Performance Enhancing Tip For Mountaineers

In this episode, I share an incredibly simple (but very effective) tip to help improve your performance during your training, hiking, and climbing.
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It might be basic, but you would be surprised how many mountaineers miss this! 

Episode Transcript: 

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking through an incredibly simple, but very, very, very effective tip for a mountaineer to improve their performance for their training,

[0:13] for their hiking, for their climbing, and ultimately any type of exercise they are doing. And this tip is enter your sessions with some fuel in yourself. Now, what I mean by that is please just make sure you are eating something before exercising. The amount of mountaineers that I speak to who go into their sessions and they just haven't eaten anything for hours. They go in with an empty stomach. They go in with absolutely no fuel in the tank and they expect to go out and perform during their training, during their hiking, during their climbing.

[0:48] I hear it all the time. And realistically, yes, you can get through a training session without any food in you. People do it all the time. And people get through sessions and they feel like they're having a good workout and all of that. And that's all well and good.

[1:03] But if you're wanting to perform at your best during a training session, if you're in a strength session and you want to push the weight and challenge yourself, if you're doing a cardio session and you want to get out and do the best you can do during that cardio session, if you're doing a higher intensity session, you want to push the speed and push the intensity. If you're hiking or climbing and want to really be focused and make sure you're doing what you're doing, in any of those situations, if we want to perform at our best, we want to make sure we have something in us. Because there's a big difference between just getting through things and performing at our best. And one of the most simple things you can do to flick this around is getting your pre-training and pre-exercise nutrition right. Now, this type of stuff, it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be really, really, really simple. And ideally, in the hour or two before training, before you go do your strength session, before you go do your cardio, before you go out or whatever it may be, get some carbohydrates in you. Ideally, we want to be having something carbohydrate-based, which is going to fuel our performance. Because ultimately, when we are exercising, a large part of the energy that we are producing is coming from carbohydrates. And as much as people are often told to avoid carbohydrates in day-to-day life and general life, and they sort of get demonized quite a bit. When it comes down to sports nutrition and exercise, carbs are absolutely king.

[2:28] So an hour or two before you train, try to get something in you. It doesn't have to be a huge amount. It could literally just be a piece of toast or a bagel. It could literally be a couple of pieces of fruit. It could be having a full sandwich or maybe some whatever, like anything carbohydrate, which is going to sit in your stomach relatively well is what we want to be aiming for. One to two hours before training, if you just take that simple tip without putting any more thought into it, it'll go a long way. Obviously, if we want to optimize this a little bit more, then you can get into specific ratios of how many grams of carbs I want to fuel performance and this and that. But in all honesty, for 80% of the people listening, just getting something in can make such a big difference. Now, this particular approach, eating something carbohydrate-based an hour or two before training, you know, if you're training mid-morning or lunch or afternoon or evening, this is pretty simple. You can just think ahead, you can plan out your food, make sure there's a bit of food in there and whatever may be.

[3:25] However if you are training first thing in the morning and you're just getting up and going to the gym or you're just getting up and going for a run or you're just getting up and going hiking this can obviously get a little bit more tricky because we have two or a few different factors that go into it number one a lot of people first thing in the morning just do not have an appetite and they're like oh i just cannot bear to eat something number two a lot of people like all if i'm training first thing in the morning obviously i'm not going to wake up an hour or too earlier than that just to eat because that's end up cutting into your sleep and it's not much fun.

[3:59] And then number three, a lot of people will sort of find, hey, if I wake up, I eat something and then straight away I go and exercise, you know, the food kind of sits in my stomach a little bit and it's not feeling super comfortable and that's not what we want. So ultimately when we're in a morning session, you just need to put a little bit more thought behind this. And basically you just want to think of high carbohydrates, something that's going to be quicker digesting. So something that doesn't have a huge amount of protein in it, doesn't have a huge amount of fat in it, doesn't have a huge amount of fiber in it, something that's just going to be quick and easy to digest. So this literally could be waking up and then having a banana. As much as a banana may not be quite enough carbs in the optimal sense, that may just be enough just to boost your performance or whatever it may be. It may be a case of getting up and waking up and just having a piece of white toast or half a bagel with some honey on it or something like that. Something that's very, very quick to digest that'll kind of get in. A lot of people will find, hey, if I wake up, I have that first thing. By the time I get out the door, I'm kind of ready to go. And a lot of people find that's doable if I just have something small.

