The Pit Stops: Refueling (Part I)

Have you ever seen a Formula 1 car race?

Those incredible machines can be driven at speeds greater than 350 km/h. They are perfectly designed to combine an extremely powerful engine with a very light and aerodynamic chassis. The result is a wonderful machine that can only be driven at its potential by the most talented pilots in the world.

But even the best machine and pilot needs to do “Pit Stops” during the races to change tires, fix any problem and refuel. If the Pit Stop is skipped, sooner or later, even the best engineered machines stop completely.

Well, your body, your Perfect Machine, is exactly the same.

To make it work properly and at its best, you need to do all your “Pit Stops”. And you have to do them at the right time and with the right fuel.

When you master this, your recovery times improve tremendously.

So let’s now concentrate on the “refueling” aspect of your pit stops. In other words, let’s see how you can best replenish all the nutrients and fluids that your body consumes during normal living and especially during sports training.

RESOURCES CONSUMED

While you are having fun working out or practicing your favorite sport, you are basically wearing and tearing your machine's chassis (muscles and tendons) and consuming several resources in your body.

In simplified terms, you are consuming:

1. Water : lost in great quantities to cool you off through sweating, and in minor quantities through your urine to depurate you of detritus resulting from the chemical reactions at cellular level
2. Electrolytes: also lost trough your sweating, these are minerals like magnesium, potassium and sodium (that’s where the salty taste of your sweat is coming from)
3. Glucose: consumed as the fastest source of energy to make your muscles contract and make you move. The faster you go (and the greater effort  you do), the fastest rate at which glucose is consumed
4. Fats: consumed as a very concentrated, but slow source of energy. If you move easily and for a long time (like a hike) a great proportion of your energy is coming from fats. Fats are also used to repair cellular membranes.
5. Amino Acids: these are the building blocks of protein which are used in large quantities to repair and reinforce the muscle fibers damaged during training. They are also consumed in small quantities to produce energy.

Let’s now see in more detail how you should replace these resources to make your Perfect Machine work at its best all the time.

WATER

This is the most important of all the resources. Make a mistake in your hydration, and your performance will decrease enormously and your post-workout recovery will take much longer.

Keep in mind that when you feel thirsty, you are already a bit dehydrated. Thus, drink constantly!

That sense of fatigue you get after you exercise can be greatly reduced if you drink enough before, during and after your workout.

When:

1. Drink all the time. Keep a water bottle next to you and keep sipping all day.
2. Make sure you are going into your workout well hydrated by drinking one or two glasses of water half an hour before the start.
3. Try to sip water continuously during your workout when you take short breaks. Just don’t drink much when you are working at extreme levels of intensity as your stomach might get upset. It is better to wait for the end if you are working out intensely for less than 30 minutes.
4. Drink at least half a liter after your workout, and much more if you have been training for more than an hour or in hot conditions. The more you have sweated, the more you have to drink. It will also help you to carry out of your body the toxins produced during your training.

ELECTROLYTES

These work together with the water to keep you hydrated up to the cellular level.

If you have been sweating a lot (like in a hot marathon race), plain water will not be enough to hydrate you. The sweating makes you lose minerals (lots of sodium) from your blood and cells.

Actually, you need the electrolytes to carry the water inside the cells, otherwise you are only “washing up” the mineral content in your blood and cells (if this is taken to the extreme it is called hyponatremia which can be very dangerous).

Without the proper mineral balance, the electrical impulses sent from the brain are not transmitted well to the muscle fibers, so they cannot contract properly. That’s when the horribly painful muscle cramps appear!

When:

1. During prolonged workouts or long races (more than an hour), sip sports drinks (i.e. Gatorade or Powerade), in addition to lots of water. The greater the heat, the greater the amount of salts and minerals you have to drink in addition to your water.
2. After your long workouts or races in the heat, eat salty food and keep drinking sports drinks in addition to your water. Your rehydration and recovery will be much faster this way.

If you have not sweated much, water is enough. The minerals lost with normal sweating are replaced with your meals. Thus, avoid sports drinks if you are not working out much (they have too much sugar that you do not need in short workouts!).

Bonus tip: 
(This is for those friends of yours who are alcohol lovers, not for you of course!)


After drinking lots of alcohol and before going to bed, drink at least half a liter of a sports drink with as much water as you can. 
Hangovers are mainly a severe state of dehydration caused by all the peeing (and vomiting!) done to eliminate the toxic alcohol from your body.
Thus, after the night out, and if you are conscious enough (I mean, your friend!) eat salty food, and drink a sports drink in addition to lots of water before going to bed. You will feel much better the day after... Well, that’s what they tell me ;)

OK. I’ll leave you here. Hopefully, you are now sipping from your water bottle and keeping well hydrated!

