[ 🍽️ ] How Should You Fuel Between Throwdown Events?
[ 🍽️ ] How Should You Fuel Between Throwdown Events?
Nutrition strategies for local CrossFit competitions
On (most) Mondays, we revisit one of the listener questions we’ve answered in a previous episode. It’s been edited for clarity & brevity here.Question
from Donald:
I've signed up for a local competition in September. It includes three workouts, two of which are high-intensity cardio chippers with time caps of 10, 10, and 12 minutes.
What are the best nutrition tips for refueling between events, and what should I eat?
Answer
BEN: The answer is that you don't need to fuel a lot.
You just need to get in the minimal amount of calories to sustain activity, which isn't going to be that many.
Assuming you have three events with an hour and a half between each, you're looking at a three to four-and-a-half hour window. It's like having lunch and dinner and you’re doing these workouts between those meals.
You don't need a lot of extra calories or fuel for three 10-minute workouts. You can do a little, though. The most important thing is to avoid anything that disrupts your stomach or digestion, so rule number one is to stick to something you know won’t cause any issues.
That's why most athletes go for liquids like Gatorade with an LMNT pack. Most people think Gatorade contains electrolytes — it doesn't. It's a drink that provides carbs and hydration, and if you add an LMNT pack, you're getting the complete package.
This is a great way to keep some calories coming in.
If you have one and a half or maybe two of the small bottles — or one of the bigger ones — during that period, you'll at least avoid bonking.
From there, you could consider having something like a Fuel for Fire pack between each event, which would give you more carbs and protein.
PATRICK: I was just thinking the same thing.
BEN: Yeah. Fuel for Fire is about 100 to 110 calories. You don't need much more than that. In a 10-minute event, you're probably burning about that much.
Here's how I'd approach the day:
Have a good, typical meal two and a half hours before your first event. Then, between events, use Gatorade, LMNT, and Fuel for Fire.
After that, you have your last event.
So you're really just fueling for events two and three. If they're less than an hour and a half apart, you don't need to fuel much in between. You just don't need a ton of extra stuff.
This is very different from something like the CrossFit Games, which last about 12 hours across four days and have events that could last up to three and a half hours each. In that case, the nutrition game is almost a sport unto itself — an event you need to train for.
But for something like what Don will do, keep it simple, don’t do anything new or untested, and focus on the events more than what you eat between them.
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