You spoke. We listened.
Carbs have at all times been king in endurance athletics, and that’s extra true now than it’s ever been. Working with athletes we sponsor straight (and execs with different sponsors who nonetheless clandestinely use the FE system), we hear a LOT about carbs.
The group consists of WorldTour execs, LifeTime privateers, IRONMAN champions, Olympians – probably the most demanding group of endurance athletes you’ll be able to think about. And their high demand? Lifting the ceiling on carb consumption. 90g per hour, 120g – generally even 130g. Or extra. They wished us to develop a device that might erase carb limits.
So we did.
EFS-PRO is engineered and examined to ship 60g, 90g, and even 120g of liquid carbs in a single bottle. (Yeah, you learn that proper: 120g of CHO.) It’s just about limitless fueling, in a position to scale up as a lot as you want it to for the toughest days and the most important races. If a given day is circled in purple in your calendar, then EFS-PRO is made for it.
What the professionals stated
Right here’s a sampling of the suggestions we bought. We’ll maintain it nameless, as a result of a few of our collaborators are long-time FE fanatics with conflicting sponsor obligations to keep up. (If that’s you, don’t fear – your secret’s protected with us.)
“If it’s a extremely laborious coaching day or race, I goal 120g+ of carbs per hour.”
“I goal 120-130g per hour on huge fueling days.”
“Relying on depth, I goal 80-120g of carbs per hour.”
We additionally gleaned a vital choice: getting not less than half of these carbs from a hydration combine, which is extra handy when an athlete’s at threshold and choking down stable meals isn’t superb.
“I attempt to get about 1/3 to 1/2 of my carbs from drink combine and the remaining from gels or bars.”
“The increasingly more races I do in gravel, the more durable and more durable it’s to eat meals vs. consuming.”
“Taking in half of my carbs from combine and half from different sources could be superb.”
So for these maintaining rating, that’s triple digits of CHO, not less than half of which must be from the bottle.
Historically, that’s not possible. Bellyache metropolis, adopted by a calamitous, messy DNF. However we’re not into custom – we’re into expertise and breaking boundaries. So breaking the carb ceiling was no drawback, and the brand new EFS-PRO pushes the restrict out to 120 liquid grams per hour, leaving loads of room to complement with stable gas.
Right here’s why (and a little bit little bit of how) we did it.
What the analysis says
So after all that is the place we began. Professionals advised us what they wished, and we did the legwork to determine how one can do it. It seems that the carb craze additionally occurs to align with current analysis, which has pushed goal carb consumption ranges for endurance athletes from 30-60g per hour as much as these lofty numbers so a lot of our guinea pigs – err, skilled athletes cited.
The largest concern with huge carb hundreds is, after all, GI misery, so we created a belly-friendly, isotonically balanced resolution that may double or triple in focus with out punching you within the intestine.
A secondary (however nonetheless vital) concern? Taste. Gas does no good when you actually can’t abdomen it, and high-performance carb/electrolyte mixes must be palatable for 3+ hours or they aren’t price their salt.
In response to this and different suggestions we’ve acquired from you, we engineered a brand new electrolyte and gas system formulated for professionals – an EFS-PRO, if you’ll – that delivers enormous carbs with much less GI misery and a lightweight, unobtrusive taste. It’s additionally bought all 5 electrolytes for industry-leading, clinically studied cramp prevention, and it’s completed with…
Nothing else. A minimalistic system engineered for pure efficiency.
The last word efficiency carbohydrates
Brass tacks time. The carb combine is a 50/50 cut up of extremely branched cyclic cluster dextrin (CCD) and sucrose – all advised, it’s successfully a 6:1 ratio of glucose to fructose that unlocks each doable avenue for feeding glucose into your mobile ATP threshers.
In the case of delivering CHO, CCD is the premier type of carbs for endurance efficiency. Its distinctive molecular construction absorbs into your GI tract with out brick-in-the-belly unintended effects and your physique breaks it down simply into glucose to feed the ATP cycle. It will also be blended at excessive concentrations – as much as double – and nonetheless not blow up your intestine. It digests quicker, it’s simpler on overworked GI tracts, and it boosts uptake of different vital efficiency vitamins like electrolytes.
A lot of our testers additionally had questions on fructose, which may be sticky for train, however we unlock its potential through the use of sucrose (which accommodates one glucose and one fructose molecule).
Right here’s the extraordinarily quick model: When circumstances and administration are appropriate, fructose is an efficient method to sneak extra glucose into your system via a devoted backdoor receptor. As soon as there, your physique turns it into glucose – however provided that your system can be saturated with glucose to start with. Since each fructose you’re ingesting is paired with a glucose (sucrose = glucose + fructose), and also you’re turbo-loading glucose with CCD, then the circumstances are appropriate.
Listed below are a few of your notes on carbs:
“Personally, I’ve discovered that glucose and sucrose appear to work finest on my abdomen.”