Next time, we’ll cover the other three resources that you need to replace to be in top conditions to perform at your best and recover faster.

In the meantime...

Train hard, drink hard!...water, I mean!

Are you really sure you are a sheep?

After I have done the Ironman triathlon many people have told me that I am fortunate to be a "super-athlete". They tell me that it would be impossible for "people like them" to do something like that.

I just smile at this and immediately tell them that I am not at all a "super-athlete". 

At least, not more than they are. 

Our DNA's are 99,9% equal. 

We are basically the same.

The only difference might be that I know that (with proper knowledge and conditioning) human beings are capable of accomplishing amazing feats. 

Our species have evolved over million years, and we have survived incredible challenges not only because of our intellectual capabilities, but also due to our superior physical abiities.

We are all incredibly strong.

We have just forgotten what we are capable of.

We are confusing modern comfort with well-being.

So we are not using our Perfect Machines correctly or at their potential.

And they have become weaker and weaker as a result.

But the whole process can be reversed.

We can all carve out  the "super-athletes" inside of us.

We just need to wake up and remember who we really are.

The following is a very nice fable adapted - by the Coach and Author Michael Neill - from an old Hindu myth about enlightenment and discipleship. Just read it and let the message ring and resonate inside you.

Once upon a time, there was a baby lion who was born into the world alone and afraid. A family of sheep found him in their home in the green grassy valley at the bottom of the mountains one day, and because he was so beautiful and because they were so kind, they decided to raise him as one of their own. It was his sister, who had a highly developed sense of irony, who suggested they name him 'Leo'.

So they taught Leo the baby lion how to walk as a sheep, and talk as a sheep, and taught him all the ways of sheep, and they loved him with all of their hearts. They taught him to fear what all sheep fear, and that whatever he did he must stay away from the mountains, for lions lived up there, and no sheep who had ever gone up the mountain had ever returned.

Eventually, Leo became so good at acting like a sheep that even his own family forgot that he was really a lion. Sure, occasionally some of the other sheep teased him for his unusual size and his bushy haircut. But Leo did what he could to fit in, and he made good friends, and eventually he became a good, productive member of the sheep community.

The years passed uneventfully until one day an old lion from the mountains came down into the green, grassy valley in search of food. Leo was the first to sense his presence, and as soon as he yelled "Lion!" all the sheep began to run in panicked circles. In the midst of the chaos, the old lion noticed Leo.

"Hey, you!", roared the hungry lion.

"M...m...me?" whimpered Leo, terrified but at the same time fascinated by this magnificent old creature.

"What are you doing here with all these sheep?" the old lion demanded.

"They're my family," said Leo proudly.

At this, the old lion laughed. "Then who are you, young one?"

"I'm Leo, and I'm a sheep", Leo bleeted.

Suddenly, the old lion's face turned fierce. "Come with me!" he roared.

Leo didn't want to go with the old lion but he thought that by doing so, he might save his fellow sheep. So with a last look back at his herd, he followed the old lion off into the mountains.

They walked for many miles until at last, high up in the mountains, they came upon a beautiful crystal clear lake filled with smooth, blue water. The old lion beckoned for Leo to come to the edge of the lake. By this time, Leo was exhausted - not so much from the climb, which he found surprisingly easy, but from the constant fear that at any moment, the old lion would eat him. So with a final reluctant 'baaa', Leo made his way to the edge of the lake and looked where the old lion's paw was pointing.

To his amazement, he saw not a sheep, but the reflection of a strong young lion. In that moment, he knew who he really was and let out a mighty roar that shook the mountains all the way down to the green, grassy valley...

After the shock of discovering his true identity, Leo realized that he was hungry - really hungry. And grass just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Fortunately, Leo knew where he could get food, and plenty of it.

But when he got back to the valley to where his old herd was still grazing, he stopped in shock. For what he saw was not a herd of sheep, but a pride of lions, each one grazing and bleating and acting for all the world like sheep. It was his own mother who saw him first, and though Leo could see that she herself was a beautiful lioness, she cowered in fear, not recognizing him and bleating "Lion!" at the top of her lungs.

"Mother!", he roared, but the sound just made the sheep/lioness run even faster amongst the increasingly agitated herd.

Finally, Leo noticed that his sister was looking at him with a faint hint of recognition, and he knew what he must do. He put on his fiercest face, and he roared at her "Come with me!"

And though she was afraid, she followed him on the long journey up to the clear blue lake in the mountains...

OK. That's it.

Now....breathe deeply...and let me hear that loud ROAR! ;)