Norwegian Training DNA: What We Can Learn

Björn: Hey, this is Björn. Just a quick note before we start — this episode is an AI-generated English version of our original German Afasteryou podcast. The voices you hear are cloned with AI. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports and training. Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka and Niclas Ranker give you valuable tips and insights to help you take your performance to the next level. So, good morning, a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast. Today only with me, Björn Kafka, because Niclas is on a photoshoot. And we have a guest, not from Germany, as you can hear. It's Raúl Celdrán from Spain. I hope I pronounced your name right. Yeah, somehow. And I've known him for quite some time. He works for Caja Rural as a nutritionist, I think, and as a coach for the Climatizer mountain bike team. He also works with Javier Sola, with the company Nature Training System, is that right?

Niclas: Yeah, I mean, that's my company, Javier has his own company, but together we have an academy for coaches.

Björn: Yeah, so people can get to know you a bit better, what's your background?

Niclas: My background was maybe a bit different than you might expect. I studied pharmacy for a very, very long time. I finished my studies in 2000, so it's been a long time. And then, maybe 15 years ago, because of personal transformation, I started using sports a lot, and the bike, and I had to prepare for a very long Gran Fondo in Spain called Quebrantahuesos. And because I was working as a pharmacist and a chemist, I had very little time to train. Only one hour a day and a lot of time on Sunday. And I started studying. There has to be a way to increase the performance or the results I get from very little time. So I started studying, studying, studying, studying, and then I did many courses. Eventually, in 2018, I did a Master's Degree. Master's in High Performance for Endurance Athletes, which changed my life, at the University of Murcia. And then everything came on top of that. I started coaching some guys. I also did a Master's in 2004 about nutrition. Crazy. Some business of nutrition for, you know, weight-loss diets for women. And through that, studying and talking with people like you, I met a lot of people. I worked a lot and studied a lot. I worked with friends and so on. And here I am.

Björn: I don't know how. It's nice. Raúl and I work together a bit with team Climatizer. I coach one of the riders, Marc Stutzmann. We also have our friend Javier Sola, well, he's more of a friend of yours. I know him a bit from work, from UAE. And yeah, today we actually want to talk about nutrition, because I think that's one of your specialties. And it's sometimes complicated for the riders to eat correctly. It should be clear, but they always make a few mistakes and we want to shed some light on that. Maybe the first question is already super broad, so try to keep it short. If you can break it down: what are the basic nutrition principles you recommend for endurance athletes during training days and also compared to race day? What should someone eat on a normal day, a race day, even a recovery day, and what during the race?

Niclas: It really depends on the intensity and the goal of the workouts. The athlete has to remember that what you eat on the bike is even more important than what you ate in the past, I don't know, 24, 36 hours. And then, what's the goal of your next workout? Because if I do a workout today, medium intensity, tempo, I have to eat, I don't know, 80 grams per hour or whatever. The most important thing is to think about what I have to do tomorrow. Is it a recovery day? Is it high intensity? Is it a race? Maybe. So you have to think about what you ate yesterday. What's the goal for today's workout? And maybe the most important, or a very important thing, is what you'll do tomorrow or the day after. And based on that, just take different approaches.

Björn: Before we started filming, you told me that for many athletes, when you track their nutrition, the protein intake is pretty good. The fat is sometimes a bit too high. And many athletes still have problems eating carbs. Especially not on the bike, but before and after the bike. So they skip the carbs. What's your opinion on that?

Niclas: Yeah, that's right Björn. Until you tell them the importance or what they have to eat, what I usually find, also with professional riders, is that the proteins, sorry to correct you, but sometimes they eat a lot of protein, more than what for me is 2 grams per kilo per day. If you don't monitor the fat, it can be very low. Or very high, because you get a lot of pasta. In Spain we use olive oil. And it's very good and very healthy, but it's a fat. Yeah, so if you don't count the olive oil, one gram of fat is 9 kilocalories. If you don't count the olive oil, you can use 50 grams or 100 grams per day, which is almost 1000 kilocalories. Yeah, and that's not necessary. Probably until a nutritionist starts working with an athlete, many times they don't realize how important it is to get the macros right and the timing of the macros right. Not only on the bike, but also before and after.

