Alimentation

Energy bars and cycling: what, when and how to use them – 2nd Part

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Parent Category: Alimentation

Category: Science's alimentation

Published on Friday, 27 January 2012 06:30

Written by Luca Salvatelli

We learn to choose the appropriate energy bars for cycling

Even if the market offer a gig choice of energy bars, we can identify three different uses: pre-race bars, race bars and after race bars. Let's see the main features and their optimal assimilation.

Pre-race energy bars

are all those whose assimilation is appropriate and preferable before the competition or training. These bars must have a high content of carbohydrates (malt dextrin), slow assimilation, as well as a small percentage of protein and good calories, and fat content should still be as small as possible.

As pre-race bars is therefore preferable to give priority to those rich in cereal bars and possibly also with a base of chocolate, so you can have a great calorie, protein and complex carbohydrates to slow assimilation. These bars are treated as an hour before the competition and form the initial basis of dietary supplementation during the race. Considering a caloric content of about 200-250 calories, you can take one of these bars before the race.

Other bars are those with a pre-race fruit and a lower portion of the grain, and these bars have a higher digestibility, increased presence of carbohydrates and thus can be rapidly assimilated assimilated half-hour before the race, as a support to the previous bar cereal and chocolate. In this case, the calorie content is about 200 calories and it’s prefer to not take more before the race.