[quote author="speedfreak1" date="1267025901"]
I tend to drop about 1-1.5kgs in the 3 days pre-comp by taking out wholewheat and veg/fruit. I also feel much less bloated, and have no “toilet” issues!
That’s curious. I used to carb-load the 2 days before a meet (flour-based foods and sweet stuff), and indeed I had a lot of energy during the meet days (60/100m, long and triple jump + rarely shot put, 4×100 and 200m). However something didn’t feel right, and I couldn’t point my finger on it, until I found out the increase of the concentration of carbs within the muscle cells lead to and increase in water uptake. That explained the restriction of freedom of movement (for lack of better words) that I felt.
What is interesting is that quickly digested foods cause a higher volume of glucose to enter the bloodstream faster, which leads to a higher insulin spike. I’d think the higher insulin spikes combined with the higher availability of sugar in the blood would cause the muscles to suck all of that sugar up faster, causing ever more bloat.
Of course, if the overall intake of food significantly drops during those 2 days, then most likely less carbs would be able to remain within the cells, and would be used for energy instead.
As far as the original topic of the thread goes, almost anything is game on meet day 🙂
However if the meet is going to be long, I like to ingest some amount of fats after breakfast and lunch in an attempt to avoid too sudden drops of energy levels that usually happen to me when I eat high GI carbs.[/quote]
I agree with you in that i would think a slightly lower carbohydrate intake in the few days leading up to a meet would be good. Especially in the speed / power events where glycogen stores are not going to be a limiting factor on performance as much as the endurance events. Regarding the wholemeal versus white forms of carbs i dont know which would cause the greatest water retention. It may well be as simple as which has the highest carbohydrate content rather than the actual GI effect that determines water storage.
Back to the question at hand, on meet day i think the most important area is recovery post race. Especially if you are doing multiple events. This is often most easily achieved when using recovery based products, powders you mix with water are a great way to get the fast acting sugar you need and as a bonus also aid in hydration.