Björn: Yeah, and there's this nice study. I talked about it a few weeks ago on another podcast. It's a Spanish study. I think it's from 2023. I have to look up who did it. And they did a nice study about the carbohydrate nutrition timing after training. And so they had the same amount of carbs in 24 hours. But one group took most of the carbs right after training. And the other group just spread it out a bit. So they had a delayed effect. And so the next day's training, even though they took the same amount of carbs, the group that ate the carbs directly after training performed way better. So skipping carbs after training, yeah, you'll mess up the training the next day. So keep that in mind. I think this is a very good study. I will link it in the show notes. I really like the study.

Niclas: Yeah, they have to think that the three, four hours after a workout or a race are probably the most important hours to take in the carbs, because, I don't know, I don't want to use very technical words, but the legs are open or the muscles in the legs are open and you can put a lot of glycogen in during these

Björn: first two to four or five hours. How do you observe nutrition during the season? I mean, you don't always eat a lot of carbs, sometimes you have an off-season, sometimes you only have base training. Are there differences in nutrition, also regarding losing weight and so on?

Niclas: Not only losing weight, but also gaining weight. I work with very small climbers under 55 kilos or so. During the base period, the most important thing is probably weight management. So if an athlete has to lose weight during these three, four months, that's the best time, or a better time, to lose weight or gain weight. Because if you grow during the race period, you can't mess around with the nutrition. So for the base period, weight management is probably the most important. Then in the build period, if we call it that, or whatever, yeah, probably good training and practicing the race strategies for carbs is probably the best. That's the most important thing. And then, during the race phase, performance is the most important thing for nutrition. I would name three parts. Weight management in the first part. Practicing and training the gut and the stomach in the build. And performance in the race phase. That's how we separate it.

Björn: If you go to the racing or training the gut, we now have actually a pretty good time and I think a lot of performance can be explained by the high carbohydrate intake. If I do simulations, I already can see if someone is not taking carbs. When I was racing, like 25 or even 30 years ago. We barely ate. I mean, we did six-hour rides and you ate one apple and that was enough. I mean, that was totally crazy. And today we often hear about athletes consuming 120 grams, even 150 grams. And now in Kona it was 200 grams in a triathlon race. How realistic is it actually to handle that intake?

Niclas: First I want to explain that. The first people I think who increased from 90 to 120 were Aitor Viribay and Aritz Urdampilleta, the two Basques. Viribay was working with INEOS until a few months ago and they did two studies with runners. They made three groups, 60 grams per hour, 90 grams per hour and 120 grams per hour, during a trail marathon, that was, I don't know, 45 or 50 kilometers, yeah, on a circuit. They were always passing through the feed stations and had a lot to eat. And what they found was that the more carbs they ate, the blood test for the next day had fewer markers of inflammation and pain. But the problem was that going from 90 grams to 120 grams per hour brought a lot of GI issues and vomiting or diarrhea. I don't remember the exact number, but a high percentage of people from the 120 grams per hour group had to stop the race because of GI problems. They asked themselves, what happens if we can train the gut, just eat more in different phases, with food, sometimes with gels or maltodextrin or whatever. What happens if we can train it the same way we train in the race or on the bike, training the stomach. And they developed it. Jeukendrup was already doing that back in 2017. But probably Urdampilleta and Viribay started. We do the basics or the gut training, increase the stomach volume, increase the amount of food, going beyond what you eat after training, and then we put a lot of glucose, or a mix of glucose and fructose, in during training. And so afterwards they did the same experiment. And all the people with 120 grams per hour, that was, I think this is a very interesting study. And with this, I think, everyone started doing 120 grams per hour.

