Nutrition for Triathletes: Fuel Smarter with Science-Backed Advice

Triathlon nutrition priorities work in a fixed order, and most triathletes run that order backwards. The eight things worth fixing, in sequence, are your overall energy intake, your carbohydrate periodisation, your protein distribution and your day-to-day food quality first, then your hydration and electrolytes, your key micronutrients, your race nutrition strategy ...

Quick answer: A 70.3 nutrition plan comes down to four numbers. Carb load at 10 to 12 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per day for the 36 to 48 hours before the race, eat 2 to 3 grams per kilogram at breakfast 2 to 3 hours before your wave, take in 70 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour once you are on the bike, and drink to your own measure...

Ironman nutrition is not 70.3 nutrition with more hours attached. Carbohydrate targets climb from around 60g per hour to 90g or more, liquid-only fuelling stops being tolerable somewhere in the middle of the bike leg, and a small hourly shortfall you never noticed over five hours compounds into a walk over eleven or thirteen. The change that matters most is timing: ...

Quick answer: Protein for masters athletes is not a volume problem. As you get older your muscles do less with the same protein, a change called anabolic resistance, but the research shows that simply eating more does not undo it. When researchers doubled the post-exercise protein...

Overtraining and under-fuelling produce almost identical symptoms, because both start with the same energy shortfall in the brain. The difference is that overtraining syndrome is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning low energy availability has to be ruled out first. When researchers reviewed every training overload study that had also measured what athletes were eating...