Carb Loading Basics

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Carb loading

6-7 days before competition, carb depletion begins with sessions of light but exhaustive exercise to severely deplete glycogen levels. During this period very a low-carb diet is followed ( less than 10% of calories), so that no glycogen repletion can take place., then for the next 3 days, the athlete eats a very high carb diet (over 80% of calaories) with no exercise. Simply switching to a high carb diet as you taper before a competition will not produce much glycogen loading. The secret is that the depletion has to be sufficient to stimulate the activity of the glycogen storage enzyme, glycogen synthase. With out that, the excess carbs turn into bodyfat.Glycogen delpletion and therefore loading only occur in the muscles exercised. So for bodybuilders a full body workout to deplete glycogen is required for a full body repletion of glycogen.,or full carb load.
For example: a marathon runner will deplete and subsequently load his leg muscles by exhaustive jogging. But arms, neck and shoulders are hardly used in running. In the marathon race where he is running as fast as he can aerobically, it is often exhaustion of the glycogen stores in the arms neck back and shoulders that let him down. Those muscles will not load with glycogen above the habitual levels with a bout of jogging that primarily depletes the legs.

For a bodybuilder to load glycogen throughout the body to achieve maximum muscle size, hardness and definition he needs to do very high repitions with light weights in the widest variety of exercises he can think of. Only then will the muscle fibers throught the body deplete. And only then with the muscle fibers subsequently load glycogen abaove habitual levels.

Yous hould start loading with a 200gram drink of a glucose polymer drink immediately after the last exhaustive depletion exercise session. Delaying the start of carb loading has been shown in studies to reduce the the loading response. So does the initial use of solid carb foods.


After the first hour you should eat 100 grams of carb foods or drink every 1-2hours. Up to 1200 grams in the first 24 hours. Except for very large men 225lbs an above, loading more than that amount is detrimental. The maximum range of carb absorbtion in the average athlete is 50-100 grams per hour. After the 1st 24 hours, the loading response begins to diminish. Keeping liquid intake high during loading phase is important because every gram of glycogen requires 2.7 grams of water to store it. Dehydration will reduce the loading response.

Sodium and potassium loading helps dehydrate the body as well as redistributes some of the remaining water from the body cavity into the muscles.