that works - for me anyway. I always carry a large banana with me on long bike rides (probably tough to bring on a run though).

On a long run, I find that raisins and cashew nuts (it has higher fat content though) work well for me. I'll put them in a zip lock bag or wrap them in some aluminium foil. I love zip lock bags! Even my wallet is a zip lock bag. Waterproof- great if you're caught in a thunderstorm. I find that sliced apples work well for me too.

I've been using a zip lock bag as my wallet since 1997.

Sometimes I take a packet of my son's Snackimals. They all taste much better than gels and bars.

Snacikmals- my son's favourite

Hope I gave you ideas for some other real food options.