Research
Macro partitioning
Athletes engaged in moderate to high intensity training lasting over 12 hours per week should consume 8-10 g of carbohydrates per kg of body weight daily to maximize glycogen storage and performance.
If you train hard for more than 12 hours a week, aim for 8 to 10 grams of carbs for every kilogram of your body weight each day. If you struggle to eat that much food, switch to denser carb sources like sports drinks or gels instead of just eating large amounts of vegetables or grains.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
it is recommended to target the upper limit of this range, precisely 8 to 10 g/kg of body weight daily (41).
Why this rating
Based on a narrative review citing multiple consensus statements and studies, though not a single primary RCT.
Source
Athletes’ nutritional demands: a narrative review of nutritional requirements
Adam Tawfiq Amawi et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2024
DOI 10.3389/fnut.2023.1331854
narrative_reviewCited 115×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Post-exercise carbohydrate ingestion of 1.0-1.5 g/kg/hour is sufficient to maximize muscle glycogen resynthesis rates.Good
- High-fat diets (>46% calories from fat, <21% from carbs) do not improve exercise performance despite increasing fat oxidation.Good
- Athletes should consume 1.4-2.8 g/kg of body weight of protein daily, depending on their specific training goals and type of exercise.Good
Related findings · Macro partitioning
- Total daily protein intake of 1.6 g/kg/day is sufficient for maximizing resistance training-induced muscle gains, with an upper confidence interval of 2.2 g/kg/day.Strong
- Resistance exercise training combined with sufficient dietary protein intake acts synergistically to maximize skeletal muscle hypertrophy, with protein intake saturating around 1.6 g/kg/day for general populations and potentially requiring 2.0-2.2 g/kg/day for resistance-trained individuals.Strong
- Trans fats should be completely eliminated from the diet, as they increase LDL cholesterol, decrease HDL cholesterol, and are directly associated with increased coronary risk.Strong
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