Björn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, I mean, when I calculate nutrition, the biggest problem for me is the osmolarity, yeah, and the amount of water, so it stays isotonic and not in another way. So how does that actually work? Or is there really a fixed level? I mean, we have two or maybe three studies, yeah, we have the one from Jürgen Drug, the old one with 90 grams, Powerglow with 120 grams. But is there actually a limit? Can we really absorb 200 grams? And how do we handle the osmolarity? I mean, drinking two liters of water might not be the best solution.

Niclas: To start, I have to first explain what osmolarity is. Yeah, please. Because osmolarity is the number of particles you have in the solution. You put 10 things, 10 molecules of glucose per liter. That little thing will be 10 molecules per liter. But when you put molecules of salt, molecules of, I don't know, orange juice, they're particles, you add ingredients to change the taste, you add a corrector for the acidity, you start putting many things into the water that increase the osmolarity a lot. Sorry for the nutrition brands, but when you start putting a lot of things into the liquid, the osmolarity increases because it's particles in a liquid, and that's when you start having problems. I try to do very, very, when I do like a solution for drinking during the bike, try to keep it very simple with maltodextrin or a mix of glucose, which is just a few particles, a mix of fructose, or fructose, and just salt. Don't add ingredients, no colors, nothing, because the osmolarity increases and then it's when the stomach and the gastrointestinal tract don't want it. Many things just come in and push water out. Sorry for taking so long on the question.

Björn: No, absolutely right. That's more or less often my problem, that I just use words I naturally know. But the listeners usually don't. So a very good explanation.

Niclas: Thanks. So if you keep the solution as simple as possible, I don't really know the exact number, but with some of the athletes I work with, they can handle 180 grams per hour. Big guys, yeah, big guys, 80 kilos. Also very small guys of 60 or 160 can handle 120 or 150. With low-osmolarity solutions. I think the simpler the solution, the more options there are. I mean, fewer chances of getting GI issues.

Björn: Yeah, I think we'll put it online soon. I programmed myself a nutrition calculator, so a drink with maltodextrin. There's another type of malto, with higher and lower osmolarity, and some salt and fructose. It's a nice app for my phone, but I think we'll put it online soon. If someone wants to mix their own drinks, you just have to buy a little maltodextrin.

Niclas: Yeah, we have to apologize to the nutrition brands. But the gels and the solutions that are already manufactured are very easy to use for the race. But you can use the brands' solutions in your own correct mix for training. That's something logical.

Björn: If we talk a bit more about gut training, when we talk about high nutrition, how do you build that?

Niclas: What's your plan?

Björn: What's your way of training the gut? I mean, starting with 120 grams or 150 grams is maybe not the best solution.

Niclas: I divide it myself, I learned this from Aritz Urdampilleta, into three phases. And this has to be done over three to six months, so very stable. The first thing is to increase the stomach volume. Yeah, so maybe with water or even with food. Yeah, the second step will be to increase the gastric emptying. Yeah, you know that the speed at which the stomach empties, that speed increases. And then the third part will be, this is a hypothesis, because it hasn't been tested yet. I think, or we think, that the more glucose, fructose or maltose you put into your gut system, the transporters of GLUT5 or SGLT1 can increase and you can increase the variety. That's a hypothesis, because it hasn't been done, but I divide it into these three steps first. Increase the stomach, then it gets better with the emptying of the stomach, and then the transporters increase. When you do this, probably everything happens at the same time. To be more educational, I do it in three steps. First with food and then with the solutions.

Björn: Okay, the volume at the beginning is pretty clear. But in the second and third step, if we can go a bit more into the details, how do you do it? The faster absorption, for example.

Niclas: I mean, something very, sorry for the word, and very, very quick. Eat a lot. Eat your, I don't know, your lentils or your anything and then go training, which is something that we say you don't have to do that, but for emptying or helping the stomach empty quicker, you have to train. Just eat and then go out. Okay. Instead, the speed, the intensity and the number of meals increase.

