The 3 Rules of Gut Training
Because your gut deserves interval training too
David Roche from The Feed <[email protected]>
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TheFeed promotes gut training for athletes, specifically highlighting the importance of adapting to high-carb fueling. The brand shares personal anecdotes and research findings to support its approach. It emphasizes the potential for improved performance through efficient gut training and proper fueling techniques.
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So many athletes message me with the same lament: “I just can’t do high carb fueling without gut issues.”
I empathize with that feeling. In 2023, I raced the Canyons 100k, my first race over 50k (and my first race fully committing to high carb fueling). At mile 42, a gel came back up as soon as it went in, and my body proceeded to release the WRATH ON THE DEMONS BELOW on an innocent tree. The tree is still in therapy, and I uplift its mental health journey. Get the help you deserve, king!
Coming out of that race, I realized that the high-carb revolution needed to be paired with a revolution in how we think about gut training. For most people, it probably doesn’t feel natural to consume 75-120+ grams of carbs per hour, along with all of the hydration and electrolytes needed to ride the modern performance wave.
But what high-performance activity feels natural at first? Running definitely doesn't! If I took my first 10 or 100 runs as an indication of how the next 5,000 would go, I would have written myself off before I even got started.
The limited research provided a couple of clues. Gut transporters could get more efficient with specific carb ratios over short-term interventions, indicating that it was important to practice with what you’d use on race day. I think the biggest advantage for modern athletes is that our fueling tech is leaps and bounds better than what existed even 5 years ago.
In addition, the feeling of “bloat” from consuming a lot of gels and liquids could go down substantially in just a week or two, leading to better performance too. The researchers called the phenomenon "more cushion for the pushin.”
Those were the hints for an experiment that I conducted over the next year, culminating in being able to consume 150 grams of carbs and 1 liter of fluid per hour for the first 10 hours of a 100 miler at high altitude. Thank you, thank you, I'll hold for applause while we remove the gender-neutral panties from the stage.
(For me, the best combination is Science in Sport Beta Fuel gels, Precision 100 mg caffeine gels, and Skratch hydration.)
Simply put: everyone needs to do gut training. The big realization I had personally, then later in coaching, is that the gut needs to be pushed in the same way we push our legs and lungs. It’s not as simple as just practicing a few times like you will on race day. No one would think they can run a fast marathon on a few marathon-paced runs and nothing else. But that’s how most athletes approach gut training!
Instead, we need to go beyond the demands of race day. That leads to the three rules for gut training.
Rule One: Do your race day fueling on every long run.
Practice it, make it second nature. I personally like athletes to have a gel on a set time structure (i.e. every 20 minutes, every 30 minutes). That will optimize gut transporters and get you 50% of the way there. That’s where lots of athletes stop, and it introduces a problem. Training is almost never as stressful as racing, so what seems like it works on a long run might result in traumatizing trees when the effort is longer or harder.
Note: If taking in any gels is challenging for you, practice by taking one at 20-30 minutes after the start of every run you can (that's also a good rule for athletes with eating disorder history or REDs).
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