Marshfield Tigers Strength & Conditioning

Cycling culture may be fuelling disordered eating 🚨 This study explored how food, body image and performance culture shape eating behaviours in 11 competitive cyclists in Britain 🔍 Key takeaways ⬇️ 🚴 Performance optimisation dominated how cyclists viewed food, eating and their bodies ⚖️ Lower body mass was often seen as a route to better climbing and race performance 🍽️ Some cyclists deliberately under-fuelled, skipped meals or trained fasted to reduce body weight 🪞 Pressure to look thin and lean was linked to fitting the image of a “proper cyclist” 💬 Comments about body weight from coaches, teammates and parents could have lasting effects on eating behaviour and body image ⚠️ Harmful behaviours could become normalised as signs of commitment and discipline 👥 Cyclists compared portion sizes and used teammates as a reference for how much they felt permitted to eat 🥗 Positive team cultures could encourage better fuelling 📚 Qualified nutrition support was perceived as limited outside higher levels of competition 📊 Previous research found >50% received no organisational nutrition support and 88% had never consulted a dietitian or nutritionist 📱 Without professional support, cyclists relied on teammates, social media, Google and increasingly AI 🤖 Several participants reported using ChatGPT for nutrition and race-fuelling advice 🧩 The authors argue disordered eating is not purely an individual problem because behaviours are shaped by sporting culture 🏆 A “performance-first” culture may make health-compromising practices seem acceptable if perceived to improve performance Three key recommendations: 1️⃣ Target the culture around athletes, not just individual nutrition education 2️⃣ Coaches, practitioners, teammates and parents should consider how they talk about weight, food and performance 3️⃣ Body-composition testing should only be used with a clear rationale and ethical, health-focused framework Key message: cycling should value health and wellbeing alongside performance, rather than rewarding leanness, restriction and under-fuelling ✅ Subscribe to Performance Nutrition Digest FREE 📥 performancenutritiondigest.c… Powered by Healthspan Elite ⚡️

Is cramping caused by muscle damage - not dehydration? 🧐 This new study compared hydration status, electrolyte balance, muscle-damage markers, pacing and training background between ultra-trail runners who experienced exercise-associated muscle cramps and those who did not 🔍 58 runners completed the analysis, including 37 men and 21 women 🏃 Results 📊 ⚡ 9 runners developed exercise-associated muscle cramps, giving an incidence of 16% 👨 Cramping occurred in 22% of men versus 5% of women, although this difference was not statistically significant 💧 Body-mass changes were similar between runners who cramped and those who did not 🧪 Post-race urine specific gravity was also similar between groups, suggesting crampers were not more dehydrated 🧂 Serum sodium concentrations did not differ between crampers and noncrampers 🧬 Post-race potassium was significantly higher in runners who cramped: 5.04 vs 4.66 mmol/L 💥 Creatine kinase (CK) was substantially higher in crampers at both 24 and 48 hours after the race 📈 At 24hrs, CK averaged 5166 U/L in crampers versus 1940 U/L in noncrampers 📈 At 48hrs, CK remained higher at 3194 versus 894 U/L 🩸 Lactate dehydrogenase was also significantly higher in crampers at both 24 and 48 hours 🦵 These elevated biomarkers suggest runners who cramped experienced greater exercise-induced muscle damage ⏱️ Pacing indices did not differ between runners who cramped and those who did not 🏋️ Regular lower-limb strength training was less common among crampers: 55.6% versus 87.5% of noncrampers 💪 This raises the possibility that greater muscular resilience from strength training could influence cramp susceptibility The findings do not support greater dehydration or sodium depletion as the main explanation for cramping ☝️ Small sample size but overall, cramping was more associated more strongly with subsequent muscle-damage markers than with dehydration or sodium depletion ✅ Reference: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4217… Subscribe to Performance Nutrition Digest FREE to receive your daily study breakdown, straight to your inbox or via the Substack app 📥 performancenutritiondigest.c… Performance Nutrition Digest is powered by Healthspan Elite⚡️ healthspanelite.co.uk