Björn: I mean, when you eat a lot, are you recommending high fiber and then going out and training?

Niclas: Yeah, yeah, that means maybe... It can be horrible. Yeah, I mean, that's why I say this process has to take three to six months. You can't fill yourself with two apples, lots of berries, lentils and meat, and everything. Yeah, you feel like that, even drink wine or whatever, and then you go out. No, I mean, it's a couple apples and a banana, maybe some bread or something, and you go out and then constantly

Björn: Okay, I understand.

Niclas: Yeah, little by little, do two such workouts per week and then you can increase. You train, you don't start doing FTP or critical power intervals on day one, probably. It will take three months, four months.

Björn: And when do you start with, it's like the third phase, when you start increasing the malt, fructose and so on. Okay, I understand. That's the volume, then the faster emptying, and then the higher fructose and glucose?

Niclas: Yeah, you can probably do it in any way, but for me, in my experience, it's better and it works, yeah, it really works. And for the glucose and malto I'll add five, I mean, when an athlete tolerates 90 grams per hour well, without GI issues or anything at medium intensity, then I'll add 5 grams more on the next workout. The next workout, 5 grams more. Sometimes you need 2 or 3 workouts at 100 grams. to take a step forward and then up to 120 it's probably fine, but if they're a big athlete, we stay there. So this process can take five, six months, sometimes three, but it's a stable and boring process.

Björn: Okay, I understand. Yeah, like I said, we're at a very lucky point in time that we have the knowledge to eat more and more. And I think this has also changed the perspective on training. When I look, I mean, we all talk, or I mean, not we, but there was a big hype about polarized training, which I think has its place, especially in the development of young riders. But when you look at pro-level riders, they actually stay in the tempo zone most of the time because of the racing. For training, so if you work with an unlimited amateur, maybe sometimes with a high carbohydrate intake, you can even ride a bit harder. Maybe with tempo and eat a lot. What do you think about that?

Niclas: If I use your platform, like INSCYD, you can see that probably the highest amount of carbs you've burned is when you ride at tempo and sweet spot, because, I mean, probably at FTP or critical power you ride higher, but you can't sustain one hour, so at FTP, that's a different discussion. But you can spend a lot of time in tempo or sweet spot, especially with high-performance athletes. So in these workouts with a lot of tempo or sweet spot, in my opinion the highest amount, except in the race, you can match. I would say if you don't want to do more than one and a half hour workouts, you don't really need to do 90 or 120. But it depends on which races or which Gran Fondos you'll do. You have to work on it or not. If you want to do a 200 kilometer Gran Fondo in June, then you can get at least 90 grams from food, which is sometimes hard for amateurs.

Björn: Yeah, absolutely. A few weeks ago we had a Coaches Corner, that's a very nice coaches meeting here in Munich. And there were some people from Red Bull and some professors. And Dan Lorang was also there. And so they had a very nice study about training intensity. And they did a meta-study about it. And so they showed more or less that pro riders mostly train, or mostly spend time in tempo training. And due to the races, yeah, and they are the fittest on Earth. And if you talk to, for example, to a continental rider, they usually say, you know, the first 120 kilometers or 150, I can stay with these guys. And then I got dropped, which is more or less due to the race lengths they usually do, because the continental riders are usually not doing that many kilometers in a race. And the amount of racing days is also something that is... And when I look at the data from the Tour de France or some stage races, I always see Cape Epic. And you think, oh no, it's actually a very long tempo race, with a bit of intensity here and there. And in the last two or three days, the race ends are no longer super hard. So it's really like getting energy into the system. And whoever gets the most into the system will maybe be the best.

Niclas: And I would say I find, I mean, you'll find this too, that mountain biking, the marathon, the mountain bike is just the opposite of the road race, because the intensity, the high intensity, is right at the start. When the race starts, it's very, very fast, VO2max, and then a lot of tempo. And road races are usually just the opposite, the slow pace or medium pace is at the beginning, and very fast is right at the end.