“I’m a fan of cluster dextrin – the formulation that you’ve got in EFS-PRO is wonderful!”
“I don’t have a robust choice, so long as there’s a good mix to forestall carbohydrate fatigue within the intestine.”
Trade-leading cramp prevention
Electrolyte content material is one space the place our testers shocked us, responding with, basically, a number of shrugs. However don’t fear – that’s why we’ve bought resident sci-guy Dr. Luke Bucci!
Carbs are all the craze, for good motive, however electrolytes are vital for stopping cramps, particularly within the excessive warmth and excessive efforts of summer season A races. By together with all 5 electrolytes as an alternative of simply sodium and potassium, EFS-PRO takes benefit of each avenue for electrolyte absorption.
Whereas all 5 electrolytes are vital, we’re sliding magnesium into the highlight. Regardless that it’s actually medical-grade cramp prevention, it’s largely ignored by the endurance complement {industry} for train functions. However not by Dr. Bucci, who at all times insists that we emphasize the purpose: together with all 5 electrolytes – particularly the clinically studied magnesium – isn’t only a method to deal with cramps; it’s a method to forestall them altogether.
Right here’s a sampling of the blended bag of responses about electrolytes and cramping:
“I don’t actually know a lot about electrolytes.”
“I don’t really feel like I’ve sufficient data on electrolytes to have an opinion.”
“Electrolytes have change into probably the most forgotten conversations as carbs have come to the forefront.”
“Truthfully, this isn’t one thing I watch intently.”
“I do know once I’m bonking, however lack of electrolytes appears more durable to diagnose on any given journey.”
“In accordance with my sweat check, I goal consuming 500 – 600mg of sodium.”
“I deal with taking in 500 – 800mg of sodium per hour.”
Limitless scalability
That is what CCD unlocks. A typical serving offers 60g of carbs, so you’ll be able to take a bottle of combine, a bottle of water, and complement with Liquid Pictures or one thing like toaster pastries or peanut sweet each hour. However we didn’t cease there, as a result of lots of the athletes we work with desire a larger proportion of carbs to be from GI-friendly, simply consumed hydration combine. The magic of CCDs makes it so.
Go forward, double the focus. Every bottle can scale as much as change into a 120g warhead of superlative CHO fueling – and because it’s really easy on the stomach, there’s no must “prepare” your intestine earlier than leveling up your carb consumption.
“I like to hold between 60-100g of carbs in a single bottle for laborious coaching days.”
“I’d favor to run one bottle with all the combine and one bottle of plain water.”
“I wish to see the flexibility to absorb as much as 60g of carbs from a drink combine with much less sweetness in order that it may be blended stronger.”
Aggressively minimalist
Certainly one of our key takeaways from the responses we bought all through this course of was {that a} hydration combine ought to be easy. Carbs. Electrolytes. Carried out.
In response, we’ve labored to evolve the First Endurance system in order that performance-boosting components like nootropics (caffeine, theobromine, and many others.) may be equipped with supplemental items like PreRace or OptygenHP. That lets us maintain the hydration combine so simple as doable, sustaining an isotonic resolution and lowering the chance of excessive carbs resulting in excessive alert within the GI tract.
“For something exterior of carbs and/or electrolytes, I’d like to make use of these alone phrases exterior of a drink combine.”
“Much less is extra in a drink combine for me.”
“I’d wish to see a product with pretty easy substances.”
Palatable for hours
We designed this combine to be used in periods and races which are longer than three hours, just like the gravel epics which are starting to outline North American biking, grand tour phases, and IRONMAN occasions. As talked about above, it’s additionally designed to be blended at double focus for probably the most excessive carb targets.
Which means it may well’t be too candy, so we gave it our lightest taste but – a subtly vibrant citrus profile that doesn’t fatigue your palate after hours of use or explode with cloying sweetness when blended at larger concentrations. Like with trainers or saddles, a hydration combine’s taste is finest whenever you don’t discover it in any respect.
“I favor subtlety in each flavoring and sweetness.”
“Ideally, maintain the sweetness low in order that it may be blended at a better focus for optimum CHO content material.”
“I favor my drink combine to be flavored, however I would favor no taste over an excessive amount of taste.”
“It’s actually vital that the sweetness doesn’t go up with will increase in focus.”
You converse. We’re nonetheless listening.
Whether or not you’re a professional, a privateer, or a leisure pursuer of PRs, we’re at all times lifeless critical after we ask in your suggestions, as a result of nobody is aware of what elite athletes want greater than elite athletes themselves. Whereas engineering EFS-PRO, we mixed that suggestions with scientific research on endurance efficiency. That is the consequence.
And it doesn’t finish now. Hold sending us suggestions, maintain emailing your feedback, maintain telling us what we’re doing proper – and, extra importantly – the place we are able to enhance to higher help your efforts.
Collectively, we’re making one of the best endurance vitamin on the earth.
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