Why You Should Add Carbs Before Short Workouts (After the Warm-Up)
20-40g of carbs after your warm-up, even for 200s
David Roche from The Feed <[email protected]>
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TheFeed promotes taking carbs before short workouts, specifically 20g to 40g right after warming up, as a performance driver and aid to recovery. The campaign emphasizes timing, recommending consumption immediately before starting exercise to avoid a sugar crash. It challenges conventional wisdom that fuel is unnecessary for short workouts.
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Matt here. Last week, David Roche (coach, podcaster, running legend) sent an email about taking carbs before short workouts. This isn't just an email, it's a shift in how most people think about fueling, and I'm here for it. It also happens to be exactly what I've been doing for the past year, quietly, against conventional wisdom. So against conventional wisdom, I've kept my mouth shut about it. Until now. Nothing like a running legend saying it first so I don't have to be the weird one.
I asked David if I could share his email, and it's below. The idea: 20g to 40g of carbs right before your workout is a serious performance driver, during the session, and sets up your recovery. Two things before you read it.
1. It's all about timing. Not 15 minutes before. Right when you start. Don't take a gel and then wander off to stretch. Stretch, warm up, then take your gel and go. I want your heart rate climbing right after the carbs go in. Gel, then work, no gap. That's how you skip the sugar crash.
2. Why is this novel? Just yesterday I watched a so-called expert say "it's a short workout, you don't need any fuel." The logic: you've got hundreds of grams of glycogen in the tank, so you're covered. Not wrong, but having gas in the tank isn't the same as having your foot on the pedal. It's blood glucose you want pumping, and that's exactly what David's showing (and what I feel every single time I do this).
TLDR: Take a gel right before your short workout. Boost blood glucose. Crush your workout.
Over to you, David.
In Boulder, the Niwot High School track is one of those "Only In Boulder" places. You go to this beautiful track with a mountain backdrop, and you'll usually see the marching band practicing and various classes doing slow-walking laps (maybe those are gym classes? It's a mystery!). And almost every day of the week, you'll see something else... anywhere from a couple to 15+ of the best runners in the world.
We're talking Olympians and national champions (of many different countries!) and NCAA winners and so much more. Could you imagine the same thing in basketball? LeBron and Steph Curry playing 1-on-1 at your local high school? Even after all of this time, I still have to remind myself not to ask for autographs out there.
In addition to the full fanboy experience, I try to be the Jane Goodall of track and field. I observe all of their habits. I chat with the athletes and coaches. I monitor the porta potty stops (not actually, but I bet I had you there for a second).
One of those Boulder track days was when I first understood the power of bicarb. Everyone was doing it; no one was talking about it publicly. So we tried to bring those track conversations into the public light.
And when I was Goodall'ing for the first time a few years ago, I noticed something else: many of the athletes were taking a gel between their warm-up and the workout. Sometimes the workouts were big, boss sessions that included an hour or more of intensity. But other times, the athletes were just doing some 200s before big races in Europe.
The gel intake for short sessions was SO FASCINATING. Longer distance racing has always talked about a pre-event gel. The gels before short workouts that took a few minutes were less commonly talked about, though.
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