Björn: Perfect. Very practical. What do you recommend if you do a light training, for example two hours, a hard training, two hours, or a race, before and after the training, if you can build three scenarios?

Niclas: I mean, before doing two hours at low intensity, you don't have to eat anything other than healthy vegetables, or maybe a bit of bread or rice. Normal, maybe 50, I would think, let me think, in a 70 kilo man, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Probably with 50 grams of carbs from vegetables or bread or, yeah, some meat or whatever, yeah, that will be enough for a high intensity, even with amateurs, when they're not pro riders. In some cases I do training while fasting, because you can use a low intensity, that's no problem. With a medium intensity of two hour rides I would say, increase the carbs a bit more, maybe 100 grams of carbs. Medium dish of rice with vegetables, meat or fish. During the ride I will follow the Asker Jeukendrup guidelines for two hours rides. It's gonna be 50, 60, depends. And for high intensity I'll prepare it very well. At least between 2 and 3 grams per kilo for carbs. So for a 70 kilo man it'll be around 200 grams of carbs, three hours before, so you have to go out with a very empty stomach. But like I said, not only the previous meal, but you have to think about last night. Yeah, of course. And then during the intensity I go for 90 grams per hour. for two hours, if it's intensity, and then if it's longer, three or four hours, then if you've trained the gut well and aim for 100 or 120. And then, like I said, when you stop and come home, it's important to think about what you'll do tomorrow. Because the fueling for tomorrow's workout begins right after today's training. I don't know if I said that clearly enough.

Björn: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, when you come home and you've done a hard race and you also have an intense session the next day, maybe not eat a high amount of fiber, yeah, so mostly you should eat something.

Niclas: Sorry, I forget, for a high intensity workout I take the fiber away from the previous meal.

Björn: Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, so something that really runs super fast into your system. Yeah, that's it mostly. Okay, so you are also a trained pharmacist and now let's talk a little bit about supplements because everyone is going crazy about that. My personal, I mean like there are some things that really work but I think we both agree that 99% is really work and then you can put in some supplements. Are there some supplements that you say are essential for athletes that you really can use?

Niclas: I always follow the guidelines of the Australian Institute of Sport. They have a list of A, B, C, D supplements. The supplements on the A list work, they've been studied. They're 100% safe and work. On this list are caffeine, beta-alanine, creatine. I mean, all carbohydrates, proteins and so on. So 100% use them. Especially caffeine. I think it's maybe an underestimated supplement, especially for races, for long races and for long workouts, where the fatigue comes in and you'll get fatigue later with caffeine. Probably creatine. You know, there are new studies with older people. I give it to my mother. She's almost 80 years old. And creatine is not only good for the muscles, because you can increase the amount of creatine and phosphocreatine and so on. Also for the brain, the memory increases and so on. And besides these three that are 100%, I would recommend it. I have a double vision, because when I ask an athlete how many supplements he takes, whether he takes glycine, BCAAs, colostrum, magnesium, zinc, selenium, etc., yeah, we'll do nutrition well, do training well, do sleep well, and then we'll start. But if they're very intense, if the supplements aren't harmful, I'll probably prescribe everything, knowing that they won't do anything beyond the placebo effect. Yeah, but in my conscience I have to explain to the athlete that only a few supplements really work legally. I don't know how you see this.

Björn: I think we're more or less on the same page. The things you mentioned from the Australian Institute of Sport, we all know they work. I think beetroot or nitric oxide has its place. I love using it when it's colder. When it's hot, athletes actually have more problems, because the vessels are already wide. Especially for runners it's terrible, because you get a lot of blood in the legs. When it's colder, I really like working with it. Yeah, that's it more or less. And I think we now have, or we still have, a big crisis around bicarbonate.

