Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 June;41(2):223-8

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The effects of diet and supplements on a male world champion lightweight rower

Xia G., Chin M. K. *, Girandola R. N. **, Liu R. Y. K. *

From the Department of Sports Nutrition National Research Institute of Sports Medicine, Beijing, China * Human Performance Laboratory Department of Physical Education and Sports Science Hong Kong Institute of Education Tai Po, Hong Kong ** Department of Exercise Science University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

A ­world-­class light­weight row­er who ­came to the Hong Kong Sports Institute was eval­u­at­ed ­over a two-­month peri­od of train­ing. He was pre­par­ing for the 1995 World Rowing Championships. The sub­jects ­trained for approx­i­mate­ly 70 min­utes per day at dif­fer­ent lev­els of inten­sity, to sim­u­late ­race con­di­tions. Caloric expen­di­tures (­based ­upon ­heart ­rate ­response and esti­ma­tion ­from spe­cif­ic activ­ity) ­were esti­mat­ed to be approx­i­mate­ly 4125 ­kcal/day. A ­three day die­tary sur­vey ­revealed ­that the sub­ject was ­able to main­tain calor­ic bal­ance (calor­ic ­intake = 4088 ­kcal/day). Body ­weight was main­tained at a con­stant lev­el, ­another indi­ca­tion ­that the sub­ject was ­able to ­meet ener­gy ­needs. A break­down of his ­food ­intake ­revealed pro­tein, car­bo­hy­drate, and fat, ­made up 19%, 51%, and 30% of his calor­ic ­intake, respec­tive­ly. This was some­what sur­pris­ing ­since rec­om­men­da­tions for endu­rance ath­letes are for high­er car­bo­hy­drate con­tri­bu­tion. During and ­after the train­ing ­bouts the sub­ject con­sumed two sep­ar­ate car­bo­hy­drate sup­ple­ments. A ­total of 218 g of car­bo­hy­drate ­were con­sumed dai­ly. This lev­el of sup­ple­men­ta­tion was ­able to main­tain the ­subject’s ­blood glu­cose con­cen­tra­tion at nor­mal lev­els fol­low­ing recov­ery ­from exer­cise. Comparisons of recov­ery ­heart ­rates ­when ­either ­water or car­bo­hy­drate was con­sumed indi­cate a ben­e­fi­cial ­effect of the sup­ple­ment. Despite con­sum­ing car­bo­hy­drates at low­er ­than rec­om­mend­ed lev­els, ­this ath­lete ­went on to win ­this ­third ­gold med­al in row­ing.