Zym

trail jacker

hi all,
im riding 140ish miles to hull along the tpt tomorrow for charity and bought some Zym tablets to make sports drinks with
- http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=31054

i was just wondering if anyone knows what the maximum dosage is for them (if there is one)? thanks

The Northern Monkey

what does it say on the tub?

The Northern Monkey

Is not going to give you energy thats for sure.
And the caffeine will just give you an initial boost, you may feel drained when it wears off.
One of the factors that determines a drink as being a sports drink is that it contains no caffeine.
Also caffeine is a diuretic so it may cause dehydration.
Products with caffeine are regarded as being effective mainly in short length+high intensity activities.

trail jacker

it doesnt say anything about doseage on the tub.
and yeh, i was going to use gatorade for the majority of the ride but switch to this in the later stages when im really feeling the strain. that not such a good idea?

The Northern Monkey

Nope thats much better idea, I was just assuming you were only using the zym

Make sure you keep as hydrated as possible during the ride, then maybe an hour/hour and a half near the end use the zym to give you that final boost towards your destination

If there is no dosage on the tub, there will be no specific max dosage. Does it say how many tab's to put in water and how much water to use? If so keep to that, as the concentration will be specific for the solution to work correctly.
Personally, i wouldn't take more than 1 tablet/water dose... as I said, too much caffeine and you become quite dehydrated.

trail jacker

it says one tablet per water bottle, so ill definately do that in the last section - cheers for the advice!
one last thing though, whats a decent food to eat for maintaining stamina? im taking pasta and other high carb foods but do you have any reccomendations?

singlespeedexplosif

as above, Zym isn't an energy drink, just an electrolyte one.
Looking at the pack right now - 7 calories per tablet. Going to do next to bugger all at the end of a long ride unless you're shovelling in the carbs too...

The Northern Monkey

For riding with, fig rolls, jelly babies, flapjack....

Theres a big controversy about carbo-loading, and there are 2 main techniques that sports people use.
(i know this is wikipedia but its pretty much correct)
Carbo-Loading
You can either - (week before your ride)
Have no carbs for the first 3 days with extensive exercise and then only eat carb for the other 3 days with no exercise (most common)
or
low training 3 days before the event, but lots of carbs.

the 1st method is most popular, as the idea is that because the body has been starved of carb, it will try to absorb as much carb as it physically can over the 3 days of loading.

CheerOn

I take this stuff and it's great for preventing cramp which I suffer from regularly - probably too much coffee and not enough water ! This does the job in terms of allowing me to measure my carbs out properly and separate what I take as energy from what I use to re-hydrate - great if you're trying to lose the pounds.