Niclas: Yeah, I mean, I really like bicarbonate, but there's a big problem with bicarbonate. I mean, two problems, I would say. First, that it doesn't sit well on the stomach. Yeah, you can have big problems. There are some formulas, which are in the Spanish brand, I wouldn't say the name, but they put the bicarbonate with malt and fructose mix, which is really good and it sets very well on the stomach. Bicarbonate is good, yeah, but... But for multi-stage races, if the athlete doesn't tell me he uses bicarbonate every day, he could have used 4, 5 or 6 kilos per week. And I ask myself, what the hell did you do, because we did all the calories. All the calories out, all the calories in. No, I did bicarbonate every day. But I mean, the amount of sodium that you put in in your system is five or six or seven times more than you normally do. So the liquid retention, it will increase. And you take the skin folds during the multi-stage race. It keeps the same, but the weight goes up, with men sometimes 5 kilos in a 65-kilo man, and in a week. And until I discovered that, well, when you take bicarbonate daily for multi-stage, you have to remove a lot of salty products, every electrolyte. You have to remember that the gels, most of the gels, have 200 milligrams, 250 milligrams sodium. All the meat, everything they have. So how do you remove the sodium from the diet? Because what I've decided is to only use bicarbonate on one or two days. Especially on days when they have to do a lot of intensity or maybe climb at the end. But not every day, because of this sodium and liquid retention problem.

Björn: Yeah, we have the same problem and sometimes you really see it in the riders' feet. In stage races I only recommended it on special stages, and it's the same as you, to get the salt out. But it's actually very hard. Very hard, yeah. It's really hard, because everything also doesn't smell so good, especially when you do a race in hot conditions. So it's not really nice. But yeah, what do you think about it in the training phase? Sorry? What do you think about bicarbonate and training?

Niclas: We do that sometimes. I don't know exactly how the performance increases. But sometimes, because all the guys work with another team and they gave us bottles with bicarbonate, I need it in the third hour. Yeah, but with, I don't know, two or three grams of bicarbonate, that's not a sufficient dose for, yeah. With this product from the Spanish brand, that mixes malt and fructose, I'll try, because honestly, with the sufficient amount for the ergogenic aid, I haven't tried yet, but I will do it. I don't know what happened. If you are 70 kilos, I mean like you, this is like 20 something or 30 grams, yeah? So the stomach can moan, you know what I mean?

Björn: Yeah, absolutely. So let's go a bit deeper. We already talked about creatine and bicarbonate. Beta-alanine, I think it's an old supplement. I wasn't a big fan of it. Actually for a year or some years I was a big fan of it. And then I was like, ah, maybe we blunt or we more or less limit some adaptations, but now I actually reconsider and see, okay, if we really take it also in training, we actually maybe have better adaptations. There are not really good studies about that for a long time now, especially long-term adaptations. But I think in the book from Rønnestad. They also say that maybe in the long term it can lead to better changes if you also train with beta-alanine.

Niclas: You can probably do a few more repetitions with a short recovery. Yeah, beta-alanine, the thing is, it's cheap and there's no harm. Except for the tingling in the arms and the lips. It's cheap and it does no harm. I mean, I'm happy with the use of beta-alanine throughout the whole season, except for one or two months.

Björn: Now we come to another supplement and this will be the last one. That's ketone esters. There was a big hype about it. They even used it in racing and then they found out that we maybe destroy our glycolytic power. But now it's more or less like that. You also see it in the racing style. Today it's a very aggressive style. In the last few years, when Sky actually started, it was really tempo. But there are still teams using it, more or less for recovery or for high-altitude training. It's super expensive. What's your take on that?

Niclas: What you're saying about glycolytic power is, I think, the most important thing, because what I've found is that it makes a lot of athletes with ketones slower. They can sprint or be hard, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 40 seconds. They might be able to write longer at an easy pulse. Maybe, we don't really know. But is that helpful in today's racing where the intensity is very high all the time? What I do, when an athlete wants to take ketones, I don't say no, but I'll explain it. I mean, you're slow, it can make you slow, so it can reduce your glycolytic power. If you've used it, maybe for recovery, there are some studies saying that EPO is increased by taking it. Well, we don't really know. Some studies for recovery are better, but you have to take it away from the carbohydrate intake. The logistics and the price are so high that I don't usually recommend it. Some athletes use it and I say, okay, but in the second edition, like I said, you can increase your glycolytic, that's not good for races.

