Abstract

Classic studies conducted in the 1920s and 1930s established that the consumption of a high carbohydrate (CHO) diet before exercise and the ingestion of glucose during exercise delayed the onset of fatigue, in part by preventing the development of hypoglycaemia. For the next 30 to 40 years, however, interest in CHO ingestion during exercise waned. Indeed, it was not until the reintroduction of the muscle biopsy technique into exercise physiology in the 1960s that a series of studies on CHO utilisation during exercise appeared. Investigations by Scandinavian physiologists showed that muscle glycogen depletion during prolonged exercise coincided with the development of fatigue. Despite this finding, attempts to delay fatigue during prolonged exercise focused principally on techniques that would increase muscle glycogen storage before exercise. The possibility that CHO ingestion during exercise might also delay the development of muscle glycogen depletion and hence, at least potentially, fatigue, was not extensively investigated. This, in part, can be explained by the popular belief that water replacement to prevent dehydration and hyperthermia was of greater importance than CHO replacement during prolonged exercise. Verf.-Referat