An Introduction to Periodised Nutrition

If you regularly read articles about training or subscribe to any of the millions of training magazines, you will almost certainly be familiar with the term “periodised training”. Basically, it means instead of doing the same thing day in day out, you plan your training sessions to ensure you reach your optimal state of fitness for your given sport at the right time. As with most ideas regarding training it has been tweaked over the years and now we have versions such as, inverse periodisation, block periodisation so on and so on, but the idea remains the same, plan your training.

When people ask me how much carbs/protein/fat they should eat I always answer, “it depends on your training”. Initially they think I have given them a rather vague and unhelpful answer, but once I explain that their nutrition should match their training and go into detail they understand why I gave that answer.

This is the concept of periodised nutrition, depending on the type/duration/intensity of your training regime determines what you should eat. This is one of my main arguments against the LCHF craze, if during your training regime you have any periods of high intensity training or races, then chronically following a low carb diet will not be of much help. Of course, the opposite is true. If you are not doing any kind of intense or long duration training then a high carbohydrate diet is not necessary.

A good example would be somebody training for an Ironman, whilst the event is still several months away and they are wanting to optimise their fat utilisation capacity, they will most likely be doing sessions of fasted training or sessions of fairly low intensity. At this point, I would recommend a diet low in carbs with higher fat. Once they got nearer to race day and the intensity of training increased, I would increase the amount of carbohydrate in their diet. And of course, for the event itself, ensuring they take on plenty of carbohydrate will be vital.

In summary, your diet should provide fuel for your training and your recovery, the more intense your training is the more you will need carbohydrate in your diet.

Over the next few months we will be looking in-depth at different strategies of periodised nutrition, but in the meantime any questions or comments leave below or contact www.gabinetederueda.es