The effects of pre-exercise starch feedings on blood glucose responses and performance during strenuous exercise

Abstract

This study compared the exercise responses of a waxy starch (WS), resistant starch (RS), glucose (GL) and an artificially-sweetened placebo (PL) ingested prior to exercise. Ten college-age, male competitive cyclists completed four experimental protocols consisting of a 30 min isokinetic, self-paced performance ride preceded by 90 min of constant load cycling at 66% VO2max. Thirty min prior to exercise, they ingested 1 g•kg-1 body weight of GL, WS, RS, or PL. A familiarization trial was first conducted to eliminate a potential order effect. An order effect was evidenced by lower (p<0.05) work rates during the performance ride of the first trial (390 ± 26.1 kJ) than the other four trials. No order effect was observed for the remainder of the experimental treatments which were performed in a single-blind, randomized fashion. At rest, GL elicited greater (P<0.05) serum glucose and insulin responses than all other trials. During exercise, however, serum glucose and insulin responses were similar among trials. Blood C-peptide and glucagon responses were also similar among trials. The mean total carbohydrate oxidation rates (CHOox) were higher (p<0.05) during the GL, WS, and RS trials (2.59 ± 0.13, 2.49 ± 0.10, and 2.71 ± 0.15 g•min-1, respectively) compared to PL (2.35 ± 0.12 g•min-1). Subjects were able to complete more work (p<0.05) during the performance ride when they ingested GL (434 ± 25.2 kJ) or WS (428 ± 22.5 kJ) compared to PL (403 ± 35.1 kJ). They also tended to produce more work with RS ingestion (418 ± 31.4 kJ), although this did not reach statistical significance (p<0.09). These results indicate that pre-exercise CHO ingestion in the form of starch or glucose maintained higher rates of total carbohydrate oxidation during exercise and provided an ergogenic benefit during self-paced cycling.