Björn: When we talk about, for example, VLamax, when you separate your power into three parts, the aerobic and maybe the glycolytic power, and then some phosphate. If you have around 0.6 VLamax, you can say that you maybe have a sprint power, or the meaning is like 400 to 600 watts, depending on body weight. And if you reduce it with ketones in a race, and you're maybe already glycogen-depleted, you can just lose 200 watts. And it's really interesting to see that the riders get very slow. I mean, like the first year. When they were more or less available for purchase, some riders used it in the Cape Epic, and we thought, okay, why not try it, but they really had a hard time accelerating. They said, I can ride all day and then, after the second day, everyone said, okay, we'll skip this, because we can't push anymore. And I think recovery and even maybe this can have a place for a pro rider, but it's so expensive.

Niclas: I'll add something for amateurs with overweight. If you're an amateur and you have weight problems and you can train very little, then you don't need to eat ketones. If he has the needs, he can reduce the amount of food he needs. For amateurs who are losing weight in a certain period, it could have its place, but it's so expensive. Keto diet for a few months and lose your 10 kilos and that, but yeah, I totally agree with you, it increases the glycolytic power, so for races that has nothing to do with it.

Björn: Yeah, so that's more or less all the questions I had, but the last thing, yeah, especially, I also work with many young racers in development teams. If you're a young rider and you're listening to the podcast, what's your take on nutrition? What can you say as a hint, what to do and what not to do?

Niclas: The first thing is, and if you let me, I'll forget something I'll tell you later. The first thing is not to be too focused on weight, because the young people, they've heard that they have 6 watts per kilo and they do the calculations. If I have 60 kilos and I push 350 in 20 minutes, then that's 5.8 or whatever. So if I lose 1.5 kilos with the 350, then that'll be 6 watts per kilo. Many young people focus on the weight and start eating less. They don't eat during the workout, they don't do strength training. And the first thing is not to focus on weight, because weight is only important to climb, long climbs. Yeah, very long climbs. And if you're very, very small, you have to focus on gaining weight, gaining muscle, because when you're on the flat, at very high speed, the more weight you have, the better you'll be. So you have to find the balance with weight, since the perfect weight doesn't exist. You have a range of 3-5 kilos. During the season you can put on a few kilos. Right before an important climb you have to be very lean, but don't focus on a number. Yeah? Yeah. And eat your carbs. Eat your carbs. Eat your carbs. And carb training. Eat healthy. Lots of fruits, lots of vegetables. Where all the vitamins come from. Also complex carbs, eat lots of carbs, bananas, fresh ingredients. Eat lots of healthy stuff, whatever's healthy. And yeah, eat your carbs and don't focus too much on weight.

Björn: Absolutely, yeah, that's a big problem. I think today with the development teams, I think it's getting better. Some years it was really terrible, because even the nutritionists in some teams really focused on weight with very young riders, around 17, 18, 19 years old. And what I saw was that there were some talents, but most of them lost their glycolytic power and developed VO2max. Most of them actually stopped.

Niclas: Yeah, yeah, because of nutrition. The role of nutrition for the kids is very, very... What I forgot to tell you, because we left it on a side, is that I calculate the nutrition on the bike with kilojoules. When we plan for Caja Rural or for Climatizer, sometimes, some plans you see, at this point you have to take a yogurt-gel, this bottle in this part, caffeine-gel, but I decided to stop this formula a while ago, and I depend on the athletes. I prescribe carbs per kilojoule. So, every 250 kilojoules you burn, maybe between 25 and 40 grams. So if you do 1,000 kilojoules per hour, that's a hard hour, and you take 30 grams every 250, in one hour you do 120, yeah? That's important. I discovered your application for the cycling computer for the Garmin. And I've been using it the last few days, and it's a very complex way to remember what to eat and not to calculate. Yeah, I work, 250-500 kilojoules, I have to eat 30 grams. I think it's important to have a system where you know how much you can eat, depending on the intensity and the time period you're working with or even racing.

