Who is driving sport science? Should elite pros be adopting the latest scientific findings? And should we as everyday athletes be trying to emulate what the pros are doing?
Every month, it seems another major innovation in training science or nutrition is upon us. We’ve seen big bold claims about nitrate supplementation, polarized training, fasted/low carb training, heat training, hydration, etc.
Now one of the biggest trends in pro cycling is extremely high levels of carbohydrate intake during training and racing. Whereas scientific guidelines have previously suggested a maximum range of about 60 g of carbohydrates per hour, elite professional endurance athletes are now hitting 120 g per hour or more.
These ideas and pro practices of course trickle down to us as everyday athletes, to the point that many of us are experimenting with very high carbohydrate intake rates, or adopting it as standard practice for our everyday training.
Burke et al. 2025
Such trends really expose systemic challenges in both the practice of sport science research and also its application, and that’s a topic I want to explore today. It’s important for us as everyday athletes because it has implications on how we should understand research and also practices done by the pros in context. This idea was spurred by a really nice viewpoint just published by Louise Burke – one of the most respected names in sport nutrition research AND applied sport science – along with Jamie Whitfield and John Hawley (Burke et al. 2025).
We Aren’t the Pros, and the Pros Ain’t Us
When trying to decide whether something the pros are doing should be adopted by us non-pros, the first thing we need to do is to put aside our egos and understand that we are nowhere near the physiology of pros. This can be hard to do when one of the thrills of cycling is that we can often ride the exact same bikes and kits as the pros. And in the case of Gran Fondos or gravel events, ride the exact same courses at the exact same time.
One of the inherent differences is that one of the reasons professional cyclists are pros and we’re not is that there is simply a massive chasm in physiology between us. Some of this difference is genetic, and some of it is due to differences in training accumulated throughout a lifetime.
How does this play out when interpreting sport science?
There is a world of difference between the 20-25 h of weekly training and the 6-10 h a week most of us are lucky to eke out. While some general principles may be common, optimizing training for 6-10 h a week is not a simple case of dividing by 2 or 3.
Not Everything in Science Works for Everyone
What may work well for us may not work well for pros. Remember that because we’re not physiologically as close to our ceiling as pros, there are some interventions that may work better for us. An example may be in nitrate supplementation. Much of the research in this field has been done with non-elite participants and a good proportion of this research does seem to suggest an ergogenic effect. However, the few studies on truly elite or world class athletes does not seem to suggest the same ergogenic effect. Besides challenges with there only being a few studies on elite athletes, it may be the case that their physiological systems are already so well-developed through training that any further benefit from nitrate supplementation may pale in comparison.
Apply Ideas to Your Own Context
We have to adopt what pros practice to our own context. While pros may indeed benefit from extremely high rates of carbohydrate intake, remember that their demand for carbohydrates is also much higher. Our 3-h weekend chain gang is simply not the same as a Monument classic, or day after day at a Grand Tour. Remember too that pros aren’t necessarily slamming back 120 g/h for every Zone 2 ride, so there is nothing magic about that number of 120 by itself.
So while higher carbohydrate intake may help training and performance, the actual number is highly individualized based on the athlete and the goal for that day. For most of us during a simple 2 h endurance ride? Most likely completely fine with no food. However:
- It’s early evening and you haven’t eaten since lunch? Then eating on the bike may be very appropriate.
- It’s the middle of summer and it’s broiling hot outside? Glycogen reliance might be higher so higher fueling may be appropriate compared to a cooler day.
- Training your gut for a hard peak race? Even if you don’t need the fuel for this particular ride, this ride might be the perfect opportunity to practice a higher than normal carbohydrate intake rate.
So the exact same ride can feature drastically different fueling plans based on immediate or long-range factors.
Summary
As a sport scientist, it’s extremely frustrating when public discourse or social media wants to reduce everything to a short soundbite with no nuance, or to a simple formula or template that works for everyone.
What is vital though, in our age of information overload, is to apply critical thinking to our training practices. Don’t just blindly follow a practice because of a single scientific paper that’s the media’s flavour of the month. Nor should you just do what you see or hear the pros are doing.
Understand the general principles at play behind the latest sport science, understand the context of how this knowledge was gained, and then decide whether to use it and figure out your own best way of applying that knowledge.
Ride fast, and have fun!
References
Burke LM, Whitfield J, Hawley JA (2025) The race within a race: Together on the marathon starting line but miles apart in the experience. Free Radical Biology and Medicine 227:367–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2024.10.277
The post Interpreting Sport Science – Don’t Go Pro appeared first on PezCycling News.