[5:03] If you do try that, you're like, ah, either I just cannot bear the thought of eating, or even that is sort of sitting in my stomach and it's just a little bit of a struggle. Then the next step is sort of thinking, okay, liquid calories. How can I typically, if we're taking in liquid calories, they digest a little bit quicker, they don't sit in our stomach and it's typically good. So what you can look at here is like, all right, well, maybe I'll just have an electrolyte supplement with carbohydrates in it. First thing in the morning, you know, that may not be your usual breakfast, but if you're training first thing, the electrolyte supplement with carbs in it will be quick digesting carbs, won't sit in your stomach. And that's kind of what it's designed for. And for myself, when I'm doing my own 5 a.m. training sessions, I'll wake up and yeah, I'll have a serving of that and that will get me through. If I'm doing something a little bit longer, then I will intentionally wake up a little bit earlier, I still get a bit of toast and that, and that kind of helps me through, or whatever it is. So simple, simple, simple stuff, but it can make such a big difference.

[5:59] And I know there's just so many mountaineers out there who are just missing this. And if you are not fueling properly, and if you're not giving your body the best chance of energy and performance in your sessions, yes, you will still see some improvements, but you're leaving a lot of results on the table from just such a simple thing.

[6:16] Now, the only situation that I would sort of recommend where people may not do this, and I wouldn't even recommend it, but you can probably ignore what I'm saying, is if you're intentionally doing faster training for some of your cardio. Now, personally, for me, I'm not a big fan of faster training or chasing fat adaptation through fasted sessions. However, I know a lot of mountaineers do this. I know a lot of mountaineers really, well, may not enjoy this, but are really adamant about doing this, and that's absolutely fine. I'm not trying to change your mind. If you're doing it, you do you. That's absolutely fine.

[6:47] For the people who may be intentionally avoiding carbohydrates, if that is a situation where you're like, I'm just avoiding carbs for because I want to, or because I don't want to put on weight or whatever it may be, that may be something you want to have a think about, maybe chat with a dietician and see- how you can work around sports nutrition to kind of help you go through.

[7:08] If you're someone who's avoiding carbohydrates for a medical reason, you know, okay, maybe that's another situation as well where you may avoid this. But outside of those things, such a simple thing. Make sure you're going into your sessions with some food in your stomach, ideally carbohydrates. If you have time an hour or two before, have a decent serving, half a meal or whatever it may be. If you're just training first thing in the morning or you're just really, really rushed and you don't have a huge amount of time to kind of time out your meals, then just have something quick digesting, piece of fruit, white bread, whatever it may be. So I'm not going to say much more on the topic. You know, I do talk about this quite a bit and I've just find it's such a simple thing. And I find that every single time I talk with mountaineers who are having training sessions, they're like, oh my gosh, I'm going through, like, I'm really struggling with this session or whatever it may be. I would sort of say 50% of the time we're like, all right, well, what did you eat before the session and they're like, oh, nothing. Or I hadn't had anything to eat for like four hours. Or you know what? I just woke up and I tried to do an interval session or whatever it may be. Happens all the time. So if you're the type of person who hasn't really been thinking about your pre-training, pre-exercise nutrition, hopefully this is a little bit of a wake-up call. And I promise you, if you can put a bit of thought into this and put it into action, it can make a really dramatic difference.

[8:21] So with that being said, I think I'm going to wrap things up here. Thank you for listening. Hope it helps. Hope it gets a few people, you know, adjusting things, and I hope it can make a bit of a difference for your sessions. So thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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