Björn: Yeah, I mean, when you train, or when you train hard and you're not as deep in nutrition and science as we are, especially as you, then it's sometimes hard for the athlete, you know, they already have to train hard and then always keep the food in order. Sebastian and I said, okay, we already have all the calculations behind it for many, many years. I mean, we've had it for ten years now or even longer. I've had it for twelve years. And so we thought, okay, why don't we put it on a Garmin. We will even make it a little bit better, so to see also something, have like a button on it and pressing how much carbs you took in, and also maybe a warning sign if you have like a high carb intake. And also if you maybe plan a training on Training Peaks or whatever, that we already can calculate how much grams of carbohydrates this training will actually need. And we can recommend, if you really do the training as it should be, yeah, that's also another thing, that we can really say, okay, maybe you should take a lot of carbs now, because in 30 minutes the intensity starts. So, and that we are, take it not during the interval, so take it before, so that we more or less have a time to take in carbs. And the rider just has to say something rings on my Garmin. Okay, it says, take 60 grams now and then 50 minutes later or 20 minutes later 60 again. And then to make it a bit easier and easier. But for now I think, I love it. I really love it whenever I ride. I'm very happy. And I have my little bag on my handlebars. That's not a good suggestion, to be honest. I always have a few wine gums in there and I know that one wine gum has five grams. And so I really see, okay, then I see 120 grams and then I say, okay, now I can eat half of it. Yeah, and I just eat. And the first hour I usually don't eat, yeah, because I still have enough glycogen. But then, after the first hour, I start eating. Sometimes I really do 5 grams. When I see 5 grams, I just put one piece in. Don't worry about it. There's a funny story. I think, yeah, I can tell it. Jamie Loden from Wismar Lisebike, who does all the aerodynamics. He's also a very good cyclist, especially in long endurance stuff. He did this race across the Pyrenees, the whole thing. And I said, yeah, I won't think about it too much, Jamie, just eat some Haribos and we can calculate that. I think that was three years ago. So he ate constantly. And then his brain and his teeth really started to hurt, because he... And then he stopped, because... And he was in the lead. Next time... Next time he'll only eat gels. I also work with a guy who does the race in Italy that's about 700 kilometers long, so crazy long. And I think the main important thing is that you need the right mindset to do such things.

Niclas: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Björn: But it's interesting, yeah, we optimize them aerodynamically a lot and we needed three years to really build a good nutrition plan and also train the brain before, and high intake and stuff like that, and when to take caffeine and all those kinds of things, and for a 24-hour race, he basically only ate, more or less only gels, yeah, and in the bottle, we mixed ourselves with some maltodextrin, a bit, not too much fructose, yeah, because the outtake by the power was not too high. But it really, really worked well. I think he even did it in record time, destroying the old record from Christoph Strasser. But I'm not sure. But he was super fast. And so you can even see that if you're well trained, you can even go just 24 hours with gels and everything will be fine. And the number of kilojoules they burn is crazy. Yeah, yeah. They do a week's worth of work. Yeah, more or less.

Niclas: Yeah, I also coach the two guys who did the Tracker two weeks ago, the amateurs, 36 hours. I mean, I don't know if people are big fans of TSS, but just to give an idea. They did 1,000 TSS in one go. Yeah, so I don't know, it was 80 or 9,000 kilojoules or something like that. You have to fulfill that work.

Björn: It's interesting. It's really crazy. So, thanks a lot for your time. My pleasure. I will put in the show notes some of the studies. Also the ones you mentioned about the first studies. I will send it to you. Yes, perfect. And yeah, thanks a lot. And we'll actually talk later. the next days and weeks, because we always stay in contact a bit.

Niclas: Perfect, thanks Björn.