Post Exercise - carbohydrates



Glycogen Depletion

Intensive training severley depletes your body's glycogen stores. Just how much they're depleted depends very much on the intensity of the training session/event and the duration of it. Another factor that comes into it is - how full your glycogen stores were before exercise. For example, if you commenced training without adequately refuelling from the previous days exercise, you will reach glycogen depletion much more rapidly - as would a car that was running on half a fuel tank, as opposed to a car running on a full on. Simple.

The higher the intensity, the more glycogen you use. For example, explosive activities such as sprints, jumps or lifts and high intensity activities such as running will deplete glycogen stores much more quickly than low intensity exercise would.

The duration also has a bearing on how much glycogen is used. For example you would use more more glycogen running for one hour than you would if you ran at the same pace for only half an hour.