Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Glycogen loading (supercompensation) can be achieved practically by tapering training and consuming 500-600g of carbohydrates for 3 days prior to competition, avoiding the need for extreme carbohydrate restriction.
Three days before your big event, eat 500-600g of carbs daily and reduce your training to 30-60 minutes of easy/moderate exercise. This will boost your muscle glycogen by 20-40% without the sickness associated with old-school 'starvation' loading methods.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Such a regimen will increase muscle glycogen stores 20-40% or more above normal. This 'modified' glycogen loading regimen is as effective as the 'classic' regimen... and more practical since it does not require athletes to attempt to maintain training while consuming a high fat diet.
Why this rating
Based on comparison to classic regimen and cited studies (Sherman, Bergstrom).
Source
Timing and method of increased carbohydrate intake to cope with heavy training, competition and recovery
Edward F. Coyle · Journal of Sports Sciences · 1991
DOI 10.1080/02640419108729865
narrative_reviewCited 182×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Post-exercise muscle glycogen resynthesis plateaus at approximately 5-6% per hour (5-6 mmol kg-1 h-1) when consuming 50g of high-glycemic carbohydrate every 2 hours, and does not increase with higher doses (100g+).Good
- Pre-exercise carbohydrate ingestion (sugar) during the hour before exercise does not impair endurance performance and may improve it, despite causing transient hypoglycemia.Good
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