Key Topics Covered

Carbohydrate cycling involves consuming different amounts of carbohydrates on different days. As you can imagine, there are many ways you can approach carbohydrate cycling but the three main points we will be discussing include:

1) having higher carbohydrates on training days than rest days

2) Having Carbohydrates on higher volume training days versus lower volume &

3) having more carbohydrates on weekends due to personal preference.

Direct Body Composition Outcomes

  • Although it’s partly stealing the punchline of this episode I think it’s important to jump straight to this topic to give context for the rest of it.
  • When total calories and macros are matched over the course of the week, assuming you also hit protein needs daily, research has not found noticeable differences in body composition. 
  • It’s worth being aware of that at the start of this, but we will go deeper on a lot of areas. In some cases, there can be scenarios where there might be differences.

Training Days vs Rest Days

  • There can be multiple logical arguments made here.
    • One is simply that because you are burning more glucose on training days, you could argue that you need more. 
    • But on the flip side – on rest days, we are also replenishing glycogen stores for the next session, so carbohydrates are still arguably important.
  • From a body composition perspective, there is no noticeable difference in most cases.
    • There is a blog post on this topic, which is listed in the show notes below. This post delves a lot deeper into insulin and carbohydrates.

Practical Application

  • We often add more carbs on training days for certain clients. I often like to do it in simple ways.
  • For a lifter, I might add pre-workout carbs. Or if they do particularly long/intense sessions, I might add intra-workout carbohydrates.
  • This is partly for glycogen related reasons, if it is the long and hard sessions. But it’s also more with the priority of feeling good, to train harder.
  • This is case by case. For some people who just want simplicity, we can keep things the same with no change.
  • For endurance athletes doing long distances, this can be a bit of a no brainer on certain training days. For example, if I have a runner doing their long run, I might add gels during their sessions.
  • Looking at rest days, this is more complicated due to glycogen though. For example, the day before their longest session I might want them to have more carbs than usual.

Hard Training Days vs Easy

  • It’s not uncommon for bodybuilders to have more carbohydrates on certain days, when trying to absolutely optimise everything.
    • For example, if somebody felt their legs were lagging, they could have extra carbs on leg day, or prior to leg day. 
  • This could help from a glycogen perspective. But if they were in contest prep, it might also mean that it is the one day of the week that they feel their best. This can allow them to train better specifically on this day. 
  • However, there is not a lot of research supporting this. But we can see the logic.
    • It likely matters more during a deficit than a surplus, since during a surplus you will likely have an abundance of glycogen stores, and should feel good most of the time.

Practical Examples

  • With some lifters we are far more likely to add intra-workout carbohydrates on lower body days than upper body. I have a decent number of higher level powerlifters I do this with. This is also partly because their lower body days take noticeably longer than their upper body days.
  • With endurance athletes, I adjust this way more. For example, I sometimes have athletes intentionally under fuel with carbohydrates for a bit for zone 2 cardio. Then for their more intense sessions it gives us a bit more room to go higher carbohydrate. 
  • Whether or not there are advantages to doing zone 2 work in a lower carb state, it’s also not like the athlete is as concerned about performance in that specific session. 

Personal Preference e.g. Weekends

  • Typically this would be more relevant to calorie cycling than carb cycling. For example, adding 300kcal of “anything” is a lot more flexible than “adding 75g of carbs” without changing your protein or fat much.
  • But it’s still an option that some people would like, particularly with the knowledge that if it is done within reason, it won’t be noticeably different from a body composition perspective.

Practical Examples

  • For our clients we have on a non-tracking approach, we often aim for 80-90% of their meal plan. That gives them flexibility to have some slightly higher calorie days. That’s not carbohydrate cycling but it is based on a similar idea. We would have their planned calories slightly lower than the average.
  • For clients who track, they obviously have flexibility to adjust their intake. But if they noticeably prefer having more calories on certain days, we would consider doing it through a calorie cycling approach, rather than it being specifically carbohydrate cycling. 

Summary

Carbohydrate cycling likely does not directly improve body composition more than having the same amount of carbohydrates each day. However, there are still situations where this is worth considering. 

Relevant Blogs/Resources

Blogs:

Research:

Podcasts: