I don't have cites at hand, but I recall reading about a few studies where performance in a hard cycling test was increased by drinking sugar water. The interesting thing was that it still worked if you spit the water back out after swishing it around in your mouth. The idea behind this is that the body "holds back" some reserve energy stores by feeling fatigue before energy supplies are actually exhausted, and that consuming calories while exercising can induce your nervous system to push a little harder before the onset of fatigue signals.

I've definitely felt a difference in my own climbing sessions when I started drinking a sports drink instead of water. It could be a placebo effect, of course.

Have you heard of this research? If so, any opinion?

I don't have cites at hand, but I recall reading about a few studies where performance in a hard cycling test was increased by drinking sugar water. The interesting thing was that it still worked if you spit the water back out after swishing it around in your mouth. The idea behind this is that the body "holds back" some reserve energy stores by feeling fatigue before energy supplies are actually exhausted, and that consuming calories while exercising can induce your nervous system to push a little harder before the onset of fatigue signals.

I've definitely felt a difference in my own climbing sessions when I started drinking a sports drink instead of water. It could be a placebo effect, of course.

Have you heard of this research? If so, any opinion?

I'd definitely be interested in the study if you ever run across it again.

Another thing to consider is that most sports drinks also contain electrolytes which can aid in performance.

Heard about it on this episode of radiolab.

The study itself is here. Looking at it more closely (never bothered to look it up after hearing the radio show a few years ago), I see that the sample size was pretty small. Having bothered to look it up, I looked around a bit more, and saw that the effect wasn't replicated when the riders had eaten recently before riding.

Just to clear up, a sugar type drink will only have an effect (lets say boost) if you don't eat properly?. Or is this meaning that eating prior to it will remove any boost the drink would have had on normal performance?.

Assuming your last sentence was not intended as some form of insult.. any training session (say 1-2 hours) will not need nor benefit from energy drinks?.

Nvm, ty learner.

You're absolutely correct.

Our body actually has a fairly limited supply store for CHO. . . . If we don't burn fat when our glycogen stores are empty, we'd never be able to lose all that fat.

Just to clear up, a sugar type drink will only have an effect (lets say boost) if you don't eat properly?. Or is this meaning that eating prior to it will remove any boost the drink would have had on normal performance?.

I'm not an expert, and I can't access a full-text version of the paper (only an abstract), but it looks like the mouth-rinse effect doesn't happen if you have recently eaten a decent-sized meal. But because I can't read the paper, I can't tell you what "recent" and "decent-sized" means in this context. So, when in doubt, drinking some carbs might help, and it won't hurt unless it interferes with your ability to maintain an appropriate climbing weight. That, at least, is my take.

The only problem I have with what you just posted is this part in bold.These studies had nothing to do with the affect of drinking (consuming) carbs. We can't make any statement about the affect of drinking a sugar drink based on these studies. You can't draw a valid conclusion about actually drinking the carbs from a study that only involved rinsing them in your mouth. These studies only attempted to trigger the carb receptors in the mouth, which is what they were invesigating. They wanted to know the influence that triggering those receptors would have, even without having anyone drink anything. They have nothing to do with drinking anything. Please read my last reply to Ceebo if you haven't.

What can we conclude that these studies suggest? We can say that if you haven't eaten for a while and don't want to consume anything (for some odd reason), occasionally swishing a sugar drink around in your mouth then spitting it out may help your performance. We can also conclude that by triggering the receptors alone (without even consuming anything), we may trigger something in the brain that disinhibits our ability to perform as well as we can. Merely triggering these receptors can increase your performance, which is profound.

Since the participants didn't swallow, the carbs didn't enter the body and get assimilated. However, if you were to actually drink, and by this I mean consume, a sugar drink, the body would actually utilize the contents. This is far different than using the contents to merely trigger receptors, because when you drink something, it goes into your body gets absorbed, enters the bloodstream, cells, etc.... That didn't happen in these studies, because nobody swallowed anything.

Very interesting, nevertheless.

1. Drinking carbs involves them passing through your mouth, so presumably you still get the benefit of the "swishing."

2. Hydration is good for you, too.

3. I would not want to climb with someone who was spitting out sports drink all over the place. As I've often said (though never before in this context), swallowing is just the polite thing to do.

So, in conclusion, I recommend swallowing, not spitting.

Dude, you aren't listening to what learner is saying.

He's not saying that, necessarily, spitting out the drink is more beneficial than swallowing it. He's just saying, based solely on the studies you've cited, you can't draw that conclusion.

It is not false and I feel that it was entirely relevant. Care to provide an example of when a muscle would burn FA while glycogen stores are full?